uld have to grow each year. Let me see,
how old was I? Just thirteen. How many years to grow in?

"Who is the ringleader of this?" asked Radley..

I stood up and whispered: "Me, sir."

Somehow a ready acknowledgment seemed to agree with my latest
ambition.

"Then come and stand out here. You know you ought to be caned, so
you'll thoroughly enjoy it. In fact, being a decent boy, you'd be
miserable without it."

Here Mr. Caesar, who bore no grudge against Radley for assuming the
reins of command, whispered to him; and Radley asked the class:

"Who touched the clock?"

"I did, sir."

It was Doe's voice.

"Why didn't you say so before?"

"I was just going to when you came in."

Radley looked straight into the brown eyes of the boy who was
supposed to be his favourite, and Doe looked back unshiftingly; he
had heard those condemned, who did not look people straight in the
face, and I fancy he rather exaggerated his steady return gaze.

"I'm sure you were," said Radley.

Then the foreman of the other boys got up.

"Some of us suggested it to Doe, sir."

"Very well, you will have the punishment of seeing him suffer for
it."

And thereupon, without waiting to be told, Doe left his desk, and
came and stood by me. It was a theatrical action, such as only he
would have done, and our master concealed his surprise, if he felt
any, by an impassive face.

"I shall now cane these two boys," he said with cold-blooded
directness.

"Certainly," whispered Penny.

Both corners of my mouth went down in a grim resignation. Doe's lips
pressed themselves firmly together, and his eyelids trembled. Mr.
Caesar, ever generous, looked through the window over green lawns and
flower-beds. Radley went to his cupboard, and took out a cane.

"Bend over, Ray."

"Certainly," muttered Penny again. "Bend over."

I bent over, resting my hands on my knees. Radley was a cricketer
with a big reputation for cutting and driving; and three drives,
right in the middle of the cane, convinced me what a first-class
hitter he was. At the fourth, an especially resounding one, Penny
whistled a soft and prolonged whistle of amazement, and murmured:
"Well, _that's_ a boundary, anyway." And I heard suppressed giggles,
and knew that my class-fellows were enjoying the exquisite agony of
forcing back their laughter.

When my performance was over, the second victim, Edgar Doe, with the
steel calm of a French aristocrat, which he affected under
pu