FARNIE GETS INTO TROUBLE--


It was perhaps only natural that Farnie, having been warned so strongly
of the inadvisability of having anything to do with Monk, should for
that very reason be attracted to him. Nobody ever wants to do anything
except what they are not allowed to do. Otherwise there is no
explaining the friendship that arose between them. Jack Monk was not an
attractive individual. He had a slack mouth and a shifty eye, and his
complexion was the sort which friends would have described as olive,
enemies (with more truth) as dirty green. These defects would have
mattered little, of course, in themselves. There's many a bilious
countenance, so to speak, covers a warm heart. With Monk, however,
appearances were not deceptive. He looked a bad lot, and he was one.

It was on the second morning of term that the acquaintanceship began.
Monk was coming downstairs from his study with Danvers, and Farnie was
leaving the fags' day-room.

'See that kid?' said Danvers. 'That's the chap I was telling you about.
Gethryn's uncle, you know.'

'Not really? Let's cultivate him. I say, old chap, don't walk so fast.'
Farnie, rightly concluding that the remark was addressed to him, turned
and waited, and the three strolled over to the School buildings
together.

They would have made an interesting study for the observer of human
nature, the two seniors fancying that they had to deal with a small boy
just arrived at his first school, and in the grip of that strange, lost