in your guilt, I wanted to feel that there was no young gentleman in my
establishment who could stoop to such a piece of base pilfering; but the
truth is so circumstantially brought home through the despicable
meanness of a boy of whose actions I feel the utmost abhorrence, that I
am bound to say to you that there is nothing left but for you to own
frankly that you have been led into temptation--to say that you bitterly
repent of what you have done, and throw yourself upon my mercy. Do this
at once, boy, for the sake of those at home who love you."

I felt my face twitch at these words and the picture they evoked, and
then, numbed as it were, I stood listening, slightly buoyed up by the
feeling that Mercer would speak directly and clear me.

"You were entrusted to my care, Burr junior," continued the Doctor, "as
a youth who was in future to enter upon one of the most honourable of
careers, that of a soldier; but now that you have disgraced yourself
like this--"

"No, no, sir!" I cried. "Don't--pray don't think I took the wretched
watch!"

There was so much passionate agony in my voice that the Doctor paused
for a few moments, before, in the midst of the solemn silence which
ensued, he said coldly,--

"Do you deny that you took the watch?"

"Yes, yes. Indeed, indeed I did not take it, sir!" The Doctor sighed.

"Do you deny that you were seen by Dicksee this morning with the watch
in your hands?"

"No, sir; that is true," I said, with a look at Mercer, who hung down
his head.

"Then I am bound by the statements that have been made, painful as it is
to me, to consider that in a moment of weak impulse you did this base
thing. If I am wrong, Heaven forgive me, for _humanum est errare_. The
truth, however, seems too clear."

"I--I found it there," I panted.

The Doctor shook his head.

"It is like charging your school-fellow with stealing the watch. Do you
do this?"

I was silent.

"Mr Rebble," said the Doctor, "you came here as a gentleman to aid me
in the training of these youths. Can you do anything to help me here?"

"I--I," said Mr Rebble huskily, "would gladly do so, sir, if I could.
I wouldn't trust Dicksee's word in anything. He is as pitiful and
contemptible a boy as ever came under my charge, but I am afraid he has
spoken the truth here."

"I fear so," said the Doctor. "Mr Hasnip, you have--been but a short
time among us, still you have learned the disposition of the pupils.
Can you