ust got into jackets,
and had doubtless let him have many a sausage and mashed potatoes upon
deferred payment. The head boys assembled in conclave to consider what
steps should be taken, but hardly had they done so before Ernest knocked
timidly at the head-room door and took the bull by the horns by
explaining the facts as far as he could bring himself to do so. He made
a clean breast of everything except about the school list and the remarks
he had made about each boy's character. This infamy was more than he
could own to, and he kept his counsel concerning it. Fortunately he was
safe in doing so, for Dr Skinner, pedant and more than pedant though he
was, had still just sense enough to turn on Theobald in the matter of the
school list. Whether he resented being told that he did not know the
characters of his own boys, or whether he dreaded a scandal about the
school I know not, but when Theobald had handed him the list, over which
he had expended so much pains, Dr Skinner had cut him uncommonly short,
and had then and there, with more suavity than was usual with him,
committed it to the flames before Theobald's own eyes.

Ernest got off with the head boys easier than he expected. It was
admitted that the offence, heinous though it was, had been committed
under extenuating circumstances; the frankness with which the culprit had
confessed all, his evidently unfeigned remorse, and the fury with which
Dr Skinner was pursuing him tended to bring about a reaction in his
favour, as though he had been more sinned against than sinning.

As the half year wore on his spirits gradually revived, and when attacked
by one of his fits of self-abasement he was in some degree consoled by
having found out that even his father and mother, whom he had supposed so
immaculate, were no better than they should be. About the fifth of
November it was a school custom to meet on a certain common not far from
Roughborough and burn somebody in effigy, this being the compromise
arrived at in the matter of fireworks and Guy Fawkes festivities. This
year it was decided that Pontifex's governor should be the victim, and
Ernest though a good deal exercised in mind as to what he ought to do, in
the end saw no sufficient reason for holding aloof from proceedings
which, as he justly remarked, could not do his father any harm.

It so happened that the bishop had held a confirmation at the school on
the fifth of November. Dr Skinner had not quite li