the air.

"This ain't school!" said our young friend from Sapps Court, whom you
probably remember. Michael had absconded from his home, and sought that
of his great-aunt; the only person, said contemporary opinion, that had
a hounce of influence with him. It was not clear why such a confirmed
reprobate should quail before the moral force of a small old woman in a
mysteriously clean print-dress, and tortoise-shell spectacles she would
gladly have kept on while charing, only they always come off in the
pail. But he did, and when reproached by her for his needlessly defiant
attitude, took up a more conciliatory tone. "Carn't recollect, or
p'r'aps I'd tell yer," said he.

"Never mind the spelling!" said the Coroner, who had to preside at
another inquest at Kew very shortly. "Let's get the young man's
evidence." But Michael objected to giving evidence. Whereupon the
Coroner, perceiving his mistake, said: "Well, then, suppose we let it
alone for to-day. You may go home, Micky, and find out how your name's
spelt, against next time it's wanted. Where's the other boy that heard
what the men were saying? Call him."

"There warn't any other boy within half a mile," exclaimed Michael
indignantly. "I should have seen him. Think I've got no eyes? There
warn't another blooming bloke in sight."

"Didn't the other boy see several other men in the back-garden of the
ale-house?" said the Coroner. And the Inspector of Police had the
effrontery to reply: "Oh yes, three or four!" And then both of them
looked at Michael, and waited.

Michael's indignation passed all bounds, and betrayed him into the use
of language of which his great-aunt would have deemed him incapable. She
was that shocked, she never! The expressions were not Michael's own
vocabulary at all, but corruptions that had crept into his phraseology
from associations with other boys, chance acquaintances, who had evolved
them among themselves, nourishing them from the corruption of their own
hearts. As soon as Michael--deceived by the mendacious dialogue of the
Coroner and the Inspector, and under the impression that the particulars
he was giving, whether true or false, were not evidence--had told with
some colouring about the two men in the garden and what they said, the
old lady made a powerful effort to detain the Coroner to give him
particulars of Michael's parentage and education, and to exculpate
herself from any possible charge of neglecting her grandnephew, to whom