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 ever as he ordered his steak.

On his way home he knocked at the door of the town sergeant, Thomas Trebilcock, a septuagenarian, more commonly known as Pretty Tommy.  The town sergeant was out in the country, picking mushrooms; but his youngest granddaughter, who opened the door, promised to send him along to the mayor’s office as soon as ever he returned.

At ten o’clock, or a little later, Pretty Tommy presented himself, and found Mr Pinsent at his desk engaged in complacent study of a sheet of manuscript, to which he had just attached his signature.

‘I think this will do,’ said Mr Pinsent, with a twinkle, and he recited the composition aloud.

Pretty Tommy, having adjusted his horn spectacles, took the paper and read it through laboriously.

‘You want me to cry it through the town?’

‘Certainly.  You can fetch your bell, and go along with it at once.’

‘Your Worship knows best, o’ course.’  Pretty Tommy appeared to hesitate.

‘Why, what’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothin’,’ said Tommy, after a slow pause and another perusal, ’only ‘tis unusual—­unusual, and funny at the same time; an’ that’s always a risk.’  He paused again for a moment, and his face brightened.  ‘But there!’ he said, ’’tis a risk you’re accustomed to by this time.’

Half an hour later the sound of the town sergeant’s bell at the end of the street called tradesmen from their benches and housewives from their kitchens to hear the following proclamation, to which Tommy had done honour by donning his official robe (of blue, gold-laced) with a scarlet pelisse and a cocked hat.  A majestic figure he made, too, standing in the middle of the roadway with spectacles on nose, and the great handbell tucked under his arm—­