For Fortune and Glory | Page 9

done in their respective apartments, for the avoidance of overcrowding and dispute amongst the operators. Also, when bloaters, sprats, or sausages were in question, it was well not to feed in the room in which the smell of preparation was most powerful.
Though the half was drawing to its close, the evening board was bountifully spread; for Forsyth's birthday had come off two days before, and brought with it a token from home--a wicker token which the Lord Mayor himself would not have despised. There was a ham, succulent and tender; a tongue, fresh, not tinned, boiled, not stewed, of most eloquent silence; a packet of sausages, a jar of marmalade, and, most delicious of all, some potted shrimps. Harry knew, but did not tell, that every one of those shrimps had been stripped of its shell by the hands of Trix, who plumed herself, with unquestionable justice, upon her shrimp-potting. Unfathomable is the depth of female devotion; fancy any one being able to skin a shrimp, prawn, or walnut, and not eat it! The shrimps, the sausages, were gone, the tongue was silent for ever, but the ham and the marmalade remained.
The three friends were the oldest boys in the house, and almost in the school. Two of them, Strachan and Kavanagh, were to leave at the end of the half, and Forsyth was to do so after the next.
"Where's Kavanagh?" said the latter, coming into the room and sitting down by the fire.
"At his tutor's," said Strachan; "he is bound to be in directly. Let the tea brew a bit longer."
"It's uncommonly cold this evening; going to snow, I think. I hate snow in February; there is no chance of real frost for skating, and it spoils the football. Oh, here's Kavanagh."
The youth named strolled deliberately in at the moment, sat down at the table, and began to shave off a slice of ham.
"Has the cold wind made you hungry, or has the effort to understand that chorus in Euripides exhausted you?"
"I never try to understand what I firmly believe to have no meaning whatever," drawled Kavanagh; "and I am never hungry. I consider it bad form to be hungry; it shows that a fellow does not eat often enough. Now the distinguishing mark of a gentleman is that he has too many meals a day ever to feel hungry."
"I see; then you are only carving the ham for us."
"That does not exactly follow. Never jump to conclusions. A fire may not actually require coals, yet you may put some on to keep it going; so it is with a gentleman's stomach. You may take ham to appease hunger, or you may take it to prevent the obtrusion of that vulgar sensation. Not that I object to helping you fellows. The carving of ham is an art, a fourpenny piece representing the maximum of thickness which the lean should obtain. With a carving-knife and fork this ideal is not too easy of attainment, but with these small blunt tools it requires a first-rate workman to approach it. Now this slice, which I sacrifice on the altar of friendship, is, I regret to say, fully as thick as a shilling."
At this moment a little boy, Kavanagh's fag, came into the room bearing a muffin on a toasting-fork.
"Devereux!" said Kavanagh, severely, "do you know what Louis the Fourteenth of France said when his carriage drew up, as he stepped outside his front door?"
"No."
"He said, `I almost had to wait!' Now I, too, say to you that my tea is poured out, my ham cut, and I almost had to wait. Not quite, happily not quite, or the consequences to you would have been--terrible!"
The little boy did not look very frightened, in spite of the tone in which the last word was uttered. Kavanagh had never been known wilfully to hurt anything weaker than himself in his life. As he was tall and strong, this is saying a great deal.
The two other fags grinned; one of them filled up the tea-pot, and then Strachan said "Go!" and all three lower boys vanished in a twinkling to prepare their own teas.
"We shall not have many more teas together," said Forsyth.
"No, but we may dinners," replied Strachan.
"Suppose we all get into the same regiment."
"The job is to get into any regiment at all," said Kavanagh. "There is that abominable examination to be got over. Awfully clever and hard reading fellows get beaten in it every time, I can tell you."
"Well, but I believe it is easier through the Militia than direct into Sandhurst, is it not? And that is the way you and I are going to try. At any rate, then we can go into the same Militia regiment, and that will give us two trainings, besides preliminary drills, and so forth, to