p them. In your case, Pledge, I happen to know you yourself gave
Heathcote leave to go out more than once this term. I'm going to put a
stop to that."

"Are you really?" said Pledge.

"Yes," said Mansfield, flashing with his eyes, but otherwise cool.

Whereupon the meeting broke up.

Freckleton had by no means a congenial task before him.

All this term he had been unable to settle down in his hermit's cell.
Mansfield had always been bringing him out for this and that special
duty, till he was becoming quite a public character; and, unfortunately
for him, he had done the few services for which he had been told off so
well, that Mansfield had no notion whatever of letting him crawl back to
obscurity.

The Captain knew what he was about in selecting the Hermit to open the
campaign against the "Select Sociables." A secret lawless society in a
school is like a secret lawless society in a country--a pest to be dealt
with carefully. Mansfield knew well enough that he himself was not the
man to do it; nor was the downright Cresswell, nor the hot-headed
Cartwright. It needed the wisdom of the serpent as well as the paw of
the lion to do it, and if anyone was likely to succeed, it was
Freckleton.

For Freckleton, hermit as he was, seemed to know more about every fellow
in Templeton than anyone else. Where and when he made their
acquaintance, no one knew and no one inquired. But certain it was no
one knew the weak points of this boy and the good points of that better
than he. And, as we have seen already, he was a "dark" man; hardly
anyone knew him. They knew he had won the Bishop's Scholarship and was
reputed prodigiously learned. For the rest, except that he was harmless
and kindly, fellows hardly seemed to know him at all. The "Select
Sociables" were in full congress. They had instituted a fine of a penny
for non-attendance, which had worked wonders. And to-night every member
was in his place, except only Heathcote and Coote, who, as the reader
knows, had something else to think of just then.

The behaviour of these two young gentlemen was giving the club some
uneasiness. They were not alive to their duties as "Sociables." And
they had got into the abominable habit of obeying monitors and
associating with questionable characters, such as Richardson, Aspinall,
and the like.

A motion had just been passed calling upon the two delinquents to appear
at the next meeting and answer for their conduct, when t