TAKING FRENCH LEAVE.

"IT'S the last day of the fair at Bristol, uncle; I suppose I may go. It will only be missing one afternoon at school, and that doesn't matter a bit. I may go, Uncle Zach, mayn't I?"

"I am sorry to disappoint you, Davey, but I am obliged to say no. You are not so well up in your lessons that you can afford to play truant for an afternoon. Besides, you can't go without money, and I have none to spare, to say nothing of the chance of your getting into mischief at the fair, where there are always some bad characters about."

"But, uncle, there's to be a circus, and a man showing off some wild beasts he's tamed, and there's swings, and merry-go-rounds, and conjurers, and lots of other things."

"That may well be, my boy," replied Zachariah Coleman, with a wise little nod which Davey thought extremely provoking. "But all this does not alter the fact that you're a dull boy at school, always at the bottom of your class, and that you haven't yet mastered the three R's; and, therefore—"

"But, Uncle Zach—"

"Enough! Enough, Davey!" said his aunt, a prim, but kindly-looking little woman, with cheeks like a russet apple. She had kept silence hitherto, seemingly absorbed in darning one of her husband's huge socks, but now she could not refrain from putting in her word.

"Tease your uncle no more, my boy. He has never denied you anything that was for your good. Ah, Davey, I dread lest I should see in you that spirit of disobedience and restless adventure that made your brother run away from home. Your mother never recovered from that shock, and died when you were but two years old, and your father wasn't long in following. Beware of such a spirit as poor Harry's, my lad, unless you would bring down our grey hairs—your uncle's and mine—with sorrow to the grave. Haven't we brought you up like our own? And don't we love you as such? So, Davey, give up the fair like a man, and I'll make you a treacle posset and a dish of ginger snaps for your supper, when your lessons are done."

Davey was too full of his own wilful and rebellious thoughts just then to respond to his Aunt Patty's kind words. And had he not turned away at that moment, and left the room, good Mrs. Coleman and her husband could not but have noticed the sullen frown on his brow, the obstinate compression of his lips.

"I 'will' go to the fair!" he said, under his breath, as he closed the door after him. "I'll do as I please! And what's more, I'll get Tom Hughes to go with me. What if Uncle Zach has forbidden me to have anything to do with him! I am not a child to be wheedled, and coaxed, and forbidden, and punished. I'm thirteen, and not a fool either. There's other things to know beside the three R's uncle's always talking about; and how am I to learn them if I'm never to see the world at all?"

In spite of, or, indeed, because of the resolution he had come to, Davey at dinner-time said not another word about the fair, and good Aunt Patty thought he had entirely given up the idea.

"But aren't you starting for school rather too early, child?" she said, as Davey appeared at the kitchen door with his cap on.

"There's no harm, surely, in being there a bit sooner, is there, Aunt Patty?" said the lad, a flush deepening the colour in his brown cheek; for he was not used to deception, and could not control his face.

"No, lad, no," replied Mrs. Coleman, "I won't scold you for that; and now you've been such a good boy, and given up the fair, I've none but praise for you. Good-bye, dear."

Aunt Patty's voice and words were kind, and for a moment Davey's heart almost relented, for he felt dreadfully guilty in deceiving anyone so good and trusting as this old aunt of his, who had been a real mother to him ever since he could remember.

For a moment or two he stood on the doorstep irresolute, but the thought of the fair and all its many attractions overcame the feeble scruples of his conscience. With a "Good-bye," which he tried to make as natural as possible, though his heart was beating wildly, and his voice felt choked and queer, he left the cottage, and running down a little lane, which extended for some distance at the back of the row of houses, he paused at one of them, looked up at an open window, and gave a low whistle.

An evil-looking face, set on a pair of misshapen shoulders, appeared at a window a moment, then vanished, and almost at once a lad of about sixteen (but so stunted and deformed that he was no taller than Davey) came out and closed the door softly behind him.

"Gran's having a nap," said he with a grin; "so it's a good time for me to get away."

"And what about your master, the cobbler, that you're 'prenticed to, Tom? Did he give you a holiday?" said Davey.

"Well no, leastways, not exactly," replied the youth, with a leer and a chuckle. "But what about yourself, Davey! Did old Zach and Patty think better of it, and allow you to go?"

"Well no, leastways, not exactly," said Davey, with a feeble imitation of Tom's impudent manner and ugly leer.

"Oh, I see!" remarked the lad, as he walked with long, crooked strides by Davey's side. "Well, I'm glad you've took your own way at last. It'll make a man of you, it will. But now let's think about the fair! Have you any money?"

"Only this," said Davey, taking out a few coppers which proved to be about sevenpence.

"We shall want more than this for the show," remarked Tom, coolly. "Why, half a crown is nothing at a fair."

"But haven't you any money?" inquired Davey.

"Course not!" said Tom with a grin. "You stand treat for us both. That's only fair, if I show you round and have all the trouble of you. Ain't it?"

"Well," rejoined Davey, despondingly, "I don't see what the two of us are to do with only sevenpence."

"My, Davey, you are a soft one," said Tom, laughing heartily. "What have you got in your pockets? Let's have a look?"

So Davey obediently took out first a very decent knife—his uncle's present to him last Christmas; then a red-bordered linen handkerchief, a knitted woollen scarf, and, lastly, a small compass set in silver.

"Good!" said Tom, with a covetous glance, which took in all the articles, dwelling longest, however, upon the compass. "We'll carry all these to the pawnshop, and get enough on them to have a royal time."

"The 'kerchief, scarf and knife, if you please," interposed Davey, "but not the compass. That's Uncle Zach's, and it was only lent me to show a friend, but I forgot to give it back. Don't put the compass in your pocket, Tom, do you hear?"

"Hold your tongue, you baby!" cried Tom. "Surely it's as safe in my pocket as in yours. Come along, or we shall never get to the fair."

It was decided that Tom should go alone into the pawnshop, for Davey was shy of entering; but he put his hand on the elder lad's arm ere Tom passed in at the dingy door.

"Now mind, Tom," said he, "that compass is not mine, and I won't have anything done with it."

Tom nodded and laughed, and vanished into the shop, while Davey, feeling profoundly distrustful of his companion, and much exercised in his mind generally, waited outside, counting the watches that hung in a long row across the dusty window, and studying the dreary placard above them, bearing the ominous words, "Unredeemed Pledges."

He did not, however, have to wait long. Tom was out in a very few moments, and presently the boys had left the village behind them.

"Well, what have you got on those three things?" asked Davey, as the lads walked together along the country road.

Tom put his hand in his pocket, and jingled some coins.

"Enough to see pretty well everything," said he. "Come along, Davey."

"But please give me Uncle Zach's compass, Tom. I'd feel safer to carry it myself. I would indeed," said Davey earnestly.

"Would you, then?" replied the hunchback. "Would you really? Well then, little boys can't have everything they want, and I must say no to that, and if you're wise, you'll hold your tongue about it."

Davey was about to protest, when Tom pointed to a horse and light two-wheeled cart standing by a gate leading into a field.

"Look at that," said he; "where's the driver, I wonder!" And Tom peered through the gate in all directions.

"He's nowhere to be seen," said Davey, "but what do you want with him, Tom?"

"Want with him? Oh nothing, thank you," said Tom, derisively. "I should think not! I was only thinking how quick this nag could get us to the fair."