"He has disgraced me," he said bitterly to Joe Sweetman, "and all our care has been thrown away. I hoped that he would grow up a quiet and well-behaved young fellow; but he is never out of mischief, so much so that I am now obliged to send him to a boarding-school, an institution of which I have the greatest dislike. And I suppose he will soon be sent away from there. I really am more than grieved, and how I shall dare to meet his worship the mayor, after what has occurred, I do not know!" "Bother the mayor! He's a prig, and got what he deserved!" Joe answered, with a sniff and a snap of his fingers. "Send Phil away and I'll swear he'll be thankful to you. Of course I know it was foolish and very wrong of those young monkeys to play their tricks on old Barrington, but then you yourself know what an unpopular man he is. Did he not try to put an end to the annual procession of the Riddington boys through the town, on the plea that they made too much noise? That put the youngsters' backs up; and then he must needs force his way into the school and demand that the lad who broke his miserable window should be caned, and in the event of his not being found that the whole school should lose a holiday. A pig of a fellow, sir, and I'm glad Phil and his pals paid him out." This indignant outburst, and the roar of laughter which followed on Joe's remembering the unhappy mayor's fright, roused Edward Western's ire. He sat rigidly in his chair, staring blankly before him, with a fixed expression of annoyance on his face. "I cannot compel him to follow the profession I have chosen for him," he said sternly, "but let him disgrace me again and I will pack him off to London and there find a position for him as a clerk, where he will be tied to his desk, and where he will have fewer opportunities of doing wrong."