SPANKY, THE "HEAD BOY." 31 



exhibiting the autumnal tint of the sere and yellow leaf of 

 life, Spanky was anything but a boy. Thirty winters might 

 have been numbered with the past since his entrance into this 

 world of trials, and he showed the wear and tear of quite that 

 period, together with the friction of minor causes. John 

 Sellusall's sharp, strict discipline, probably, might be enume- 

 rated as one. Spanky's features were as lean and fine-drawn 

 as a greyhound's. Nothing but a thick sprinkling of freckles 

 was to be seen where beard and whiskers generally leave signs 

 of their whereabouts ; and his high check-bones, and sunken, 

 fishy eyes, fringed with strongly-marked, ginger- coloured arches, 

 assisted in the making up of a countenance far from prepossess- 

 ing. The end — the positive terminus of a nose, Spanky still 

 claimed as his own ; but, from the ill-fated kick of a colt he 

 was dressing, in the hey-day of youth, the bridge and cartilage 

 were rendered flat as a mufiin. Beneath a rifle-green cloth 

 cap, worn extremely forward on the head, a crop, closely cut, 

 of light sandy hair was visible ; and such was the shortness of 

 the stubble that nothing less efiective than a pair of pinchers 

 could have taken hold of any quantity. Like his face, Spanky's 

 figure was without an atom of superfluous flesh ; and as he 

 stood in the ordinary costume of baggy breeches and gaiters, 

 striped canary and white waistcoat, reaching nearly to his 

 knees, v/ith flaps to the wide pockets, and sleeves buttoning 

 closely to the wrists, the respective articles looked as if they 

 would have fitted a clothes-horse quite as well. One, however, 

 not yet mentioned, deserves more than ordinary attention, and • 

 that was Spanky's shirt-collar. Eounded off at the corners 

 stiff as a board, white, high, and creaseless, Spanky appeared 

 continually looking from between a pair of patent blinkers. 

 Comfort there could be none in Spanky's shirt-collar, but of 

 pride there was an imlimited quantity ;. and the bright blue 

 bird's-eye cravat, tied with scrupulous care beneath, doubtlessly 

 gave him an important bearing, which it is the sta.ble policy of 

 a head lad to assume. 



. The pause — oh, that all head lads could pause ac euch 



