uld
be good for them to be thrown in contact with the Kentish lads, and it
would sharpen the country wits of these.

"It's against all our traditions," said Sighs, when Mr. Perkins made the
suggestion to him. "We've rather gone out of our way to avoid the
contamination of boys from London."

"Oh, what nonsense!" said Mr. Perkins.

No one had ever told the form-master before that he talked nonsense, and
he was meditating an acid reply, in which perhaps he might insert a veiled
reference to hosiery, when Mr. Perkins in his impetuous way attacked him
outrageously.

"That house in the precincts--if you'd only marry I'd get the Chapter to
put another couple of stories on, and we'd make dormitories and studies,
and your wife could help you."

The elderly clergyman gasped. Why should he marry? He was fifty-seven, a
man couldn't marry at fifty-seven. He couldn't start looking after a house
at his time of life. He didn't want to marry. If the choice lay between
that and the country living he would much sooner resign. All he wanted now
was peace and quietness.

"I'm not thinking of marrying," he said.

Mr. Perkins looked at him with his dark, bright eyes, and if there was a
twinkle in them poor Sighs never saw it.

"What a pity! Couldn't you marry to oblige me? It would help me a great
deal with the Dean and Chapter when I suggest rebuilding your house."

But Mr. Perkins' most unpopular innovation was his system of taking
occasionally another man's form. He asked it as a favour, but after all it
was a favour which could not be refused, and as Tar, otherwise Mr. Turner,
said, it was undignified for all parties. He gave no warning, but after
morning prayers would say to one of the masters:

"I wonder if you'd mind taking the Sixth today at eleven. We'll change
over, shall we?"

They did not know whether this was usual at other schools, but certainly
it had never been done at Tercanbury. The results were curious. Mr.
Turner, who was the first victim, broke the news to his form that the
headmaster would take them for Latin that day, and on the pretence that
they might like to ask him a question or two so that they should not make
perfect fools of themselves, spent the last quarter of an hour of the
history lesson in construing for them the passage of Livy which had been
set for the day; but when he rejoined his class and looked at the paper on
which Mr. Perkins had written the marks, a surprise awaited him; for the
two