“You can tell your people,” he said to Hart Minor, “that my favourite is old Polly.”  Polly was Hart Minor’s nickname, which was given to him owing to his resemblance to a parrot.  Hart Minor was much pleased at this friendly attitude, and began to think that the unpleasant incident of the week had been really forgotten and that the misgiving which haunted him night and day was a foolish delusion.

“We shall soon be writing the half-term reports,” said Mr. Whitehead.  “You’ve all been doing well, especially old Polly:  you can put that in your letter,” he said to Hart Minor.  “I’m very much pleased with you,” and he chuckled.

On Monday morning at eleven o’clock was reading over.  When the fourth division were called up, the Head Master paused, looked down the page, then at the boys, then at the book once more; then he frowned.  There was a second pause, then he read out in icy tones:—­

“I’m sorry to say that Smith and Hart Minor have been found guilty of gross dishonesty; they combined—­in fact they entered into a conspiracy, to cheat, to steal marks and obtain by unfair means, a higher place and an advantage which was not due to them.”

The Head Master paused.  “Hart Minor and Smith,” he continued, “go to the bottom of the division.  Smith,” he added, “I’m astounded at you.  Your conduct in this affair is inexplicable.  If it were not for your previous record and good conduct, I should have you severely flogged; and if Hart Minor were not a new boy, I should treat him in the same way and have him turned out of the choir. (The choir had special privileges.) As it is, you shall lose, each of you, 200 marks, and I shall report the whole matter in detail to your parents in your half-term report, and if anything of the sort ever occurs again, you shall be severely punished.  You have been guilty of an act for which, were you not schoolboys, but grown up, you would be put in prison.  It is this kind of thing that leads people to penal servitude.”

After the reading over was finished and the lessons that followed immediately on it, and the boys went out to wash their hands for luncheon, the boys of the second division crowded round Hart Minor and asked him how he could have perpetrated such a horrible and daring crime.  The matter, however, was soon forgotten by the boys, but Hart Minor had not heard the last of it.  On the following Sunday in chapel, at the evening service, the Head Master preached a sermon.  He chose as his text “Thou shalt not steal!” The eyes of the whole school were fixed on Smith and Hart Minor.  The Head Master pointed out in his discourse that one might think at first sight that boys at a school might not have the opportunity to violate the tremendous Commandments; but, he said, this was not so.  The Commandments were as much a living actuality in school life as they were in the larger world.  Coming events cast their shadows before them; the child was the father of the man; what