"I wonder if the fellow will bring it up to me."
"Not he," said Seton.
Dr. Thornley's boys were not allowed to go, without special leave, any nearer the town on the outskirts of which the school was situated than the bridge over which Hubert had been leaning. The approach of a master solved the difficulty. Hubert Graham went up to him. "If you please, sir, I was leaning over the parapet, and my cap fell into the river. A bargee has picked it up. May I run and get it?"
The master looked over, and laughed. "Perhaps he won't give it up. You may go and try."
When Hubert Graham returned to the bridge in triumph so far as the possession of a very wet cap was concerned, but rather low in his mind at having had to pay the exacting bargee a shilling out of his somewhat scanty store of pocket-money, he found John Seton lingering about for him.
"I say," he said, "I want to know about your uncle, and the little one. He's a jolly little man though; I expect he'll make his way."
"But there's a terrible set in the lower school for him to make his way with, and he a mere baby."
"Well! he's seven—and that seems like a baby to us, to be sure," said magnificent fourteen years, speaking in the person of John Seton; "and you're right. They are a set; I wish I was the prefect in his dormitory, but I'm not. Tell me how he came here in such a hurry?"
"Well, you needn't talk about it to the other fellows. Father and mother are in India. Father's regiment was ordered abroad four years ago, and mother went with him. There were three of us, and we were sent to Uncle Charlie to take care of. I was eight years old then, Nellie was five, and Chris three years old. Uncle was jolly and kind, and sent me here when I was ten. Just before the summer holidays were over Uncle Charlie married, and I'm sure our new aunt does not care for us to be there. But I never thought they'd send Chris to school. I wonder what they'll do with Nellie?"
"Can't you write to your father?"