Rudolph drank himself to death in six months. So the income which he was to receive made but a slight draft upon the Middleton estate.
And Tony!—no longer Tony the Tramp, but the Hon. Anthony Middleton, of Middleton Hall—he has just completed a course at Oxford, and is now the possessor of an education which will help fit him for the responsibilities he is to assume. His frank, off-hand manner makes him an immense favorite with the circle to which he now belongs. He says little of his early history, and it is seldom thought of now. He has made a promise to his good friend, George Spencer, to visit the United States, and will doubtless do so. He means at that time to visit once more the scenes with which he became familiar when he was A Poor Boy.
WHITMARSH'S REVENGE.
Roger Blake and Belcher Whitmarsh were both called quite good boys, but for different reasons. As their friends used sometimes to put it, Belcher was liked because of his temper, and Roger was liked in spite of his temper.
Roger was quick to fly into a passion, and as quick to get over it, while Belcher was almost always good natured, but when once really offended remembered the offense like an Indian.
The broad play-green in front of the country schoolhouse, where the boys spent their term times together, was surrounded by trees and rocky pasture lots. A pretty brook ran through it. On the sides of the brook and in the rain-gulleys there were plenty of pebbles and small stones.
One noon, when the boys had begun a trial of skill in firing stones at a mark, an unlucky turn was given to this small "artillery practice" by the thoughtless challenge of one of the youngsters to a playmate: