"No, you little goose," he laughed—"only to leave them at the different houses. And now, let me finish my tea. I must have a good grind at geography this evening."
CHAPTER V.
JIM STARTS WORK.
It wanted ten minutes to nine, and the Deanery boys were pouring into the playground, ready to assemble for morning school. Percy Braithwaite stood just inside the gate talking to a little group of his chums. He was a good-looking, fair-skinned boy, with sharp, keen eyes. Somehow he was not a favourite with the majority, but as his father kept him well supplied with pocket-money, he generally had a certain following which petted and made much of him.
"I had a jolly lark this morning," he was saying. "What d'you think Jimmy Hartland's doing? You'd never guess! He's selling papers. He brought ours round just now, and I answered the door. You'd have died to see him: he went as red as a turkey-cock.
"'Hullo!' said I—'a fresh paper-boy? You're very late. This won't do, you know. Tell your master if you can't come earlier than this we shall have to make a change.'"
"Did you really say that?" asked Simpson, who was sucking one of Braithwaite's bull's-eyes. "He would be wild. The beggar's as proud as Lucifer."
"I don't see why he shouldn't sell papers," said Alec Macdonald. "There's nothing to be ashamed of in that."
"Perhaps not for fellows of his class," said Braithwaite, with a superior air, "but fancy a paper-boy trying for the 'Gayton'! Why, if he got it, all the school would cut him dead. I call it a great piece of cheek."
"Here he comes with the Angel," whispered Simpson, who had finished his bull's-eye, and was hoping to get another before the bell rang. "I say, let's have a lark!" And raising his voice, he cried, "Hevenin' Noos! Hextry Speshul! Paper, sir?"