58 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The society had only been founded the year before Jack Hamp- 

 son was sent to Mugby School ; so it was in the first zeal and fresh- 

 ness of its youth. Jack didn't like science — it was nothing but a 

 lot of hard, jaw-breaking names, he said, and what was the good 

 of them ? He and others had enough of hard words in their daily 

 Latin and Greek tasks. Jack rather snubbed the fellows who 

 volunteered to learn more hard words than were required — he 

 couldn't understand it. What was the good of calling a butter- 

 cup Ranunculus, and a white stone quartz ? It was all sham and 

 show! 



Now, Jack was a born hunter. He was ardently fond of fishing, 

 and not a bad shot, considering he had been mistrusted, instead of 



trusted, with a gun. 

 I dare say his skill 

 with the latter would 

 have astonished his 

 father ; and I have 

 no doubt a good 

 many ounces of 'bac- 

 ca found their way 

 into the keeper's 

 pocket before he be- 

 came so creditable a 

 shot. 



But there was not 

 much fishing about 

 Mugby ; or, rather, 

 they were such little things that Jack felt ashamed of pulling them 

 out, and so he slipped them in again, although they never seemed 

 to grow any bigger. This was a wise act on their part, if they had 

 only known the unconscious chivalry of Jack's nature, which hated 



Fig. 2.— Scale op Bleak.. 



Pig. 3.— Scale of Eel. 



taking advantage of a weak thing. Then as to shooting— first, he 

 hadn't a gun, and, if he had possessed one, the rules of the school 

 would have precluded his using it. Next, what was there to shoot ? 

 The small birds in the hedges ? Any cad could do that ! Sneak 



