estly dissent; Mr. Sawyer's looks were not,
in a sense, in his favour. It was not so much that he was downright
ugly--perhaps that would have mattered less--but he was _poor_ looking.
He had no presence, no self-assertion, and his very anxiety to conciliate
gave his manner a nervous indecision, in which the boys saw nothing but
cause for ridicule. He did not understand his pupils, and still less did
they understand him. But all the same he was a capital teacher, patient
and painstaking to the last degree, clear-headed himself, and with a
great power, when he forgot his nervousness in the interest of his
subject, of making it clear to the apprehensions of those about him. In
class it was impossible for the well-disposed of his pupils not to
respect him, and in time he might have fought his way to more, but
for one unfortunate circumstance--the unreasonable and unreasoning
prejudice against him throughout the whole school.

"Now our boys--Jack and Carlo--Jack, followed by Carlo, perhaps I should
say, for whatever Jack said Carlo thought right, wherever Jack led Carlo
came after--to do them justice, I must say, did not at once give in to
this unreasonable prejudice. Jack stuck to his resolution to judge Sawyer
by what he found him to be on further acquaintance, not to fly into a
dislike at first sight. And for some time nothing occurred to shake
Jack's opinion that not improbably the new master was better than his
looks. But Sawyer was shy and reserved; he liked Jack, and was in his
heart grateful to him for his respectful and friendly behaviour, and for
the good example he thereby set to his companions, only, unfortunately,
the junior master was no hand at expressing his appreciation of such
conduct. Unfortunately too, Jack's lessons were not his strong point, and
Mr. Sawyer, for all his nervousness, was so rigorously, so scrupulously
honest that he found it impossible to pass by without comment some or
much of Jack's unsatisfactory work. And Jack, though so honest himself,
was human, and _boy_-human, and it was not in boy-human nature to remain
perfectly unaffected by the remarks called forth by the new master's
frequent fault-finding.

"'It's just that you're too civil to him by half,' his companions would
say. 'He's a mean sneak, and thinks he can bully you without your
resenting it. _Wyngate_ would never have turned back those verses.'

"Or it would be insinuated how partial Sawyer was to little Castlefield,
'just b