n."

"All right, Tompkins; I will come back directly I have done my dinner. I
expect I shall have finished quite as soon as you will."

Edward Sankey, who was regarded with envy by his schoolfellows, was the
only home boarder at Hathorn's; for, as a general thing, the master
set his face against the introduction of home boarders. They were, he
considered, an element of disturbance; they carry tales to and from the
school; they cause discontent among the other boys, and their parents
are in the habit of protesting and interfering. Not, indeed, that
parents in those days considered it in any way a hardship for their boys
to suffer corporal punishment; they had been flogged at school, and
they believed that they had learned their lessons all the better for it.
Naturally the same thing would happen to their sons. Still mothers are
apt to be weak and soft hearted, and therefore Mr. Hathorn objected to
home boarders.

He had made an exception in Sankey's case; his father was of a different
type to those of the majority of his boys; he had lost his leg at the
battle of Assaye, and had been obliged to leave the army, and having
but small means beyond his pension, had settled near the quiet little
Yorkshire town as a place where he could live more cheaply than in
more bustling localities. He had, when he first came, no acquaintances
whatever in the place, and therefore would not be given to discuss with
the parents of other boys the doings in the school. Not that Mr. Hathorn
was afraid of discussion, for he regarded his school as almost perfect
of its kind. Still it was his fixed opinion that discussion was, as a
general rule, unadvisable. Therefore, when Captain Sankey, a few weeks
after taking up his residence in the locality, made a proposal to him
that his son should attend his school as a home boarder, Mr. Hathorn
acceded to the proposition, stating frankly his objections, as a rule,
to boys of that class.

"I shall not interfere," Captain Sankey said. "Of course boys must be
thrashed, and provided that the punishment is not excessive, and that it
is justly administered, I have nothing to say against it. Boys must
be punished, and if you don't flog you have to confine them, and in my
opinion that is far worse for a boy's temper, spirit, and health."

So Ned Sankey went to Hathorn's, and was soon a great favorite there.
Just at first he was regarded as a disobliging fellow because he adhered
strictly to a stipulation wh