uinous step of running away, and pressed upon him money to enable him
to do so, although he had refused to lend him a halfpenny when Frank
required it to pay that broken-nosed tailor to hold his tongue."

"Very well," Mr. Richards said, "then I can speak freely; my silence was
caused to some considerable extent by regard for your feelings. You had
lost one nephew, who had gone away with a cloud of disgrace surrounding
him--for aught I could tell, Norris, in his despair, might have
committed suicide, or he might have so cut himself off from you that you
might never have heard from him again--thus, then, I felt that it would
be cruel indeed to prove that your other nephew was a villain, unless by
so doing I could restore Norris to you. So, after much thought and
deliberation, I determined to hold my tongue until I heard that Norris
had either returned or had been heard of.

"On the morning when it was discovered that Frank had fled, I called up
one by one the whole of the boys in the house. Even after his flight I
could not believe that Norris had done this thing, it was so absolutely
contrary to all that I knew of his disposition, and I determined to sift
the matter to the bottom. From the elder boys I learned nothing,
although I questioned them most closely as to everything that had taken
place in the house during the past week. I was not disappointed, for I
had hardly expected to learn much from them.

"It was from the four boys who were the fags of the four who had been in
Frank's secret that I hoped to learn something, and I was not mistaken.
From the three in the house I learned nothing; but when I came to
Pearson, who was Barkley's junior and fag, I met with even more success
than I had expected. At first, of course, the boy did not like to say
anything; but I told him that unless he answered my questions freely I
should have him up before Doctor Litter, and he then told me all he knew
about it.

"The more willingly, for, like most other boys in the School, he was
fond of Norris, while Barkley was by no means a kind master. He said
that twice Barkley had got into a rage with him about things which
didn't seem of any importance. The first occasion was a week previous.
He had gone into Barkley's study to ask him to explain some difficulty
in his Caesar; the door was not fastened, and as he had been working with
his shoes off, Barkley did not hear him till he was close to the table.
The boy noticed that he had a sh