is not ashamed of what is no fault of his own, who frankly and
manfully says, "I can't afford it," will not find that he is in
any way looked down upon by those of his schoolfellows whose good
opinion is in the smallest degree worth having.

Certainly this was so in the case of Frank Hargate. He was never
in the slightest degree ashamed of saying, "I can't afford it;" and
the fact that he was the son of an officer killed in battle gave
him a standing among the best in the school in spite of his want
of pocket money.

Frank was friends with many of the fishermen, and these would often
bring him strange fish and sea creatures brought up in their nets,
instead of throwing them back into the sea.

During the holidays he would sometimes go out with them for twenty-four
hours in their fishing-boats. His mother made no objection to
this, as she thought that the exercise and sea air were good for
his health, and that the change did him good. Frank himself was so
fond of the sea that he was half disposed to adopt it instead of
the army as a profession. But his mother was strongly opposed to
the idea, and won him to her way of thinking by pointing out that
although a sailor visits many ports he stays long at none of them,
and that in the few hours' leave he might occasionally obtain he
would be unable to carry out his favorite pursuits.

"Hargate," Ruthven, who was one of the oldest of the House boys,
and was about Frank's age, that is about fifteen years old, said a
few days after the match, "the Doctor has given Handcock and Jones
and myself leave to take a boat and go out this afternoon. We mean