ted with sufficient money and control over the
operations of the Corporation to enable him to meet so unfounded a
charge? What would the Bishop of S-- or the other directors think if
they heard that a lady had come all the way from Dorsetshire to tell
them they were a set of swindlers and thieves? If he had had the
sending off of the orders to see to, he was confident he could have got
every one of them off by this time, even if he had made up every parcel
with his own hands.

What, in short, was the use of being called a secretary if he was armed
with no greater authority than a common junior clerk?

He opened the letter he had just written to Mr Medlock, and sat down to
write another, more aggrieved in its tone and more urgent in its request
that Mr Medlock would come down to Liverpool at once to arrange matters
on a more satisfactory footing. It was difficult to write a letter
which altogether pleased him; but at last he managed to do it, and for
fear his warmth should evaporate he went out to post it, locking the
office up behind him.

He took a walk before returning--the first he had taken for a week. It
was a beautiful crisp December day, when, even through the murky
atmosphere of Liverpool, the sun looked down joyously, and the blue sky,
flecked with little fleecy clouds, seemed to challenge the smoke and
steam of a thousand chimneys to touch its purity. Reginald's steps
turned away from the city, through a quiet suburb towards the country.
He would have to walk too far, he knew, to reach real open fields and
green lanes, but there was at least a suggestion of the country here
which to his weary mind was refreshing.

His walk took him past a large public school, in the playground of which
an exciting football match was in active progress. Like an old war
horse, Reginald gazed through the palings and snorted as the cry of
battle rose in the air.

"Hack it through, sir!" "Well run!" "Collar him there!"

As he heard those old familiar cries it seemed to him as if the old life
had come back to him with a sudden rush. He was no longer a poor baited
secretary, but a joyous school-boy, head of his form, lord and master of
half a dozen fags, and a caution and example to the whole junior school.
He had chums by the score; his study was always crowded with fellows
wanting him to do this or help them in that. How jolly to be popular!
How jolly, when the ball came out of the scrimmage, to hear every one
shou