"Besides what?"

"I've no right to expect you to a.s.sociate with me."

"Why _ever_ not?"

"I may as well tell you straight out. My father is a gamekeeper, and I am a gamekeeper's son."

Jim laughed pleasantly.

"Well, really your logic is perfect, but I can't say as much for your sense. Bless you, man, aren't we all of us lineal descendants of a gardener? Come along!"

"Please excuse me," again faltered George; "you are very kind, but your friends may not thank you for--"

"My friends!--oh, yes!" blurted out Jim. "What on earth business have they to put their noses into my affairs. Like their impudence, all of them!"

Jim, you will see, was still a boy, though he had whiskers.

"Don't blame them till they have offended. Anyhow, Mr Halliday, please excuse me. I want to read, and have made a rule never to go out."

"Look here--what's your name?" began Jim.

"Reader," replied my master.

"Reader! Are you the fellow who's in for the Wigram Scholarship?" cried Jim, in astonishment.

"Yes," replied George; "how did you know?"

"Only that some of the fellows are backing you for winner."

George laughed. "They'll be disappointed," he said.

"I hope not," said Jim, "for if you get it you'll be free of the college, and get into rather better quarters than the `Mouse-trap.' But look here, Reader, do come to my rooms, there's a good fellow; if _you_ don't want any friends, don't prevent my having one."

This was irresistible, and George had nothing for it but to yield, and with many misgivings to accompany his new friend.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

HOW MY MASTER AND I WENT OUT TO BREAKFAST, AND WHOM WE MET.

Jim Halliday--now a strapping youth of nineteen--was a good representative of the "steady set" at Saint George's College. Indeed, as he was intending to become a clergyman in due time, it would have been a deplorable thing if this had not been the case. He worked hard, and though not a clever fellow, had already taken a good position in the examination lists of his college. He was also an ardent superintendent at a certain ragged-school in the town conducted by University men; and was further becoming a well-known figure in the debates at the Union--on all which accounts his friends were not a little satisfied. But on one point Jim and his friends did not hit it. Ever since his Randlebury days he had kept up his pa.s.sion for athletic sports, and if he had now been famous for nothing else at his college, he would at least have been noted as a good bat, a famous boxer, a desperate man in a football scrimmage, and a splendid oar. It was on this subject that Jim and his relations were at variance. When I speak of "relations" I refer, by the way, to a certain old-fashioned uncle and aunt in Cornwall, who since Jim's father's death had a.s.sumed the guardianship of that youth and his brothers and sisters. This good uncle and aunt were horribly shocked that one destined for so solemn a sphere in life as the ministry should profane himself with athletic sports. The matter formed the theme for many serious remonstrances, and long letters addressed to the depraved Jim, who, on his part, maintained his side of the argument with characteristic vehemence. He actually spent a whole day in the college library, making out a list of all the athletic divines in history since the creation of the world, the which he hurled triumphantly at his good relations' heads as an unanswerable challenge. But, however satisfactory it may have been to Jim, it failed to convince them, and neither party being disposed to give in, the feud in this particular had become chronic.

All this Jim contrived to impart to George (for lack of better conversation) in the course of a short walk previous to the breakfast in his rooms, to which he was leading his new acquaintance a captive.

"I suppose we shall have it all opened again now," he remarked, "for you may have seen that my name is down to play in the football-match against Sandhurst."

"I never read the athletic intelligence in the papers," said George.

"Well, my uncle and aunt do. The names were actually printed in the _Times_, and I shall be greatly surprised if I don't find a letter or telegram when I get back to my rooms. We may as well beat to quarters, though, or the fellows will be waiting."

"You didn't tell me anyone else was to be there," said George reproachfully, suddenly stopping short, "I can't come!"

"Stuff and nonsense," said Jim; "they won't eat you!"

"Halliday," said George, hurriedly, "I'm much obliged to you for asking me, but I have made a rule, as I tell you, never to go out, and I've told you the reason."

"An utterly rubbishing reason!" put in Jim.

"I promised to come with you because I thought there would be only us two; but I really can't come if there are more."

"My dear fellow," said Jim good-humouredly, "anyone else would be offended with you. Why, you're a regular bear."

"I know it's very rude of me," said George, feeling and looking very uncomfortable, "and I don't want to be that."

"Of course you don't; so come along. Why, my dear fellow, one would think my friends were all as abandoned wretches as I am, by the manner in which you shrink from the notion of meeting them, but they aren't."

"Do let me off," put in George, in despair.

"Not a bit of it. But I tell you what, if you don't like them or me--"

"It's not that, you know, but I've no right to a.s.soci--"

"a.s.sociate with your grandmother! Come this once, and I'll never ask you again unless you like, there!"

"Who are the fellows?" asked George.

"Two of them are College men--very nice men, in my humble opinion; and, now I come to think of it, one of them, Clarke, is in against you for the `Wigram,' but everyone says you're safe; and the third is an old particular school chum, who is playing in Sandhurst team against us, and whom it is therefore my interest to incapacitate by a howling breakfast."

George laughed.

"I wish you'd let him eat my share as well."

"I dare say he would be equal to the occasion. Newcome was always a good trencherman."

At the name I bounded nearly out of my master's pocket. Newcome! an old school chum of Jim Halliday's. It must be my old master! And--yes--now I remembered, he had spoken in one of his letters to Tom Drift of going to Sandhurst Military College. It must be he. How I longed for my master to make up his mind and go to the breakfast!

"But I wouldn't have you miss seeing him," said Jim, "for I'm no end proud of him; and when you've once seen him, you'll have seen the best fellow going. That is," added he, "present company of course excepted."

"I'm sure he's a nice man."

"Nice! Of course, and therefore fit company for you and me; so come along, old man. I never had such hard work inviting a man to breakfast in all my life."

"I'm certain I'm ill-mannered," said George, "but I won't hold out any more. You will--"

"Hurrah, that's settled, and here we are, too!"

With that he led the way up a staircase, on the second floor of which he opened a door, and ushered George into his rooms. No one was there yet, and there was consequently time to look about. Jim's rooms were nothing very grand, but they were palatial compared with the "Mouse-trap."

Cheerful and well-lighted, with a pleasant look-out into the old quadrangle, comfortably furnished, further enlivened with all those adornments in the shape of swords, fencing-sticks, dumb-bells, etcetera, without which no model undergraduate's rooms would be complete.