y.'

'No, indeed, your Worship,' protested Mr Lupus, looking up with a
timid smile, as he drew off his spectacles and polished them.
'Your Worship is pleasant with me. I do assure you, gentlemen, that
my boys are very good boys, and give me scarcely any trouble.'

'That's because you sit at school in your daydreams, and don't take
note of the mischief that goes on around you. A set of anointed
young scoundrels, Mr Lupus!'

'You don't mean it, sir. Oh, to be sure you don't mean it! Your
Worship's funny way of putting things is well known, if I may say so.
But they are good boys, on the whole, very good boys; and you should
see the regularity with which they attend. I sometimes wish--meaning
no offence--that you gentlemen of position in the town would drop in
upon us a little oftener. It would give you a better idea of us,
indeed it would. For my boys are very good boys, and for regularity
of attendance we will challenge any school in Cornwall, sir, if you
will forgive my boasting.'

Now this suggestion of Mr Lupus, though delicately put, and in a
nervous flutter, ought by rights to have hit the mayor and Mr
Garraway hard; the pair of them being trustees of the charity under
which the Free Grammar School was administered. But in those days
few public men gave a thought to education, and Mr Lupus taught
school, year in and year out, obedient to his own conscience, his own
enthusiasms; unencouraged by visitation or word of advice from his
governors.

The mayor, to be sure, flushed red for a moment; but Mr Garraway's
withers were unwrung.

'That don't excuse their committing burglary and stealing his
Worship's pigeons,' said he. Briefly he told what had happened.

Mr Lupus adjusted and readjusted his spectacles, still in a nervous
flurry.

'You surprise me, gentlemen. It is unlike my boys--unlike all that I
have ever believed of them. You will excuse me, but if this be true,
I shall take it much to heart. So regular in attendance, and--
stealing pigeons, you say? Oh, be sure, sirs, I will give them a
talking-to--a severe talking-to--this very morning.'

The little schoolmaster went his way down the street in a flutter.
Mr Pinsent stared after him abstractedly.

'That man,' said he, after a long pause, 'ought to employ some one to
use his cane for him.'

With this, for no apparent reason, his eye brightened suddenly.
But the source of his inspiration he kept to himself. His manner was
jocular as e