erely morbid and hysterical,
and too often degenerate into Pharisaism, or worse still, hypocrisy.

So when he noticed Mr. Bultitude's silence and depression, his studied
withdrawal from the others and his evident want of sympathy with them,
he believed he saw the symptoms of a conscience at work, and that he had
found his reformed boy at last.

It was a very unfortunate misunderstanding, for it separated Paul from,
perhaps, the only person who would have had the guilelessness to believe
his incredible story, and the good nature to help him to find escape
from his misfortunes.

Mr. Bultitude on his part was more angry and disgusted than ever. He
began to see that there was a muddle somewhere, and that his identity
was unsuspected still. This young man, for all his fair speaking and
pretended shrewdness, was no conjurer after all. He was left to rely on
his own resources, and he had begun to lose all confidence in their
power to extricate him.

As he brooded over this, the boys straggled down as before, and looked
over their lessons for the day in a dull, lifeless manner. The cold,
unsatisfying breakfast, and the half-hour assigned to "chevy," followed
in due course, and after that Paul found himself set down with a class
to await the German master, Herr Stohwasser.

He had again tried to pull himself together and approach the Doctor with
his protest, but no sooner did he find himself near his presence than
his heart began to leap wildly and then retired down towards his boots,
leaving him hoarse, palpitating, and utterly blank of ideas.

It was no use--and he resigned himself for yet another day of unwelcome
instruction.

The class was in a little room on the basement floor, with a linen-press
taking up one side, some bare white deal tables and forms, and, on the
walls, a few coloured German prints. They sat there talking and
laughing, taking no notice of Mr. Bultitude, until the German master
made his appearance.

He was by no means a formidable person, though stout and tall. He wore
big round owlish spectacles, and his pale broad face and long nose,
combined with a wild crop of light hair and a fierce beard, gave him the
incongruous appearance of a sheep looking out of a gun-port.

He took his place with an air of tremendous determination to enforce a
hard morning's work on the book they were reading--a play of Schiller's,
of the plot of which, it is needless to say, no one of his pupils had or
cared to have