Jack was by no means the cleverest boy at the school, far from it, but he did his book work fairly well, and above all honestly.

He was honesty itself in everything, scorned crooked ways, or whatever he considered meanness, with the exaggerated scorn of a very young and untried character, and, like most boys of his age, was inclined, once he took up a prejudice, to carry it to all lengths.
"There was but one cloud over their return to school this special autumn that I am telling you of, and that was the absence of a favourite master--one of the younger ones--who, an unexpected piece of good luck having fallen to his share, had left Ryeburn the end of the last half.
"'I wonder what sort of a fellow we shall have instead of Wyngate,' said Jack to Carlo, as the train slackened for Ryeburn station.
"'We shan't have any one as nice, that's certain,' said Carlo, lugubriously.

'There couldn't be any one as nice, could there ?' "But their lamentations over Mr.Wyngate were forgotten when they found themselves in the midst of their companions, most of whom had already arrived.

There were such a lot of things to tell and to ask; the unfortunate 'new boys' to glance at with somewhat supercilious curiosity, and the usual legendary caution as to 'chumming' with them, till it should be proved what manner of persons they were; the adventures of the holidays to retail to one's special cronies; the anticipated triumphs in cricket and football and paper-chases of the forthcoming 'half' to discuss.

Jack and Carlo soon found themselves each the centre of his particular set, too busy and absorbed in the present to give much thought to the past.