the interviewing a
cook,--these and similar duties lent constant colour and variety to
his vacant life in London and helped to keep down his figure. When the
matter, however, had in our presence to be referred to with nods and
pronouns, with significant hiatuses and interpolations in the French
tongue, then the red flag was flown, the storm-cone hoisted, and by a
studious pretence of inattention we were not long in plucking out the
heart of the mystery.

To clinch our conclusion, we descended suddenly and together on Martha;
proceeding, however, not by simple inquiry as to facts,--that would
never have done,--but by informing her that the air was full of school
and that we knew all about it, and then challenging denial. Martha was
a trusty soul, but a bad witness for the defence, and we soon had it all
out of her. The word had gone forth, the school had been selected; the
necessary sheets were hemming even now; and Edward was the designated
and appointed victim.

It had always been before us as an inevitable bourne, this
strange unknown thing called school; and yet--perhaps I should say
consequently--we had never seriously set ourselves to consider what it
really meant. But now that the grim spectre loomed imminent, stretching
lean hands for one of our flock, it behoved us to face the situation,
to take soundings in this uncharted sea and find out whither we were
drifting. Unfortunately, the data in our possession were absolutely
insufficient, and we knew not whither to turn for exact information.
Uncle Thomas could have told us all about it, of course; he had been
there himself, once, in the dim and misty past. But an unfortunate
conviction, that Nature had intended him for a humourist, tainted all
his evidence, besides making it wearisome to hear. Again, of such among
our contemporaries as we had approached, the trumpets gave forth
an uncertain sound. According to some, it meant larks, revels,
emancipation, and a foretaste of the bliss of manhood. According to
others,--the majority, alas!--it was a private and peculiar Hades, that
could give the original institution points and a beating. When Edward
was observed to be swaggering round with a jaunty air and his chest
stuck out, I knew that he was contemplating his future from the one
point of view. When, on the contrary, he was subdued and unaggressive,
and sought the society of his sisters, I recognised that the other
aspect was in the ascendant. "You can always run