ed to such an extreme measure as your
public expulsion--"

Now the excitement had reached its height. Haviland was going to be
swished, not expelled, decided the spectators, but--would he take it?
Haviland standing there, his lips compressed, a set frown on his brow,
was of the same opinion, except that he himself, and he only, held the
answer to the question. He would not take it--no, decidedly not. They
might expel him and welcome, he did not care, he was past caring; but
submit to the indignity of a flogging at his age he would not.

"Therefore," continued the Doctor, "I shall take time to consider so
grave and painful a matter; and, meanwhile, you will be withdrawn from
all intercourse or contact with the rest of the school. Anthony I
shall, of course, soundly flog. I shall also flog Smithson minor and
Mcmurdo; and, as for the other boys in the dormitory, on this occasion I
shall confine myself to severely warning them."

There was a sort of audible sensation among the listeners, but it was
nothing to what followed. For now Haviland lifted up his voice:--

"Please, sir, Smithson and Mcmurdo had no more to do with it than the
man in the moon."

The Doctor frowned as he gazed sternly at the speaker.

"Keep silence," he said, in a curt tone. Haviland obeyed. He had made
his protest in the name of fair play. He was not concerned to take any
further risks. But those who saw--those who heard--was ever such a
thing witnessed before at Saint Kirwin's? The Doctor--the awful, the
dreaded Doctor--expostulated with, and that before the whole school!
Why did not the very heavens fall?

The public floggings at Saint Kirwin's were public in the sense that
they could be heard by all but seen by none, for they took place in a
small room adjoining the big schoolroom, and the audience were able to
estimate how each of the victims "took it." In the present instance,
Smithson and Mcmurdo got off with a comparatively slight infliction,
and, beyond a smothered yelp or two, "took it" well. But when it came
to Anthony's turn, they wondered if it was going on for ever. He
received, in fact, a most relentless swishing, but for all the sound
that escaped him--whether of cry or groan--he might just as well not be
undergoing chastisement at all. The school was lost in admiration of
his pluck and endurance; and, afterwards, when he emerged, showing no
sign of pain, but scowling savagely, and muttering in his own tongue--
th