rading
that meant making money; so that take him altogether, he was what people
call "a warm man," one who buttoned up his breeches-pockets tightly, and
slapped them, as much as to say, "I don't care a pin for a soul--I'm too
independent for that."

This was the gentleman who, tightly buttoned up in his best coat, and
looking, all the same, as if he still had his shop-apron tied, walked
importantly into the school with his hat on, and nodded shortly as the
girls began to rise and make bobs, the curtseys being addressed to the
broadcloth coat more than to Mr Piper himself, a gentleman of whom all
the elder girls had bought sweets, and who was associated in their minds
with the rattling and clinking of copper scales with their weights. For
a goodly sum per annum was expended by the Plumton school children in
delicacies, a fact due to the kindness of Mr William Forth Burge, who
always went down the town with half-a-crown's worth of the cleanest
halfpennies he could get, a large supply of which was always kept for
him by Mr Piper's young man, who even went so far as to give them
a-shake-up in a large worsted stocking with some sand and a sprinkling
of vitriol, knowing full well that these halfpence were pretty sure to
come to him again in the course of trade.

It was, then, to Mr Piper's best coat that the girls made their bobs,
that gentleman being held in small respect. In fact as soon as he
entered Feelier Potts went round her class, insisting upon every girl
accurately toeing the line; and then, whispering "Don't laugh," she
began to repeat the words of the national poet who wrote those touching,
interrogative lines beginning, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppers," and finishing off with, "Please, Mr Piper, I want a pen'orth
of pickled peppers."

"'Morning, Miss Thorne," said Mr Piper importantly, and speaking in his
best-coat voice, which was loud and brassy, and very different to
his mild, insinuating, "what's-the-next-article, ma'am,
yes-it-is-a-fine-morning" voice, which was used behind the counter, and
went with a smile.

"She ain't ready with that money, I'll lay a crown," said Mr Piper to
himself. Then aloud--"I have been getting Mr Chute's school pence,
Miss Thorne, to put in my accounts. I always collect the school money
once a year."

Just then the school-door opened quietly, unheard by Hazel and the
churchwarden, and also unnoticed by Miss Feelier Potts, who, forgetting
all promises of ame