He did not care much for either of his closest companions in both classroom and refectory, but did like the look of the boy who sat next-but-one from him; cheerful, yet not quite perky enough to have gotten the cane. William Henry glanced at him and essayed a smile which caused one of the masters at the Head’s table to draw in a breath and stiffen.

The moment he received the smile, the boy somehow ejected the obstacle between them, who fell on the floor with a clatter and was hauled away by one ear to the Head’s table on a dais at the front of the enormous, echoing room.

“Monkton Minor,” said the newcomer, grinning to reveal a missing tooth. “Been here since February.”

“Morgan Tertius, started today,” whispered William Henry.

“It is allowed to talk quietly once Grace has been said. You must have a rich father, Morgan Tertius.”

William Henry eyed Monkton Minor’s blue coat and looked wistful. “I do not think so, Monkton Minor. Not terribly rich, anyway. He went here, and he wore the blue coat.”

“Oh.” Monkton Minor thought about that, then nodded. “Is your father still alive?”

“Yes. Is yours?”

“No. Nor is my mother. I am an orphan.” Monkton Minor leaned his head closer, his bright blue eyes sparkling. “What is your Christian name, Morgan Tertius?”

“I have two. William Henry. What is yours?”

“Johnny.” The look became conspiratorial. “I will call you William Henry and you will call me Johnny—but only if no one can hear us.”

“Is it a sin?” asked William Henry, who still catalogued wrongs in that light.

“No, just not good form. But I hate being a Minor!”

“And I a Tertius.” William Henry removed his gaze from his new friend and glanced guiltily toward the Head’s table on high, where the ejected benchmate was receiving what William Henry had already learned was a jawing—far worse than a few licks of the cane because it took so much longer and one had to stand absolutely still until it was over or else teeter on a stool for the rest of the day. Encountering the stare of a master beside Mr. Simpson, he blinked and looked away immediately, quite why he did not know. “Who is that, Johnny?”

“Next to the Head? Old Doom and Froom.” Mr. Prichard.

“No, one down. Next to the Simp.”

“Mr. Parfrey. He teaches Latin.”

“Does he have a nickname too?”

Monkton Minor managed to touch the tip of his snub nose with his pursed lips. “If he does, us juniors don’t know it. Latin is for the seniors.”

While the two boys discussed them, Mr. Parfrey and Mr. Simpson were busy discussing William Henry.

“I see, Ned, that ye have a Ganymede amongst your swine.”

Mr. Edward Simpson understood this without further elucidation. “Morgan Tertius? You should see his eyes!”

“I must make sure I do. But even viewed from afar, Ned, he is ravishing. Truly a Ganymede—ah, to be a Zeus!”

“As well then, George, that by the time he starts amo-ing and amas-ing, he will be two years older and probably as snotty as all the rest,” said Mr. Simpson, picking diffidently at his food, though a great deal more palatable than that served to the boys; disease ran in his family, notoriously short-lived.

Their casual exchange was not evidence of prurient intentions; it was merely a symptom of their unenviable lot. George Parfrey had longed to be a Zeus, but he might as easily and as fruitlessly have longed to be a Robert Nugent, now Earl Nugent. Schoolmasters were inevitably genteely impoverished. For Mr. Simpson and Mr. Parfrey, Colston’s represented a kind of zenith; they were paid £1 per week—but only when school was up—and had their board and lodging all year round as part of the job. As Colston’s ran to very good food (the Head was a famous Epicure) and its masters each had a roomlet to himself, there was very little reason to leave unless one were tapped for Eton, Harrow or Bristol Grammar School. Marriage made things more difficult, of course, and was out of the question until one either took Orders or received a hefty promotion; not that marriage was forbidden, rather that housing a wife and offspring in a roomlet was a daunting prospect. Besides which, Mr. Simpson and Mr. Parfrey were not tempted by the Other Sex. They preferred to make do with their own, and in particular with each other. The love, however, was purely on poor Ned Simpson’s side. George Parfrey owned himself completely.

“Perhaps we could go to the Hotwells after Church on Sunday?” Mr. Simpson asked hopefully. “The waters seem to do me good.”

“Provided you allow me the indulgence of my watercolors,” said Mr. Parfrey, still gazing at William Henry Morgan, who was growing more animated—and more beautiful—with every passing moment. He pulled a face. “I fail to understand how anyone can feel better after drinking the Avon’s leavings, but if you are happy to grant me a peaceful interlude by St. Vincent’s Rocks, then I will come.” A sigh emerged. “Oh, how much I would love to paint that divine child!”

Richard arrived to collect William Henry dry mouthed. What if he were greeted by a distraught little boy begging not to have to return to school tomorrow?

Needless fears. His eyes located his son careering headlong around the yard, laughing as he dodged the sallies of a blue-coated little fellow his own age, tow-headed and painfully thin.

“Dadda!” Up he scampered, his playmate close behind. “Dadda, this is Monkton Minor, but I call him Johnny when no one can hear us. He is a norphan.”

“How d’ye do, Monkton Minor?” asked Richard, his own days at Colston’s rushing back. He had been Morgan Minor, had graduated to Morgan Major after he turned eleven. And only his best friend had called him Richard. “I shall ask the Reverend Prichard if ye may come to dinner with us after Church next Sunday.”

He felt as if he shepherded a stranger, he reflected as he bore William Henry off; a William Henry who did not walk sedately at his side but skipped and hopped, hummed under his breath.

“I take it that you like school,” he said, smiling.

“It is splendid, Dadda! I can run and shout.”

The tears came; Richard blinked them away. “But not in the classroom, I trust.”

William Henry gave him a withering look. “Dadda, I am an angel in the classroom! I did not get the cane once. A lot of the boys got it a lot, and one boy fainted when he got thirty. Thirty is a walloping lot. But I worked out how not to get caned.”

“Did you? How?”

“I keep quiet and do my writing and my sums tidily.”

“Yes, William Henry, I know that technique well. Did the big boys make you cry when you were let out to play?”

“You mean when they lined all of us up in the privies?”

“They still do that, do they?”

“Well, they did to us. But I just wrote on the privy wall with the big piece of pooh Jones Major did on my hand—most of it missed—and then they left me alone. Johnny says it is the best way. They pick on the boys who howl and carry on.” He gave a particularly high skip. “I wiped my fingers on my coat. See?”

Mouth rigid, Richard eyed the brown smear across the skirt of William Henry’s brand-new, mushroom-colored coat and swallowed convulsively several times. Do not laugh, Richard, for Christ’s sake do not laugh! “If I were you,” he said when he was able, “I would not mention the pooh incident to Mama. Or show her where you wiped it off. I will ask Grandmama to clean the mark.”

So Richard ushered his son into the Cooper’s Arms with an air of triumph only his father noticed. Peg squealed and scooped the hitherto tractable William Henry into her arms to cover his face with kisses, and was pushed away.

“Mama, do not do that! I am a big boy now! Grandpapa, I had such a good time today! I ran ten times around the yard, I fell over and hurt my knee, I made a whole row of a’s on my slate, and Mr. Simpson says I am so advanced for my age that he is going to put me up into the next class. Except that that don’t make sense. He teaches the next class too, and in the same place. Mama, my knee is a badge! Do not fuss so!”