And Parson departed, consoled in spirit, to announce to Telson and the lower school generally that Willoughby was at present without a captain.

Who was to be the new captain of Willoughby? This was a question it had occurred to only a very few to ask until Wyndham had finally quitted the school. Fellows had grown so used to the old order of things, which had continued now for two years, that the possibility of their bowing to any other chief than “Old Wynd” had scarcely crossed their minds. But the question being once asked, it became very interesting indeed.

The captains of Willoughby had been by long tradition what is known as “all-round men.” There was something in the air of the place that seemed specially favourable to the development of muscle and classical proficiency at the same time, and the consequence was that the last three heads of the school had combined in one person the senior classic and the captains of the clubs. Wyndham had been the best of these; indeed he was as much ahead of his fellows in the classical school as he was in the cricket-field and on the river, which was saying not a little. His predecessors had both also been head boys in classics; and although neither of them actually the best men of their time in athletics, they had been sufficiently near the best to entitle them to the place of honour, which made the Willoughby captain supreme, not only in school, but out of it. So that in the memory of the present “generation”—a school generation being reckoned as five years — the Willoughby captain had always been cock of the school in every sense in which such a distinction was possible.

But now all of a sudden the school woke up to the fact that this delightful state of things was not everlasting. Wyndham had left and his mantle had fallen from him in two pieces.

The new head classic was Riddell, a comparatively unknown boy in the school, who had come there a couple of years ago from a private school, and about whom the most that was known was that he was physically weak and timid, rarely taking part in any athletic exercises, having very few chums, interfering very little with anybody else, and reputed “pi.”—as the more irreverent among the Willoughbites were wont to stigmatise any fellow who made a profession of goodness. Such was the boy on whom, according to strict rule, the captaincy of Willoughby would devolve, and it need hardly be said that the discovery spread consternation wherever it travelled.

Among the seniors the idea was hardly taken seriously.

“The doctor would never be so ridiculous,” said Ashley to Coates, as they talked the matter over in the study of the former. “We might as well shut up the school.”

“The worst of it is, I don’t see how he can help it,” replied Coates.

“Help it! Of course he can help it if he likes. There’s no written law that head classics are to be captains, if they can’t hold a bat or run a hundred yards, is there?”

“I don’t suppose there is. But who else is there?”

“Why, Bloomfield, of course. He’s just the fellow for it, and the fellows all look up to him.”

“But Bloomfield’s low down in the sixth,” said Coates.

“What’s that to do with it? Felton was a muff at rowing, but he was made captain of the boats all the same while he was cock of the school.”

At this point another monitor entered.

“Ah, Tipper,” said Ashley, “what do you think Coates here is saying? He says Riddell is to be the new captain.”

Tipper burst into a loud laugh.

“That would be a joke! Think of Riddell stroking the school eight at Henley, eh! or kicking off for us against Rockshire! I suppose Coates thinks because Riddell’s a schoolhouse boy he’s bound to be the man. Never fear. You’ll see Parrett’s come to the front at last, my boy!”

“Why, are you to be the new captain?” asked Coates, with a slight sneer.

Tipper was not pleased with this little piece of sarcasm. He was a good cricketer and a fine runner, but in school everybody knew him to be as poor a scholar as a fellow could be to be in the sixth at all.

“I dare say even I would be as good as any schoolhouse fellow you could pick out,” said he. “But if you want to know, Bloomfield’s the man.”

“Just what I was saying,” said Ashley. “But Coates says he’s not far enough up in the school.”

“All bosh,” said Tipper. “What difference does it make if a fellow’s first or twentieth in the school, as long as he’s cock of everything outside! I don’t see how the doctor can hesitate a moment between the two.”

This was the conclusion come to at almost all the conclaves which met together during the day to discuss the burning question. It was the conclusion moreover to which Bloomfield himself came as he talked the matter over with a few of his friends after third school.

“You see,” said he, “it’s not that I care about the thing for its own sake. It would be a precious grind, I know, to have to be responsible for everything that goes on, and to have to lick all the kids that want a hiding. But for all that, I’d sooner do it than let the school run down.”

“What I hope,” said some one, “is that even if Paddy doesn’t see it himself, Riddell will, and will have the sense to back out of it. I fancy he wouldn’t be sorry.”

“Not he,” said Bloomfield. “I heard him say once he pitied Wyndham all the bother he had, especially when he was wanting to stew for the exams.”

“Has any one seen Riddell lately?” asked Game. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing for some of us to see him, and put it to him, that the school would go to the dogs to a dead certainty if he was captain.”

“Rather a blunt way of putting it,” said Porter, laughing. “I’d break it to him rather more gently than that.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” replied Game, who was of the downright order.

“You see,” said Bloomfield, who, despite his protestations, was evidently not displeased at the notion of his possible honours, “I don’t profess to be much of a swell in school; but — I don’t know — I fancy I could keep order rather better than he could. The fellows know me.”

“They ought to, if they don’t,” said Wibberly, who was a toady.

“Fancy Riddell having to lick a junior,” said Game. “Why he’d faint at the very idea.”

“Probably take him off to his study and have a prayer-meeting with Fairbairn and a few more of that lot upon the top of him,” said Gilks, a schoolhouse monitor, and not a nice-looking fellow.

“I guess I’d sooner get a hiding from old Bloomfield than that,” laughed Wibberly.

“I hope,” said Game, “snivelling’s not going to be the order of the day. I can’t stand it.”

“I don’t think you’ve any right to call Riddell a sniveller,” said Porter. “He may be a muff at sports, but I don’t fancy he’s a sneak. And I don’t see that it’s against him, either, if he does go in for being what he professes to be.”

“Hear! hear! — quite a sermon from Porter,” cried Wibberly.

“Porter’s right,” said Bloomfield. “No one says it was against him. All I say is that I don’t expect the fellows will mind him as much as they would a fellow who — well, who’s better known, you know.”

“Rather,” said Game, “I know it would seem precious rum being a monitor under him.”

“Well,” said Bloomfield, “I suppose it will be settled soon. Meanwhile, Game, what do you say to another grind in the tub? You didn’t half work this morning, you beggar.”

Game groaned resignedly, and said “All right;” and hue and cry was forthwith made for Master Parson’s services at the helm.

But Master Parson, as it happened, was not to be found. He was neither in the school nor in his house, and a search through the grounds failed to unearth him. He had not been seen since his escape from the monitorial fangs after morning school. The natural thing, of course, on not finding him at home in his own quarters, was to look for him in Telson’s. But he was not there, nor, strange to say, was Telson himself. And, what was still more odd, when search came to be made, Bosher, another fag of Parrett’s house, was missing, and so was Lawkins, and Pringle, and King, and Wakefield, and one or two others of the same glorious company. After a fruitless search, the oarsmen had finally to go down to the river without a fag at all, and impound the boat-boy to steer for them.