tion of
grief.

Unhappily for him he found this safety-valve in a series of suppressed
but distinctly audible sniffs.

Mr. Bultitude bore this for some time with no other protest than an
occasional indignant bounce or a lowering frown in the offender's
direction, but at last his nerves, strung already to a high pitch by all
he had undergone, could stand it no longer.

"Dr. Grimstone," he said with polite determination, "I'm not a man to
complain without good reason, but really I must ask you to interfere.
Will you tell this boy here, on my right, either to control his feelings
or to cry into his pocket-handkerchief, like an ordinary human being? A
good honest bellow I can understand, but this infernal whiffling and
sniffing, sir, I will not put up with. It's nothing less than unnatural
in a boy of that size."

"Kiffin," said the Doctor, "are you crying?"

"N--no, sir," faltered Kiffin; "I--I think I must have caught cold,
sir."

"I hope you are telling me the truth, because I should be sorry to
believe you were beginning your new life in a spirit of captiousness and
rebellion. I'll have no mutineers in my camp. I'll establish a spirit of
trustful happiness and unmurmuring content in this school, if I have to
flog every boy in it as long as I can stand over him! As for you,
Richard Bultitude, I have no words to express my pain and disgust at the
heartless irreverence with which you persist in mimicking and
burlesquing a fond and excellent parent. Unless I perceive, sir, in a
very short time a due sense of your error and a lively repentance, my
disapproval will take a very practical form."

Mr. Bultitude fell back into his seat with a gasp. It was hard to be
accused of caricaturing one's own self, particularly when conscious of
entire innocence in that respect, but even this was slight in comparison
with the discovery that he had been so blindly deceiving himself!

The Doctor evidently had failed to penetrate his disguise, and the
dreaded scene of elaborate explanation must be gone through after all.

The boys (with the exception of Kiffin) still found exquisite enjoyment
in this extraordinary and original exhibition, and waited eagerly for
further experiment on the Doctor's patience.

They were soon gratified. If there was one thing Paul detested more than
another, it was the smell of peppermint--no less than three office boys
had been discharged by him because, as he alleged, they made the clerks'
room reek