usher in a school, and a very poor man."

He paused; looked up at Miss Belcher, who had squared her elbows on
the table in very unladylike fashion; and cleared his throat before
proceeding--

"You will excuse me for mentioning this, but it is an essential part
of my story."

"The Stimcoes," suggested Miss Belcher, "didn't pay up--eh?"

"Mr. Stimcoe--though a scholar, ma'am--has suffered from time to time
from pecuniary embarrassment."

"--Traceable to drink," interpolated Miss Belcher, with a nod towards
Plinny. "No, sir; you need not look at Harry: _he_ has told us
nothing. I formed my own conclusions."

"Mrs. Stimcoe, ma'am--for I should tell you she keeps the purse--is
too often unable to make two ends meet, as the saying is. I believe
she paid when she could, but somehow my salary has always been in
arrear. I have used remonstrance with her, before now, to a degree
which it shames me to remember; yet, in spite of it, I have sometimes
found myself on a Saturday, after a week's work, without a loaf of
bread in the cupboard. I doubt, ma'am, if any one who has not
experienced it can wholly understand the power of mere hunger to
degrade a man; to what lengths he can be urged, willy-nilly, as it
were, by the instinct to satisfy it. There were Sabbaths, ma'am,
when to attend divine worship seemed a mockery; the craving drove me
away from all congregations of Christian men and out into the fields,
where--I tell it with shame, ma'am--I have stolen turnips and eaten
them raw, loathing the deed even worse than I loathed the vegetable,
for the taste of which--I may say--I have a singular aversion.
Well, among my pupils was Harry here, whom I discovered to be the son
of an old friend of mine. I dare to call the late Major James Brooks
a friend in spite of the difference between our stations in life--a
difference he himself was good enough to forget. Our acquaintance
began on the _Londonderry_ transport, which I commanded, and in which
I brought him home from Corunna to Plymouth in the January of 1809.
It ended with the conclusion of that short and anxious passage.
But I had always remembered Major Brooks as one who approached, if
ever man did, the ideal of an officer and a gentleman. Now at first,
ladies, the discovery suggested no thought to me beyond the
pleasure of knowing that my old friend was alive and hale, and the
hope of seeing Harry grow up to be as good a man as his father.
But by-and-by I found a th