“They had only one elephant!” cried Adrian.

“A regular swindle,” said Wilfred.

“No lions!” added Fely, “nothing to see but that poor old elephant!  I wish he would have turned round and spouted water at them, as that one did to the tailor.”

“Water would be uncommonly good for them,” said the General, laughing, “they are not much acquainted therewith.”

“And such an atmosphere!” said Lance.

“I see it on your forehead, poor boy,” said Geraldine.

“I should like to set on the Society against cruelty to animals,” said the General; “I saw galls on the horses’ necks, and they were all half starved.”

“Then to see the poor old elephant pretend to be drunk!” added Fergus, “stagger about, and led off by the policeman, drunk and disorderly!”

“Was that being drunk?” asked Adrian, with wide-open eyes.  “It was like Campbell that day.”  Everybody laughed.

Wilfred did so now.

“You green kid, you.”

“Happy verdure,” said the General, “to be unaware that some people can laugh when they ought to weep.”

“Weep!” exclaimed Wilfred, “every time one sees a fellow screwy in the street.”

“Perhaps the angels do,” murmured Clement.

“Come, Master Wilfred, you have expressed your opinions sufficiently to-night,” said the General.  “Suppose you and Fergus walk home together.  A nasty low place as ever I saw.  I have a mind to tell the Mayor about it.”

Gerald said—-

“Is not that making yourself very unpopular?”

“That is no great matter,” said the General, rather surprised.

“I should have thought it better to refine the people’s tastes than to thwart their present ones.”

“The improper must be stopped before the taste for the proper can be promoted,” said Clement.

“With all the opposition and ill-blood that you cause?” said Gerald.  “Why, if I were an errand-boy, the suppression would send me direct to the circus.  Would it not do the same by you, Uncle Lance?”

“Discouragement might, prohibition would prevent wholly, and I should be thankful,” said Lance.

“Ah! you are of the old loyal nature,” said Gerald.  “You of the old school can never see things by modern lights.”

“I am thankful to say-—not,” responded Reginald Mohun, in a tone that made some laugh, and Gerald sigh in Anna’s ear—-

“Happy those who see only one side of a question.”

There was another great day for the boys, namely, the speech or closing day at the school, when Fergus was the undoubted hero, and was so exalted that his parents thought it would be very bad for him, and were chiefly consoled by his strong and genuine dislike to having to declaim with Clement Varley the quarrel of Brutus and Cassius.  He insisted on always calling the former “Old Brute,” and all the efforts of mother and aunt never got him beyond the dogged repetition of a lesson learnt by heart, whereas little Varley threw himself into the part with spirit that gained all the applause.  Fergus carried off a pile of prizes too, but despised them.  “Stupid old poetry!” said he, “what should I do with that?  Do let me change it, father, for the Handbook of Paleontology, or something worth having.”