"Go on, sir, go on! What happened then?"
"I'll tell you presently; here are some friends of mine, and you fellows must wait a moment."
He shook them off and stepped across the road to where his friends were passing without seeing him. Thus his back was turned to the boys, who fortunately could not see how he blushed as he raised his hat.
"It's Mr. Ringrose!" cried Fanny Lowndes.
"The deuce it is!" her father exclaimed. "Why, Ringrose, what the blazes are you doing down here, and who are your young friends?"
"I'm awfully sorry I didn't let you know," said Harry, "but the whole thing was so sudden. As I told you when you came to see us, Miss Lowndes, I have been trying for a mastership for some time; and just as I had given it up——"
"You have got one!"
"Yes, quite unexpectedly, at the beginning of this week."
The girl looked both glad and sorry, but her father's nose was twitching with amusement and his eyes twinkling in their gold frames.
"You did well to take what you could get," said he, lowering his voice so that nothing could be heard across the road. "Writing for your living means writing for your life, and that's no catch; but by Jove, Ringrose, you ought to get off some good things with such a capital safety-valve as boys always on hand! When you can't think of a rhyme, run round and box their ears till one comes. When you get a rejected manuscript, try hammering their knuckles with the ruler! Where's the school, Ringrose, and who keeps it?"