BURGOMASTERS AND GREAT ONE-EYERS.

When full upon his ardent soul
The champion feels the influence roll,
He swims the lake, he leaps the wall,
Heeds not the depth, nor plumbs the fall. 
Unshielded, mailless, on he goes,
Singly against a host of foes! 

                                            Harold the Dauntless.

‘Jem!  Jem! have you heard?’

‘What should I hear?’

‘Mr. Lester is going to retire at Christmas!’

‘Does that account for your irrational excitement?’

’And it has not occurred to you that the grammar-school would be the making of you!  Endowment, 150 pounds—­thirty, forty boys at 10 pounds per annum, 400 pounds at least.  That is 550 pounds—­say 600 pounds for certain; and it would be doubled under a scholar and a gentleman—­1200 pounds a year!  And you might throw it open to boarders; set up the houses in the Terrace, and let them at—­say 40 pounds?  Nine houses, nine times forty—­’

‘Well done, Fitzjocelyn!  At this rate one need not go out to Peru.’

’Exactly so; you would be doubling the value of your own property as a secondary consideration, and doing incalculable good—­’

’As if there were any more chance of my getting the school than of the rest of it!’

‘So you really had not thought of standing?’

’I would, most gladly, if there were the least hope of success.  I can’t afford to miss any chance; but it is mere folly to talk of it.  One-half of the trustees detest my principles; the others would think themselves insulted by a young man in deacon’s orders offering himself.’

’It is evident that you are the only man on whom they can combine who can save the school, and do any good to all those boys—­mind you, the important middle class, whom I would do anything to train in sound principles.’

’So far, it is in my favour that I am one of the few University men educated here.’

’You are your grandmother’s grandson—­that is everything! and you have more experience of teaching than most men twice your age.’

James made a face at his experience; but little stimulus was needed to make him attempt to avail himself of so fair an opening, coming so much sooner than he could have dared to expect.  It was now September, and the two months of waiting and separation seemed already like so many years.  By the time Mrs. Frost came in from her walk, she found the two young gentlemen devising a circular, and composing applications for testimonials.

After the first start of surprise, and telling James he ought to go to school himself, Mrs. Frost was easily persuaded to enter heartily into the project; but she insisted on the first measure being to consult Mr. Calcott.  He was the head of the old sound and respectable party—­the chairman of everything, both in county and borough—­and had the casting vote among the eight trustees of King Edward’s School, who, by old custom, nominated each other from the landholders within the town.  She strongly deprecated attempting anything without first ascertaining his views; and, as the young men had lashed themselves into great ardour, the three walked off at once to lay the proposal before the Squire.