ing, indignant eloquence
crowded confusedly into his head--he would write such letters as would
carry instant conviction to the most practical and matter-of-fact
minds. The pathos and dignity of his remonstrances should melt even
Dick's selfish, callous heart.

Perhaps he overrated the power of his pen--perhaps it would have
required more than mere ink to persuade his friends to disbelieve their
own senses, and see a portly citizen of over fifty packed into the frame
of a chubby urchin of fourteen. But, at all events, no one's faith was
put to so hard a test--those letters were never written.

"Don't begin to write yet, any of you," said the Doctor; "I have a few
words to say to you first. In most cases, and as a general rule, I think
it wisest to let every boy commit to paper whatever his feelings may
dictate to him. I wish to claim no censorship over the style and diction
of your letters. But there have been so many complaints lately from the
parents of some of the less advanced of you, that I find myself obliged
to make a change. Your father particularly, Richard Bultitude," he
added, turning suddenly upon the unlucky Paul, "has complained bitterly
of the slovenly tone and phrasing of your correspondence; he said very
justly that they would disgrace a stable-boy, and unless I could induce
you to improve them, he begged he might not be annoyed by them in
future."

It was by no means the least galling part of Mr. Bultitude's trials,
that former forgotten words and deeds of his in his original condition
were constantly turning up at critical seasons, and plunging him deeper
into the morass just when he saw some prospect of gaining firm ground.

So, on this occasion, he did remember that, being in a more than usually
bad temper one day last year, he had, on receiving a sprawling,
ill-spelt application from Dick for more pocket-money, to buy fireworks
for the 5th of November, written to make some such complaint to the
schoolmaster. He waited anxiously for the Doctor's next words; he might
want to read the letters before they were sent off, in which case Paul
would not be displeased, for it would be an easier and less dangerous
way of putting the Doctor in possession of the facts.

But his complaints were to be honoured by a much more effectual remedy,
for it naturally piqued the Doctor to be told that boys instructed under
his auspices wrote like stable-boys. "However," he went on, "I wish your
people at home to be a