Your affectionate KENELM.

P. S.--Now that I have licked Butt, I have made it up with him.


From that time Kenelm prospered. Eulogistic letters from the
illustrious head-master showered in upon Sir Peter. At the age of
sixteen Kenelm Chillingly was the head of the school, and, quitting it
finally, brought home the following letter from his Orbilius to Sir
Peter, marked "confidential":--


DEAR SIR PETER CHILLINGLY,--I have never felt more anxious for the
future career of any of my pupils than I do for that of your son. He
is so clever that, with ease to himself, he may become a great man.
He is so peculiar that it is quite as likely that he may only make
himself known to the world as a great oddity. That distinguished
teacher Dr. Arnold said that the difference between one boy and
another was not so much talent as energy. Your son has talent, has
energy: yet he wants something for success in life; he wants the
faculty of amalgamation. He is of a melancholic and therefore
unsocial temperament. He will not act in concert with others. He is
lovable enough: the other boys like him, especially the smaller ones,
with whom he is a sort of hero; but he has not one intimate friend.
So far as school learning is concerned, he might go to college at
once, and with the certainty of distinction provided he chose to exert
himself. But if I may venture to offer an advice, I should say employ
the next two years in letting him see a little more of real life and
acquire a due sense of its practical objects. Send him to a private