and the cads from Merivale got to know too, and there was a good crowd of them along the fence by the gym. Also two policemen came, and Nubbs, who was nervous before, grew much worse when he heard of it. Besides, we had a frightful shock two days before the firework night, owing to the loss of poor old Barker. By simply sickening luck he got reported by Brown for cheek. It was when Brown came out in a new pair of awfully squeaking boots with sham pearl buttons at the side and drab tops; and Barker said they were ugly 'eighteens,' and Brown heard him. The Doctor took an awfully grave view of this, and told Barker that personality was the vilest form of cheek. Which wouldn't have mattered, but he gave him a thousand lines as well, and forbade him to see the fireworks or help any more with them.

'And that's the man you call a brick!' Barker said rather bitterly. It certainly was rough, after the way he had worked; but out of the wing dormitory, where he would be at the time, he might be able to see pretty well everything by leaning far out between the window bars. Which Nubbs pointed out to him, and he said he should. He also said he'd pay out Brown some day, and very likely Dunston too.

Well, the night came, and it was a fine one; and the cads likewise came and lined the fence. Then the Doctor clapped his hands twice, which was the signal to begin; and just as he did so, out burst a yellow fire everywhere behind the bits of tin, lighted simultaneously by seven chaps. And everybody seemed to like it; and the Doctor said :

'Capital! Bravo, Tomkins-a pleasing and fairy-like conceit!' Then Nubbs let fly two rockets, and they went up well and burst out in stars, though not as many by any means as we had crammed into them; but one twisted for some reason and, instead of falling in the direction of the cads, the stick twinkled down, with just a spark of red here and there in the line of it, bang behind the chapel. Both Nubbs and I distinctly heard it go smack through the top of the greenhouse, and I rather think the Doctor heard it too, for he didn't say 'Bravo' or anything, but just sent a kid to tell Nubbs to point future rockets the other way. Which disheartened Nubbs, because he's like a girl at times of great excitement such as this was. But he soon cheered up, especially at the splendid success of the catharine wheels, which he hadn't hoped much from, and at the cheers even the

cads gave for the 'golden rain' which showed up everything as bright as day, including Mabel and the other Dunston girls, and Mrs. Dunston, and Nubby's father standing smiling very amiably by the Doctor, and the policemen blinking, and the crowd, and a white dab hanging out of a high window afar off, which I saw and knew was Barker.

Only the balloon failed, owing to the nervousness of Nubbs, who set fire to the whole show while he was trying to light the spirit on the sponge underneath; but he passed it off with crackers thrown among the kids, and then, while they were all yelling, he dragged away the cricket screens, and Nubbs let off the set piece. He lighted the touch-paper, and it snapped and crackled all over the design in a moment, and a thick smoke rose, and out of it came the set piece flaring in rich yellow fire. Of course we expected what Nubbs and Barker had arranged, viz., 'Doctor Dunston is a Brick!' but instead there came out these awful words:

'DOCTOR DUNSTON

IS A BRUTE!'

That just shows what a difference three letters will make in a thing; and the night was so dark, and the letters so big that you could have read them a mile off. Only, if you will believe it, Dunston didn't. People applauded like anything at first till the preliminary smoke cleared off and they read the truth. Then they shut up and made a sound like the wind coming through a wood. But the cads yelled and roared, and so did the policemen, for I heard them; and to make the frightful thing a shade more frightful, if possible, the Doctor, who is as blind as ten bats, and didn't realise the end of the set piece, but only read his name at the top, clapped his hands and said:

'Famous, famous! You excel yourself, Tomkins!'

Then the words began gradually to turn green; and, for that matter, so did Nubbs. In fact, whether it was the reflected light or the condition of his mind, or both, I certainly never saw any chap become so perfectly horrid to look at as Nubbs did then. His nose seemed to stand out like a great green rock, and his eyes bulged, and his chin dropped, and the set piece turned his teeth as bright as precious emeralds. He just merely said, 'Good

Lord!'-nothing more then hooked it off into the darkness, simply shattered.

At the same time old Stoddart, and Thompson, and Brown, and some chaps from the Sixth, not knowing what colour the beastly set piece might turn next, or how soon the Doctor would spot it, dashed at the thing and dragged it down, and trampled on it; and Brown in the act burnt the very boots that Barker had cheeked, which pleased Barker a good deal when he heard it.

After that it was all over, and the Doctor, thinking the set piece had died a natural death, so to speak, saw me under the gaslight at the gate, as everybody streamed out, and said:

'Ah, young man, what was that last word in the illumination? I know you and Hodges also had a hand in it, as well as Tomkins.' And I said:

'Please, sir, we arranged the words "Doctor Dunston is a Brick!""

