ng artists and blossoming jail-birds,
and in the same small desk sat the Brahmin youth and--Oh Merciful
Allah!--Moussa Isa, Somali.

The native gentleman in charge of the party from the Duri Reformatory
had duly escorted his charges into the hall, handed them over to Mr.
Edward Jones, the Head of the High School, and been requested to wait
outside with similar custodians of parties. (Mr. Edward Jones had known
very strange things to happen in Examination Halls to which the friends
and supporters of candidates had access during the examination.)

To Mr. Edward Jones the thus deserted Brahmin boy made frantic and
piteous appeal.

"Oh, Sir," prayed he, "let me sit somewhere else and not beside this
African."

"You'll stay where you are," replied Mr. Edward Jones, suspicious of the
appeal and the appellant. If the fat glib youth objected to the African
on principle, Mr. Edward Jones would be glad, metaphorically speaking,
to rub his Brahminical nose in it. If this were not his reason, it was,
doubtless, one even less creditable. Mr. Edward Jones had been in India
long enough to learn to look very carefully for the motive.

Moussa Isa licked his chops once again, and, as Mr. Jones turned away,
the unhappy Brahmin cried in his anguish of soul:--

"Oh, Sir! Watch this African carefully."

"All will be watched carefully," was the suspicious and cold reply.

Moussa smiled broadly upon his erstwhile contemptuous and insulting
enemy, and began to consider the possibilities of a long and
well-pointed lead-pencil as a means of vengeance. Pencils were intended
for marking fair surfaces--might one not be used on this occasion for
the cleaning of a sullied surface, that of a besmirched honour?

One insulter of the Somal race had died by the stab of a piece of broken
bottle. Might not another die by the stab of a lead-pencil?

Doubtful. Very risky. The stabbing and piercing potentialities of a lead
pencil are not yet properly investigated, tabulated, established and
known. It would be a pity to do small damage and incur a heavy
corn-grinding punishment. He might never get another chance of
vengeance either, if he bungled this one.

Well, there were three hours in which to decide ... and Moussa Isa
commenced to draw, pausing, from time to time, to smile meaningly at the
Brahmin, and to lick his chops suggestively. Anon he rested from his
highly uninteresting and valueless labours, laid his pencil on the desk,
and gazed aroun