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As may be imagined, the result of his interview with the head-master was never made public, and in the meantime Ronleians old and young were expressing their high approval of the conduct of their captain and his lieutenant.

The mice, you remember, passed a resolution in solemn conclave that their enemy, the old cat, should be belled: an excellent precaution, and only wanting one small thing to render it efficient no mouse would undertake to do it. To prefer a complaint to the dean of their head-master was a daring measure; such as the school, with all its hardihood, had never yet attempted.

The dean saluted Mr. Pye, and they walked out together. "It is impossible to keep them quiet unless one's eye is continually upon them!" exclaimed the head-master, half apologetically, as they came in view of the rebels. He had a great mind to add, "And one's cane." "Boys will be boys," said the dean.

He couldn't help associating them with former hours with his head-master or in the dean's office. Only he had respected his head-master and even the dean, whereas he was not at all sure he respected Mr. Benson and he was quite sure he did not respect Mr. Honaton.

The author, Thomas Hughes, was himself a Rugby boy, and many of the incidents of the story are drawn from his own experience. One of the most interesting things about the book is the picture it gives of Thomas Arnold, head-master of Rugby from 1828 to 1842. The influence for good of this famous scholar and educator, called affectionately "the doctor," can scarcely be overestimated.

They did not go into the house, but walked long up and down the garden, working themselves up into, if possible, stronger indignation, and concerting the explanation for to-morrow, when Dr. May meant to go at once to the head-master, and make him attend to the true version of the story, appealing to Harvey Anderson himself, Larkins, and many others, for witnesses.

"The punishment lies in abeyance for the present," explained Hamish. "A different punishment from any the head-master could inflict will be required, should should " Hamish stopped. He did not like to say, in the presence of his mother, "should the body be found." "Some of them are suffering pretty well, as it is," he continued, after a brief pause.

It was happy for them if some ambitious draper of their acquaintance had not brought up his son to the Church, and if that young gentleman, at the age of four-and-twenty, had not closed his college dissipations by an imprudent marriage; otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of doing the best for their offspring, could only escape the draper's son by happening to be on the foundation of a grammar-school as yet unvisited by commissioners, where two or three boys could have, all to themselves, the advantages of a large and lofty building, together with a head-master, toothless, dim-eyed and deaf, whose erudite indistinctness and inattention were engrossed by them at the rate of three hundred pounds a-head, a ripe scholar, doubtless, when first appointed; but all ripeness beneath the sun has a further stage less esteemed in the market.

"There ain't a boy in the school but what'll come to be hung!" danced old Ketch in his rage. He would have preferred not to find the keys; but to go to the head-master with a story of their theft. It was possible, it was just possible that, going, keys in hand, the master might refuse to believe his tale. Away he hobbled, and arrived at the house of the head-master. Check the first!

Nance, who also looked after the housekeeping; two serving-maids; and, during his holidays, the present writer. Grylls, and there entered me as a Commoner in the house of Dr. Burton, Head-master. To return to my father. He was, as the world goes, a mass of contrarieties.