The Sheriff Substitute must have a very definite idea of righteousness; I envy him his conscience free from all remembrance of shortcomings in the past. For my part had I been sitting in judgment on the poor laddies I should have recollected the various times I have travelled first with a third ticket, sneaked into circuses by lifting the tent cover, laid farthings on the railway so that they might become ha'pennies, or, with a special piece of luck--a goods train--pennies. Then I should have invited the boys to tea, and sent them home with _Comic Cuts_, two oranges, and a considerable bit of chewing gum. Anyhow, my method would have brought out any good in the boys. The method of the judge will bring out no good; it may make the boys feel that they are enemies of society. And I should like to ask the gentleman what he would do if his young son stole the jam. I'm sure he would not send for the birch rod. The damnable thing about the whole affair is that he is probably a very nice kindly man who would not whip a dog with his own hand. His misfortune is his being part of a system. * * * I have just added a few volumes to my school library. I tried to recollect the books that I liked as a youth; then I wrote for catalogues of "sevenpennies." The new books include these:--_The Prisoner of Zenda_ and its sequel, _Rupert of Hentzau_, _King Solomon's Mines_, _Montezuma's Daughter_, _The Four Feathers_, _A Gentleman of France_, _White Fang_, _The Call of the Wild_, _The Invisible Man_, _The War of the Worlds_, _The War in the Air_, _Dr. Nikola_, _A Bid for Fortune_, _Micah Clarke_. I find that the average bairn of thirteen cannot appreciate these stories. Margaret Steel was the only one who read _The Scarlet Pimpernel_ and asked for the sequel. Most of them stuck half way with _Zenda_. Guy Boothby's novels, the worst of the lot possibly, appealed to them strongly. The love element bores the boys, but the girls rather like it. One boy sat and yawned over _King Solomon's Mines_; then he took out a coloured comic and turned to the serial. I took the book away and told him to read the serial. Violet Brown prefers a book about giants from the infant room to all the romantic stories extant. After all, they are but children. * * * I am delighted with my sketching results. We go out every Wednesday and Friday afternoon, and many bairns are giving me good work. We usually end up with races or wading in the sea. There was much wonder when first they saw my bare feet, but now they take my feet for granted. Modesty is strong here. The other day the big girls came to me and asked if they could come to school slipshod. "You can come in your nighties for all I care," I said, and they gasped.