ENTER MR. TING
The term was drawing to its close, and all Cheltonia, from the senior prefect to the smallest whipper-snapper of the fourth form, was in the playing-field, practising for the sports. The centre of the greatest interest was perhaps the spot where certain big fellows of the sixth were engaged in a friendly preliminary rivalry for the high jump. There was Reginald Hattersley-Carr, who stood six feet two in his socks--a strapping young giant whom small boys gazed up at with awe, the despair of the masters, the object of a certain dislike among the prefects for his swank. There was Pierce Errington, who beside the holder of the double-barrelled name looked small, though his height was five feet ten. He was the most popular fellow in the school--dangerously popular for one of his temperament, for he was easy-going, mercurial, speaking and acting impulsively, too often rash, with a streak of the gambler in his composition--though, to be sure, he had little chance of being unduly speculative on his school pocket-money. And there was Ted Burroughs, Errington's particular chum, equally tall, almost equally popular, but as different in temperament as any man could be. Burroughs was popular because he was such a downright fellow, open as the day, a fellow everybody trusted. He always thought before he spoke, and acted with deliberation. He held very strong views as to what he or others should do or should not do, and carried out his principles with a firm will. As was natural, he did not easily make allowances for other men's weaknesses, except in the case of Errington, to whom he would concede more than to any one else.
It was known that the high jump would fall to one of these three, and their performances at the bar were watched with keen appreciation by a small crowd of boys in the lower school. Hattersley-Carr had just cleared five feet three, and Errington was stripping off his sweater, in preparation for taking his run, when the school porter came up, an old soldier as stiff as a ramrod, and addressed him.
"A gentleman to see you," he said.
"Oh, bother!" said Errington. "Who is it, Perkins?"
"A stranger to me; a sort of foreigner by the look of him: in fact, what you might call a heathen Chinee."
"Bless my aunt!" Errington ejaculated, with a droll look at Burroughs. "Did you tell him where I was?"
"I said as how you were jumping, most like; and he said as how he'd like to see; not much of a sport, either, by the looks of him."
Now hospitality to visitors was a tradition at Cheltonia, and with the eyes of the small boys upon him Errington knew that he must accept the inevitable. But it was the law of the place that an afternoon visitor should be invited to tea at the prefects' table, and Errington, with a school-boy's susceptibility, at once foresaw a good deal of quizzing and subsequent "chipping" at the embarrassing presence of a Chinaman.
"Rotten nuisance!" he said, in an undertone. "Still!"--and with a half-humorous shrug he put on his sweater and blazer and walked across to the school-house.