8 MEMOIR OF 



delayed to execute the order, with the intention 

 of asking permission to send them home, on 

 the ground that his rabbits were so vahiable. 



Russell, in the meantime, observing the 

 monitor's neglect of duty, and ignorant of the 

 cause of it, resolved to see the edict fulfilled to 

 its bitter end, and proceeded at once to do for 

 Hunter what he seemed so loth to do for 

 himself. Russell kept ferrets, and, like most 

 boys of a manly nature, held those who kept 

 rabbits in supreme contempt, denouncing them 

 as milksops, only fit to live and associate with 

 maiden aunts. So it can well be imagined how 

 the spirit of retaliation took instant possession 

 of him, and with what zest he conveyed the 

 rabbits to his ferret-box. As well might the 

 innocent victims have been tossed into a 

 python's den, for they were all dead before 

 the owner became aware of their untimely fate 

 or his own grievous loss. 



But he was not long in discovering it ; nor 

 was Russell, who avowed himself the per- 

 petrator, slow to discover that the maledictions 

 and fierce threats of Hunter, who swore he 

 would give him a sound thrashing, would all 

 end in smoke, and that, in fact, the bully was 

 what he had suspected him to be, an arrant 

 coward. 



Though older and stronger than Russell, and 

 boiling with rage, he dared not strike him. 



