“Most of the old boys are back, and there are about twenty new ones, none of them much account but my young cousin, Harold King. He must be about Leon’s age, by the looks of him, and he’s a first-rate little fellow, too. But this new teacher is the worst I’ve seen.”
“What’s his name?” inquired Harry, while he passed the box of sponge cake to Stanley Campbell.
“Boniface. Luke is his first name, but the fellows call him Bony. He deserves the name, too.”
“Looks as if he were made of three or four old skeletons patched together,” remarked Max; and Louis added scornfully, with a satisfied glance down at his own well-fitting uniform,—
“His clothes are loose where they ought to be tight, and tight where they ought to be loose. I don’t see how the doctor ever came to pick up such a man.”
“They say he knows most everything, though,” put in Stanley, rising to the defence of the absent teacher.
“How old is he?” asked Leon.
“Not so old as he looks,” answered Paul; “but when you see him, you’ll think he is about fifty, that he’s lost his last friend and never expects to have another—”
“And doesn’t want any more, either,” Max went on. “He acts as if he couldn’t bear us boys; not a bit like Lieutenant Wilde, but as if all he wanted was to get his salary, without caring for us at all.”
“Show Hal the way he looks, Max,” said Jack, clasping his hands around one of his knees, as he still sat on the footboard of the bed.