Synopsis

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...