remarked Eugene.

'But I am more than a lad,' said Bradley, with his clutching hand, 'and
I WILL be heard, sir.'

'As a schoolmaster,' said Eugene, 'you are always being heard. That
ought to content you.'

'But it does not content me,' replied the other, white with passion. 'Do
you suppose that a man, in forming himself for the duties I discharge,
and in watching and repressing himself daily to discharge them well,
dismisses a man's nature?'

'I suppose you,' said Eugene, 'judging from what I see as I look at you,
to be rather too passionate for a good schoolmaster.' As he spoke, he
tossed away the end of his cigar.

'Passionate with you, sir, I admit I am. Passionate with you, sir, I
respect myself for being. But I have not Devils for my pupils.'

'For your Teachers, I should rather say,' replied Eugene.

'Mr Wrayburn.'

'Schoolmaster.'

'Sir, my name is Bradley Headstone.'

'As you justly said, my good sir, your name cannot concern me. Now, what
more?'

'This more. Oh, what a misfortune is mine,' cried Bradley, breaking off
to wipe the starting perspiration from his face as he shook from head to
foot, 'that I cannot so control myself as to appear a stronger creature
than this, when a man who has not felt in all his life what I have felt
in a day can so command himself!' He said it in a very agony, and even
followed it with an errant motion of his hands as if he could have torn
himself.

Eugene Wrayburn looked on at him, as if he found him beginning to be
rather an entertaining study.

'Mr Wrayburn, I desire to say something to you on my own part.'

'Come, come, Schoolmaster,' returned Eugene, with a languid approach to
impatience as the other again struggled with himself; 'say what you have
to say. And let me remind you that the door is standing open, and your
young friend waiting for you on the stairs.'

'When I accompanied that youth here, sir, I did so with the purpose of
adding, as a man whom you should not be permitted to put aside, in case
you put him aside as a boy, that his instinct is correct and right.'
Thus Bradley Headstone, with great effort and difficulty.

'Is that all?' asked Eugene.

'No, sir,' said the other, flushed and fierce. 'I strongly support him
in his disapproval of your visits to his sister, and in his objection to
your officiousness--and worse--in what you have taken upon yourself to
do for her.'

'Is THAT all?' asked Eugene.

'No, sir. I determined to tell you tha