ut here it was received with a wrathful
grunt--and then in his most magisterial manner the Doctor proceeded to
deliver himself.

"You have been guilty of a double breach of rules, in that you were
absent from calling-over--for a part of which, by virtue of your office,
you were personally responsible--and you were late for chapel. It is no
excuse to say that your watch stopped; if that were any valid reason,
why then half the school might stay away from calling-over, and, indeed,
we might as well do away with calling-over altogether, or any other
rule. For a prefect to break the rules, which it is his bounden duty to
help in enforcing--to do which, indeed, is the very reason of his
official existence--has always been, in my eyes, a ten times greater
offence than the same conduct on the part of a junior.

"Now, over and above this double breach of the rules you have been
guilty of two further and very serious offences. You have disturbed the
decorum and dignity of divine service by entering the chapel in the way
you did, and you practised deceit in making that entrance in such manner
that you hoped it would escape my observation. Let me tell you that
nothing escapes my observation--"

"No, by Jingo it doesn't!" thought the delinquent, ruefully.

"--and of late that observation has convinced me that you are unfit to
hold the office you bear, for I have had you specially under my notice
for some time past. As, therefore, you have proved yourself utterly
unfit to hold office, I have made up my mind to deprive you of it, and
you may now consider yourself no longer a prefect."

Here Haviland broke in desperately:--

"Sir, has there ever been any report against me--I mean of any disorder
arising where I was in charge?"

The unheard-of audacity of this expostulation seemed to take away the
Doctor's breath, to render him utterly speechless. _He_ to be answered,
remonstrated with! Why, the thing was unprecedented!

"Silence, sir!" he thundered, rising in his seat, and Haviland thought
he was going to strike him. However, he did not, and went on:--

"And as you have abused the reasonable liberty which the rules of the
school allow--and that not once, but continually--thus setting a bad
example where it was your duty to set a good one, you will be confined
to the school grounds from now until the end of the term. You may go."

Seen from the windows of the somewhat sombre room in which he stood, the
fair open cou