ad Master paused, looked down the page,
then at the boys, then at the book once more; then he frowned. There was
a second pause, then he read out in icy tones:--

"I'm sorry to say that Smith and Hart Minor have been found guilty of
gross dishonesty; they combined--in fact they entered into a conspiracy,
to cheat, to steal marks and obtain by unfair means, a higher place and
an advantage which was not due to them."

The Head Master paused. "Hart Minor and Smith," he continued, "go to the
bottom of the division. Smith," he added, "I'm astounded at you. Your
conduct in this affair is inexplicable. If it were not for your previous
record and good conduct, I should have you severely flogged; and if Hart
Minor were not a new boy, I should treat him in the same way and have
him turned out of the choir. (The choir had special privileges.) As it
is, you shall lose, each of you, 200 marks, and I shall report the
whole matter in detail to your parents in your half-term report, and if
anything of the sort ever occurs again, you shall be severely punished.
You have been guilty of an act for which, were you not schoolboys, but
grown up, you would be put in prison. It is this kind of thing that
leads people to penal servitude."

After the reading over was finished and the lessons that followed
immediately on it, and the boys went out to wash their hands for
luncheon, the boys of the second division crowded round Hart Minor
and asked him how he could have perpetrated such a horrible and daring
crime. The matter, however, was soon forgotten by the boys, but Hart
Minor had not heard the last of it. On the following Sunday in chapel,
at the evening service, the Head Master preached a sermon. He chose as
his text "Thou shalt not steal!" The eyes of the whole school were fixed
on Smith and Hart Minor. The Head Master pointed out in his discourse
that one might think at first sight that boys at a school might not have
the opportunity to violate the tremendous Commandments; but, he said,
this was not so. The Commandments were as much a living actuality in
school life as they were in the larger world. Coming events cast their
shadows before them; the child was the father of the man; what a boy
was at school, such would he be in after life. Theft, the boys perhaps
thought, was not a sin which immediately concerned them. But there were
things which were morally the same if not worse than the actual theft
of material and tangible objects--dish