was that his house was never riotous. Perhaps he was looked on as a
non-combatant, one whom it would be unfair and unsporting to rag. At
any rate, a weird calm reigned over the place; and this spirit seemed
to permeate the public lives of the Shieldsites. They said nothing much
and they did nothing much and they were very inoffensive. As a rule,
one hardly knew they were there.

Into this abode of lotus-eaters came Clephane, a day boy, owing to the
departure of his parents for India. Clephane wanted to go to
Donaldson's. In fact, he said so. His expressions, indeed, when he
found that the whole thing had been settled, and that he was to spend
his last term at school at a house which had never turned out so much
as a member of the Gym. Six, bordered on the unfilial. It appeared
that his father had met Mr. Shields at dinner in the town--a fact to
which he seemed to attach a mystic importance. Clephane's criticism of
this attitude of mind was of such a nature as to lead his father to
address him as Archibald instead of Archie.

However, the thing was done, and Clephane showed his good sense by
realising this and turning his energetic mind to the discovery of the
best way of making life at Shields' endurable. Fortune favoured him by
sending to the house another day boy, one Mansfield. Clephane had not
known him intimately before, though they were both members of the
second eleven; but at Shields' they instantly formed an alliance. And
in due season--or a little later--the house matches began. Henfrey, of
Day's, the Wrykyn cricket captain, met Clephane at the nets when the
drawing for opponents had been done.

"Just the man I wanted to see," said Henfrey. "I suppose you're
captain of Shields' lot, Clephane? Well, you're going to scratch as