nd of an inquiry about
the Ouse--its source, tributaries course, and the chief towns upon its
banks.

"Well, hang me if I could tell him," said Canninge; "and I shall be
surprised if the children do."

He was not surprised, for no satisfactory answer came. The children
told the inspector the capital of England readily enough, and the names
of the principal rivers; but his way was so strange to them that for the
most part the little things did not comprehend his questions, and
Hazel's heart sank as she sighed for the apparent density that had
fallen upon the different classes.

Everything went badly: the writing from dictation was terrible, and the
sentences made of the words read out by the inspector were horribly void
of meaning. The Reverend Henry Lambent's face grew more troubled, the
ladies whispered together, and the buzz of the school seemed to Hazel to
make her dizzy, as she strove hard, with her nerves strained by
excitement, to keep the different classes in order, while every time she
thought of the ordeal that had to come, she turned sick with misery, and
longed for the end of the day.

"I should like to punch his 'ead, Betsey," whispered Mr William Forth
Burge at last. "What's the good of asking them children a queshtun like
that! They can't make out a word he says."

"Hush! Don't interfere, Bill. It might make Miss Thorne more nervous.
Pore dear, she do look bad."

"I don't know as I shan't interfere," whispered back the great man of
Plumton. "I consider that I've got a bit of a voice in this school, and
I don't see no fun in this chap going away saying that everything's
wrong when I know it ain't. How can he tell, just coming strange among
the bairns, and asking a few queshtuns anyhow like! If they don't
answer 'em he sets it down they can't, when I know all the time they
can."

"But you'll make it worse for Miss Thorne," whispered little Miss Burge;
"and she's worried to death as it is."

"Well, I don't want to do that," he said sulkily; and he held his tongue
whilst class after class was examined, even those children who were
tried in catechism mixing the answers up in the most absurd way, or
staring helplessly in the speaker's face.

"I don't care," whispered Mr William Forth Burge at last; "he don't
know how to ask queshtuns, and for two pins I'd tell him so; now then."

"Oh don't, Bill dear; it would not be gentlemanly. Pray do be quiet."

"Look here, then; if Lambent asks me up