"Gus, my boy, instead of frowsing up here all the afternoon with your
books, you should have been on the touch-line watching those Biffenites at
their new tricks. Your opinion then would have a little avoirdupois. As it
is, you Perry Exhibit, it is worth exactly nothing."

"You're deucedly classical to-night, Jim."

"Oh, I'm sick of this forsaken match and all the compliments we've had
over it. I'm going now to have a tub, and then we'll get that Latin paper
through, and, thirdly, I'll have the chessmen out."

"Sony, I can't, Jim," said Todd, discontentedly. "There is that beastly
Perry Scholarship--I must really do something for that!"

"Thomas Rot, Esq.!" said Cotton. "Haven't you been a-cramming and
a-guzzling for that all this afternoon? You've a duty towards your chums,
Toddy, so I tell you."

"That's all very well, Jim, for you, who are going to break some crammer's
heart, and then crawl into the Army through the Militia, but my pater
wants me to do something in the Perry, I tell you."

"Chess!" said Cotton, disregarding Todd's bleat, and then, with a sly
smile, he added, "Shilling a game, Gus, and you know you always pull off
the odd one."

"All right," said Todd, swallowing the bait with forlorn eagerness; "I'll
have the board set out if you must come in."