with mischievous eyes and smile. Irving felt his color rising; he felt
both abashed and annoyed.

“Why, yes,” he said hesitatingly. “I—I was a little startled.”

“Did they take you for a new kid, Mr. Upton?” asked Blake, the Fifth
Former, who sat on Irving’s left.

“For a moment, yes,” admitted Irving, anxious not to pursue the subject.

But Westby proceeded to explain with gusto, while the whole table
listened. “Lou Collingwood and Carrie here and I were in front of the
Study, and out came Mr. Upton. And Lou wanted to nail him for the
Pythians, so we all pranced up to him, and I said, ‘Hello, new kid; what
name, please?’—just like that; didn’t I, Mr. Upton?”

“Yes,” said Irving grudgingly. He had an uneasy feeling that he was
being made an object of general entertainment; certainly the eyes of all
the boys at the table were fixed upon him smilingly.

“What happened then?” asked the blunt Blake.

“Why, then,” continued Westby, “Mr. Upton told us that he wasn’t a new
kid at all, but a new master. You may imagine we were surprised—weren’t
we, Mr. Upton?”

“Oh, I could hardly tell—”

“The joke was certainly on us. As the French say, it was a
_contretemps_. To think that after all the years we’d been here, we