Then the locum tenens, who, being a 'douce' old gentleman, was naturally nicknamed 'Aulus the Dictator, the man of seventy fights' (an exaggerated reference to the occasional tiffs' he had with his subordinates), allowed things to get a good deal worse.

At the mere incredible announcement that possibly for a whole term there would be no head-master but 'old 'Vice gave a wanton kick of delight, and Indolence drew the bedclothes over its head, resolved to be more indolent than ever. The school, judged by its general appearance and public manners, was beginning to wear the air of an undisciplined and embarrassing mob, while individually Impudence and Disobedience blossomed forth on every side with alarming rapidity; and the relations of boys with masters on the inevitable odisse quos læseris principle became so strained as to involve the latter, bad and good, in one comprehensive atmosphere of unpopularity.

Perhaps they were not much of a staff. Three or four of them had scarcely spent a year at Whigbury. In any case they lived during Tavender's last term in a mood of irritable timidity not conducive to the maintenance of order. Punishments, small and great, became so regrettably frequent as to be almost regarded as a praiseworthy distinction, and not merely a conventional martyrdom.

Every reader who has ever formed part of a school or college will know how easily and naturally-given certain conditionssuch societies slide into a state irksome to almost all their members, and positively desired by none.

Individually, boys may be bad or good; in the mass, if not 'saved from themselves' by the judicious influence of elders, they are simply capable of any atrocity. The born king of men who might have stemmed the ebb tide of Whigbury at that curious stage in its early career was non inventus, and the 'Masters' Council' became a sort of nervous Committee of Public Safety,' trembling for their own necks. The actual absurdity of the whole state of things to a casual spectator only intensified the tragedy to the sufferers.

Executions became so frequent that besides the orthodox 'switching hour of twelve,' when Aulus the Dictator presided in person in the Sixth' class-room, another time had to be appointed -to wit, 4.30 PM., after second school,' when one or more (usually two) masters attended by rota to finish off a second batch of the evildoers of the day. I don't know that two were really necessary, except to encourage one another at a time

when every master was beginning to feel very much what solitary Englishmen felt during the Indian Mutiny-which, by the way, occurred about that time.

In fact there did breathe a faint suspicion of actual intended revolt what time one Crabson, a scholar, one of those distinguished for intelligence and responsibility by the academic costume, was for the most indubitable of offences sentenced to the doom of a common 'Lower-form' malefactor. The sentence was, in truth, unusual; and though at other times scholars would have been left to mind their own affairs, faction was eagerly inflamed by the announcement of something which wore the air of a really promising public grievance. At the same time the unhappy authorities were more 'tried' than relieved by the rumour that the new head-master would probably be among them in a week, if not sooner. They would rather, the boldest said, have straightened out matters for themselves; while all secretly feared that the new head, whose reputation as a faddist had arrived before him, would, before he was well seated on the throne, assert himself with that severity which weak rulers often mistake for strength, by dealing out some disastrous measure of injustice both to the school and to those of the staff whom he might consider responsible for its disorderly condition.

The disorder, or at least the ill-feeling, naturally reached a crisis on the particular Wednesday for which the aforesaid Crabson was summonsed,' as the Whigburian phrase ran, and on which, as it happened, the head-master did at last arrive, a day earlier than he was expected, and just in time, it seemed, to mediate authoritatively between the rebellious masses and the irritated oligarchy. He arrived late, walking from the station (which is barely half a mile from the schoolhouse), and leaving his luggage to follow. According to the accepted account of his arrival, he met Tavender just outside the station, asked some question about the local omnibus, and engaged in conversation with him. A nicely bound volume peeped from Tavender's breast. 'You're fond of reading?' said his new house-master, in a shrill, boyish voice, somewhat anxiously making conversation. Only the "Decameron," sir,' said Tavender, producing the volume in answer to the implied question. A good book, isn't it, sir?' The head-master, who had never read the work, hedged himself securely by believing that it was a wonderful book.' He was a little surprised but favourably impressed by Tavender's appearance and manners as they walked up to the schoolhouse.

If Tavender was also struck by something in the headmaster, if he thereupon instantly conceived a scheme which in the grandeur of its immorality surpassed the most stupendous project of Napoleon, well-that was a matter purely between him and his conscience, which no one else could have divined.

It is certain that the head-master, in his anxiety to overtake lost time, expressed a wish to meet the staff, or such of them as could be got together, that very afternoon, instead of the following morning, when his formal accession was expected to take place. It is highly probable that Tavender, who in formal matters usually contrived to say and do the right thing, may have privately and politely put him en rapport with certain details of current school routine, proposed a convenient and suitable time and place, and offered to take a message. Only the last words of the colloquy were audible to the nearest bystander: 'In the class-room, then, sir, shall I say?' 'Yes.' The head-master thereupon went quickly into his new residence, and Tavender was observed to walk away, whistling very softly, and turning round the fives-balls he always carried in his coat pocket.

