ce to say a word.

"Oh, but you don't understand, sir," began I.

"Don't understand!" said he. "I understand you are a naughty little
boy"--to think that I should live to be called a little boy!--"and that
the mischief about your schooling is that you've not been smacked as
often as you ought. Understand, indeed! What do you suppose your
mother's to do with a boy like you, that's wasted his time, and then
tells people they don't understand?"

"I don't think Tommy meant--" began my mother; but my guardian was too
quick for her.

"No, that's just it. They never do, and yet you pay fifty pounds a year
to teach him. It doesn't matter to some children who else is troubled
as long as they enjoy themselves."

Children! And I had once caught Parkin at cover-point! "Go up to bed
now," said my guardian. "Your mother and I must see what's to be done
with you. Don't I understand, indeed?"

The conceit was fairly taken out of me now. To be called a little boy
was bad enough; to be referred to as a child was even worse; but to be
sent to bed at a quarter to eight on a summer evening was the crowning
stroke. Certainly, Plummer's itself was better than this.

What my mother and guardian said to one another I do not know. My
mother, I think, had great faith in Mr Girdler's wisdom; and although
she tried not to think ill of me, would probably feel that he knew
better than she did.

I knew my fate next morning--it was worse than my most hideous
forebodings.

I was to work at my guardian's office every morning, and in the
afternoon I was to go up and learn Latin and arithmetic at--oh, how
shall I say it?--a girls' school!

For an hour after this discovery I candidly admit that I was sorry,
unfeignedly sorry, I had not turned sneak and informed against Harry
Tempest. I think even he would have wished me to do it rather than
suffer this awful humiliation.

I had serious thoughts of running away, of going to sea, or sweeping a
London crossing. But there were difficulties in the way; the chief of
them being my mother.

"You mustn't worry about it, Tommy," said she. "Mr Girdler says it
will be the best thing for you. It will be good for you to learn some
business, you know, and then in the afternoon you will find Miss
Bousfield very nice and clever."

"It's not the work I mind, mother," said I; "it's--it's going to a
girls' school."

"There's nothing very dreadful about it, I'm sure," said my mother, with
a s