d Vince quickly; "it's too bad, and I'm very sorry.
There!"

"Thank you, Burnet," said the tutor, smiling. "It's what I expected
from your frank, manly nature."

"Oh, and I'm sorry too," said Mike quickly; but he frowned slightly, for
the speaker had not called him frank and manly.

"I have no more to say," said the tutor, smiling at both in turn; "and I
suppose I ought to apologise for insisting upon seeing that paper. I am
glad to find that it was not of so trifling a nature as I thought for on
Michael Ladelle's part, though I am sorry that you, Burnet, treated the
note he passed you in so ribald a way. `You be hanged!' is hardly a
gentlemanly way of replying to a historical memorandum or query such as
this: `Lanthorn and rope.' Of course, I see the turn your thoughts had
taken, Michael."

The boys stared at him wonderingly. While they had been suspecting old
Joe Daygo of watching them, had Mr Deane been quietly observing them
unnoticed, and had he divined that they were going to take lanthorn and
rope that afternoon?

"Of course, history is a grand study," continued the tutor, "and I am
glad to see that you have a leaning in that direction; but I like to be
thorough. When we are having lessons on history let us give our minds
to it, but when we are treating of algebra let us try to master that.
There--we will say no more. I am glad, though, that you recall our
reading; but try, Michael, to remember some of the other important parts
of French history, and don't let your mind dwell too much upon the
horrors of the Revolution. It is very terrible, all that about the
excesses of the mob and their mad hatred of the nobility and gentry--_A
bas les aristocrates_! and their cry, _A la lanterne_! Yes: very
terrible those ruthless executions with the lanthorn and the rope. But
now, please, I have finished that compound equation. Pray go on with
yours."

The two lads bent down now earnestly to their work, and with a little
help mastered the puzzle which had seemed hopeless a short time before.
Then the rest of the morning glided away rapidly, and Vince hurried off
home to his midday dinner, after a word or two about meeting, which was
to be at the side of the dwarf-oak wood, to which each was to make his
way so as not to excite attention, and in case, as Vince still believed,
Daygo really was keeping an eye upon their movements.

"I thought as much," said Vince aloud, as he reached the appointed
place, with