The awful moment had come.  What on earth did chez-malades mean?  Was he to answer yes or no?  In his ignorance of her meaning, either reply might prove offensive.  He reddened, fidgeted on his chair, looked about him with an anguished mute appeal for help.  Mrs. Tootle repeated her question with emphasis and a change of countenance which he knew too well.  The poor fellow had not the tact to appear to understand, and, as he might easily have done, mystify her by some idiomatic remark.  He stammered out his apologies and excuses, with the effect of making Mrs. Tootle furious.

Then followed a terrible hour, at the end of which poor Egger rushed down to the Masters’ Room, covered his head with his hands and wept, regardless of the boy strumming his exercises on the piano.  Waymark shortly came in to summon him to some other class, whereupon he rose, and, with gestures of despair, groaned out—­

“Let me, let me!—­I have made my possible; I can no more!”

Waymark alone feared neither Mrs. Tootle nor her hopeful son, and, in turn, was held in some little awe by both of them.  The lady had at first tried the effect of interfering in his classes, as she did in those of the other masters, but the result was not encouraging.

“Don’t you think, Mr. Waymark,” she had said one day, as she walked through the school-room and paused to listen to our friend’s explanation of some rule in English grammar; “don’t you think it would be better to confine yourself to the terms of the doctor’s little compendium?  The boys are used to it.”

“In this case,” replied Waymark calmly, “I think the terms of the compendium are rather too technical for the fourth class.”

“Still, it is customary in this school to use the compendium, and it has never yet been found unsatisfactory.  Whilst you are discoursing at such length, I observe your class gets very disorderly.”

Waymark looked at her, but kept silence.  Mrs. Tootle stood still.

“What are you waiting for, Mr. Waymark?” she asked sharply.

“Till your presence has ceased to distract the boys’ attention, Mrs. Tootle,” was the straightforward reply.

The woman was disconcerted, and, as Waymark preserved his calm silence, she had no alternative but to withdraw, after giving him a look not easily forgotten.

But there was another person whose sufferings under the tyranny of mother and children were perhaps keenest of all.  Waymark had frequent opportunities of observing Miss Enderby under persecution, and learned to recognise in her the signs of acutest misery.  Many times he left the room, rather than add to her pain by his presence; very often it was as much as he could do to refrain from taking her part, and defending her against Mrs. Tootle.  He had never been formally introduced to Miss Enderby, and during several weeks held no kind of communication with her beyond a “good morning” when he entered the room and found