. It was understood by all that the
school would lose prestige and efficiency if Haddon and McKnight were not
taken and at once subjected to the rules of the establishment and the rod
of the master.

The meeting was quite informal. It was held in the bar, and the
discussion of the vital matter in hand was concurrent with the absorption
of McMahon's beer. Mr. Ham's best attention was given to the latter
object.

'Bring the boys to me, gentlemen,' he said, 'and I will undertake to
induce in them a wholesome contrition and a proper respect for
letters--temporarily, at least.'

Neither of the lads had yet returned to his home; but the paternal
McKnight promised, like a good citizen, that immediately his son was
available he would be reduced to subjection with a length of belting, and
then handed over to the will of the scholastic authority without any
reservation. Mr. McKnight was commended for his public spirit; and it was
then agreed that a member of the Committee should wait upon Widow Haddon
to invite her co-operation, and point out the extent to which her son's
mental and moral development would be retarded by a display of weakness
on her part at a crisis of this kind?

Mr. Ephraim Shine volunteered for this duty. Ephraim was a tall gaunt
man, with hollow cheeks, a leathery complexion, and large feet. He walked
or sat with his eyes continually fixed upon these feet--reproachfully, it
seemed--as if their disproportion were a source of perennial woe; he
carried his arms looped behind him, and had acquired a peculiar stoop--to
facilitate his vigilant guardianship of his feet, apparently. Mr. Shine,
as superintendent of the Waddy Wesleyan Chapel, represented a party that
had long since broken away from the School Committee, which was condemned
in prayer as licentious and ungodly, and left to its wickedness when it
exhibited a determination to stand by Joel Ham, a scoffer and a drinker
of strong drinks, as against a respectable, if comparatively unlettered,
nominee of the Chapel and the Band of Hope. His presence at the committee
meeting to-night was noted with surprise, although it excited no remark;
and his offer to interview the widow was accepted with gratitude as a
patriotic proposal. There was only one dissentient--Rogers, a burly
faceman from the Silver Stream.

'Don't send Shine to cant an' snuffle, an' preach the poor woman into a
fit o' the miserables,' he said.

Ephraim lifted his patient eyes to Rogers's