ows, eh? We shall be quite a party. How do you do, boys?
Welcome back to your studies."

And the six boys came forward, all evidently in the lowest spirits, and
raised their tall hats with a studied politeness.

"Some old friends here, Bultitude," said the Doctor, impelling the
unwilling Paul towards the group. "You know Tipping, of course; Coker,
too, you've met before--and Coggs. How are you, Siggers? You're looking
well. Ah, by the way, I see a new face--Kiffin, I think? Kiffin, this is
Bultitude, who will make himself your mentor, I hope, and initiate you
into our various manners and customs."

And, with a horrible dream-like sense of unreality, Mr. Bultitude found
himself being greeted by several entire strangers with a degree of
warmth embarrassing in the extreme.

He would have liked to protest and declare himself there and then in his
true colours, but if this had been difficult alone with the Doctor under
the clock, it was impossible now, and he submitted ruefully enough to
their unwelcome advances.

Tipping, a tall, red-haired, raw-boned boy, with sleeves and trousers he
had outgrown, and immense boots, wrung Paul's hand with misdirected
energy, saying "how-de-do?" with a gruff superiority, mercifully
tempered by a touch of sheepishness.

Coggs and Coker welcomed him with open arms as an equal, while Siggers,
a short, slight, sharp-featured boy, with a very fashionable hat and
shirt-collars, and a horse-shoe pin, drawled, "How are you, old boy?"
with the languor of a confirmed man about town.

The other two were Biddlecomb, a boy with a blooming complexion and a
singularly sweet voice, and the new-comer, Kiffin, who did not seem much
more at home in the society of other boys than Mr. Bultitude himself,
for he kept nervously away from them, shivering with the piteous
self-abandonment of an Italian greyhound.

Paul was now convinced that unless he exerted himself considerably, his
identity with his son would never even be questioned, and the danger
roused him to a sudden determination.

However his face and figure might belie him, nothing in his speech or
conduct should encourage the mistake. Whatever it might cost him to
overcome his fear of the Doctor, he would force himself to act and talk
ostentatiously, as much like his own ordinary self as possible, during
the journey down to Market Rodwell, so as to prepare the Doctor's mind
for the disclosures he meant to make at the earliest opportunity. He wa