And he said:

'Excellent! Pithy and concise if a little familiar. I only hope you all echo that sentiment-every one of you. Send Tomkins to me, and tell the other fellows there is cake and lemonade going in the dining-hall.'

Just as if the other fellows didn't know it! But everybody gave three cheers for the Doctor and Mrs. Dunston, and I started to find Nubbs; and the policemen made the cads go, though they went reluctantly.

I looked long for Nubby, and at last found him all alone in the gym. One bit of candle was burning, which looked frightfully poor after all the brilliance of the fireworks, and Nubbs had got the parallel bars under the flying rings and was standing on them-I mean the bars.

'What the dickens are you doing, man?' I said. And he answered:

'It's no jolly good attempting to stop me now, because it's too late. My life is ruined, and my father was there too to see it ruined; and I'm going to hang myself, as every convenience for hanging is here.'

Mind you, he would have done it. Knowing Nubbs as I do and his great ingeniousness, I don't mind swearing he would have been a hung chap in another minute. So I told him; but, though doubtful, he decided to put it off anyway. I even got him to promise he wouldn't hang himself at all if his father believed

his innocence about the set piece. And Crewe, the head master under the Doctor, and Stoddart and Thompson got us in a corner-Nubbs and Hodges and me-and we solemnly vowed we knew nothing of it; and Crewe went down to the Merivale Trumpet' and made the reporter put in the original words when it came out; and Thompson explained to Mrs. Dunston how some evil-disposed, wicked person had tampered with the set piece, and begged her not to wound the feelings of the Doctor by telling him; and the Sixth hushed it up among the kids; and I sneaked a bit of cake for Barker, and went up after the row was over and told him everything down to the burning of Brown's boots.

He confessed to me then that he had done it, which didn't surprise me much, knowing how he had worked and then at the last minute almost been deprived of seeing the show. It was certainly a terrible revenge; but of course a terrible revenge which doesn't come off owing to a master being too short-sighted to see it is pretty sickening for the revenger. Besides the risk.

Mr. Crewe worked like a demon to find out who had done it, and he suspected Barker from the first, but couldn't prove it. But at last he did find out through Fowle, who got it out of Mapleson, who got it out of West, who got it out of Nubbs in a moment of rage. For I may say Barker himself told Nubbs, and Nubbs never forgave him, and says he never shall, even if they ever both go to heaven.

So Crewe, having found out, had some talk with Barker. But he didn't lick him; whereas Barker did lick Fowle, and that pretty badly. Not that Fowle cares for an ordinary licking, more than another chap cares for a smack on the head. The only way to hurt him is to twist his arm round, about twice, and then hit him hard just above the elbow. I may say I found this out myself; and everybody does it now.

EDEN PHILLPOTTS.

207

THE ART OF PORTRAIT-PAINTING IN WORDS.

WE of the nineteenth century have lost many arts; we have forgotten how to make the Cremona varnish and the Tyrian dye ; we can no longer paint religious pictures or write successful tragedies. But one art we may claim to have discovered, or at least to have raised to the dignity of a tenth Muse-the art of pen-portraiture. I admit, of course, that there have been professors of word-painting in past times, among them some few who have turned away their eyes from the standard of beauty raised up by custom, and sketched a lip or chin from life, who have refrained from running riot among classical allusions, and even shown some restraint in the handling of metaphor; but I maintain that until this present era word-portraiture has never been practised as a fine art, and that neither poet nor romancer has succeeded in depicting the mystery, the subtilty, the individuality, in a word, the whole complex character of the human countenance. All, or nearly all, have held with Herrick that

Beauty's no other than a lovely grace

Of lively colours flowing from the face.

The heroines of the early poets are for the most part splendid animals, resembling each other as closely as twin-sisters, with faces wherein the triumphs of the florist's art are mingled with the contents of the jeweller's window. Not one of them glows under our very eyes into warm and pulsing life, not one of them smiles up at us out of the printed page until she stamps her image upon our hearts. It is evident that the most anxious care and pains have been bestowed upon these poetical portraits, but the artist has failed because he has sacrificed reality to an artificial standard of beauty, and simplicity to the prevailing passion for far-fetched metaphor. The result is that although the colouring is often gorgeously beautiful, the drawing is false, and the whole conception destitute of originality. Even Chaucer, who so passionately delighted in feminine beauty, and who bestows such loving labour upon the portraits of his heroines, can seldow throw off the fatal tendency to the use of unnatural similitudes. On the rare occasions that he does escape from the lily brow, starry eyes, ivory