Then there was another fellow, rather a melancholy chap, who had a queer
way of showing the whites of his eyes, and looking scared, at the least
opportunity, only to make his chums laugh; for he would immediately
afterwards grin--in school as a little fellow he had insisted that his
name of Stephen should be pronounced as though it consisted of two
syllables; and from that day to this he had come to be known as Step Hen
Bingham.

The other three boys were the ones who engaged in the little talk with
which this story opens. Bumpus really had another name, though few
people ever thought to call him by it; yet in the register at school he
was marked down as Cornelius Jasper Hawtree; while the fellow who had
that strange "rubber-neck" that he was so fond of stretching to its
limit, was Conrad Stedman.

Davy Jones, too, wag a remarkable character, as may be made evident
before the last word is said in this story. He seemed to be as nimble
as they make boys; and was forever doing what he called "stunts," daring
any of his comrades to hang by their toes from the limb of a tree twenty
feet from the ground; walking a tight-rope which he stretched across
deep gully, and all sorts of other dangerous enterprises of that nature.
Often he was called "Monkey," and no nick-name ever given by boy
playmates fitted better than his.

Once Davy had been a victim to fits, and on this account gained great
consideration from his teachers at school, as well as from his comrades.
But latterly there had arisen a suspicion that these "fits" that doubled
him up so suddenly always seemed to come just when there was some hard
work to be done; and once the suspicion that Davy was shamming broke in
upon the rest, they shamed him into declaring himself radically cured.