“Hullo, Brown! here’s something for you,” called out the reading man. “Why, your old master, Arnold of Rugby, is dead.”

Tom’s hand stopped half-way in his cast, and his line and flies went all tangling round and round his fishing-rod; you might have knocked him over with a feather.

Neither of his companions took any notice of him, luckily; and with a violent effort he set to work mechanically to disentangle his line. He felt completely[123] carried off his moral and intellectual legs, as if he had lost his standing-point in the invisible world. Besides which, the deep loving loyalty he felt for his old l............