'Not quite so much of your beastly cheek, please,' said Gethryn.

'Right-ho!' said Farnie cheerfully, and silence, broken only by the
shrieking of the cab wheels, brooded once more over the cab. Then
Gethryn, feeling that perhaps it would be a shame to jump too severely
on a new boy on his first day at a large public school, began to think
of something conciliatory to say. 'Look here,' he said, 'you'll get on
all right at Beckford, I expect. You'll find Leicester's a fairly
decent sort of House. Anyhow, you needn't be afraid you'll get bullied.
There's none of that sort of thing at School nowadays.'

'Really?'

'Yes, and there's another thing I ought to warn you about. Have you
brought much money with you?'

''Bout fourteen pounds, I fancy,' said Farnie carelessly.

'Fourteen _what_!' said the amazed Bishop. '_Pounds!_'

'Or sovereigns,' said Farnie. 'Each worth twenty shillings, you know.'

For a moment Gethryn's only feeling was one of unmixed envy. Previously
he had considered himself passing rich on thirty shillings a term. He
had heard legends, of course, of individuals who come to School
bursting with bullion, but never before had he set eyes upon such an
one. But after a time it began to dawn upon him that for a new boy at a
public school, and especially at such a House as Leicester's had become
under the rule of the late Reynolds and his predecessors, there might