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"You'll find my family in there, and inside a rail of their own. And you needn't think I wanted that prize. _I_'ve got a grandfather."

So, no doubt, had Thompson; but, to find him, he must have consulted the parish books and searched among the graves at the northern end of the burial-ground for one decorated with a tin label and the number 2054. He gazed in at the sacred acre of the Jenkinses and the monuments emblazoned with "J.P.," "Recorder of this Borough," "Clerk of the Peace for the County," and other proud appendices in gilt lettering: and, in the heat of his heart, turned upon Jenkins _major_.

"You just wait till we die, and see which of us two has the finer tombstone!"

Thereupon he stalked home and read the _Memoirs of Eminent Etonians_, and learnt from their perusal that it was indeed possible to earn a finer tombstone than any Jenkins possessed. At the end of the Christmas term, too, he acquired a copy of Dr. Smiles's famous work on _Self-Help_, and this really set his feet in the path to his desire.

He determined, after weighing the matter carefully, to be a poet: for it s