us now! Then there was the delight of comparing notes of the doings
during the delightful preceding twenty-four hours. Thus, whilst Brown
detailed the delights of the pantomime to which Uncle John had taken
him on Saturday night, Robinson descanted on the marvels of the
Zoological Gardens, with special reference to the free-and-easy life
of monkeydom, and Smith never wearied of enlarging on the terrors and
glories of the Tower of London. Altogether, there were fourteen weeks'
holiday in the year--six weeks in August, five at Christmas and three
at Whitsuntide, with two days at Easter.

There were several beds in each bedroom, and there was a very strict
rule that the most perfect order should prevail--in fact, lower boys
were forbidden to talk; but talk they always did, and long stories,
often protracted for nights, were told; and for our part, we must
confess that we have never enjoyed any fictions more than those.

Evening prayers took place in the several houses at nine, after which
the lower boys went to bed. A junior master--there was one to each
house--always attended at prayers, which were read by a monitor.
Before prayers names were called over and every boy accounted for.

Although in the midst of brick and mortar, two large spaces,
containing several acres, were available for cricket, whilst
foot-ball--and very fierce games of it, too--was usually played in the
curious old cloisters of the Chartreuse monks which opened on "Upper
Green." The grass-plot of Upper Green was kept sacred from the feet
of under boys except in "cricket quarter," as the summer quarter was
termed. It was rolled, watered and attended to with an assiduity
such as befalls few spots of ground in the world. The roof of the
cloisters was a terrace flagged with stone, and on the occasion of