To return to the unfortunate affair of Crabson. Of the two masters appointed to officiate that afternoon, one was a big man, a newly imported University blue,' a burly 'mooning' fellow in spectacles, who, it is to be feared, concealed beneath his cerulean distinction something of the character of a hulking muff. The other was the Greek poet, a funny little creature with a skimpy beard, five hairs of which, it was estimated, trailed over one shoulder and three over the other. He could write better verse than Eschylus, though he might not have been of as much use at the battle of Marathon.

It must have been the affinity of their tastes for verse-making that had enabled Tavender to retain so much influence over the Greek poet, with whom he might have been seen conversing about three o'clock on the afternoon in question. The Greek poet, with characteristic astuteness, noticed at once that Tavender had something weighing on his mind. Even the announcement of the new head-master's arrival and the suggestion that that dignitary was in a towering rage and determined to assert the fullest rigour of the law, did not relieve the burden altogether.

From Tavender's obvious uneasiness the Greek poet began to conjecture—he had been very happy in some of his conjectures, which chiefly concerned the text of the 'Choëphoro '-that the boy must be guilty of some rebellious wrongdoing of which he

was now meditating a confession. A question hesitatingly dropped by Tavender about the ethics of 'what fellows call sneaking' diverted the current of his suspicions; and then, with the slightest encouragement, out came the whole gruesome story. Whether he ought to have encouraged this astute but, as it appeared, weak and self-seeking boy to play the traitor to one who had been, as every one knew, his staunch ally, the Greek poet was not really very sure within himself; but he was quite sure that the crisis was a serious one, and that he meant, as all inquisitive people mean, to use the knowledge he acquired for the highest possible ends.

The enormities of Tavender's tale at first filtered but slowly through the meshes of his brain. It recalled the family scandals of the Pelopida. Could it be that actual revolt, positive resistance to authority, was brewing? If so, he could understand the genuine alarm of Tavender. Few boys liked to face the responsibility of connivance at such a plot. Was it possible that Crabson, backed by a party of fanatics, meant to stand on his alleged rights as a scholar and refuse to- True, only a year or two before (the reader will remember that this was in the fifties, when public schools were neither so many nor so well governed as at present) a boy threatened with castigation had actually assaulted his headmaster with a weapon.

'Yes, but he was

'Mad,' urged the Greek poet confidently.

'So they said, sir, afterwards,' murmured Tavender; and the Head was an awful duffer, sir; and some fellows always think they can do anything in the world with some masters, sir.' This agonising home truth, so patent to the experience of every teacher, caused the Greek poet to shudder and nervously twist the odd hairs of his beard.

The Crabson plot, as gradually extracted from him, meant a formal protest by several scholars, followed by actual resistance. It was as dramatically complete as any plot could be, the methods for which were naturally drawn from classical literature. The conspirators, the poet understood, would be in hiding close by, perhaps in the room, as the door opened. Then, when Crabson addressed him, Mr. Lankernow, by his name, and while he argued and protested, they would rush forward, seize and destroy the instruments of castigation, make hay' in the class-room, and then bolt. That was all, said the informer, looking thoroughly miserable. Mr. Lankernow declined to discuss further the ethics

of sneaking, and hurried off, twirling the ragged ends of his beard more wildly than ever, in search of his colleague. Tavender repaired to his house, and, mastering his emotion, dictated to Filkins minor a short set of elegiacs so Ovidian that they involved that youth in disaster owing to his failure to live up to them under cross-examination.

The winter afternoon wore to its close, and the fatal half-hour of 4.30 approached. The Greek poet had confided to his colleague the astonishing revelation made by Tavender, but for the purposes of joint action the dregs of his courage failed him altogether at the last moment, and he sent a painfully transparent excuse.

'I like that,' said the University blue to himself, softly swearing as he wiped and adjusted his eyeglasses, leaving this infernal job to a new hand like myself; and I don't even know the young blackguard by sight. Besides, he knows I can hardly see a haystack. However, that won't matter. If he brings a gang of young ruffians I'll hide them all.' Primed with Lankernow's expectations of the worst, he took his stand in the classroom punctually at 4.29. Of ordinary courage for mere physical purposes, the nervous fear of unknown complications, of unpopularity, of failure at a great crisis, possessed him so completely that he stood against a pillar of the class-room, convulsively grasping a new birch-rod and shaking in every one of his huge limbs, a tragi-comic spectacle.

The one destined spectator, clad in the distinctive cap and gown, opened the door exactly at half-past four, and entered the halflighted room with an uncertain step.

'Mr. Lankernow, I believe?' said a squeaky voice.

'All right,' said the University blue, in a voice thick with congested emotion. 'He isn't here, but I shall do instead. Come in, and shut the door after you.'

The incomer shut the door, and advanced again. This is the 'Sixth' class-room, I believe, sir.'

'Cheek enough for nineteen!' reflected the other as he replied, with every nerve at strain from suspense and indignation, 'I believe, sir, you are right. Kindly step this way, and have the goodness to

'Excuse me,' remonstrated the squeaky voice in an accent as of pure amazement, this is not the usual or proper ——'

I'll show you what's usual and prop' thundered the University blue. He broke off and in one frantic stride was at