The significance of this was not lost upon anybody. The study was a room of awful import, and the comfort of the low red morocco settee, the interest of the photographs of Oxford crews on the wall, in which the Head appeared with side-whiskers and no beard could not compensate for the uneasy knowledge that in the middle drawer of the knee-hole table at which he sat were a couple of canes. It was no rare thing for the Head to take a bunch of rattling keys from his pocket, which was the first step, and to fit one of them into the centre drawer. Sometimes, with rising voice, he turned it and opened the drawer, and if things still went badly the trembling victim was put through the farce of choosing which cane he preferred and then advancing the palms of his hands. . . . The Head paused after this prodigious announcement about the venue for the Catechism-class next Sunday and opened the mark-book. Mr. Dutton was scrupulously neat in his methods, and there in the first column of the marks for the new week was his list, headed “Catechism.” The Head scrutinised these in silence. “The marks for to-day’s Catechism are already entered,” he said. “Stone, you are the head-boy of the class, why did you not tell me that Mr. Dutton had already heard you your Catechism? I will tell you why. You wanted me to waste my time and yours, so that we should not have so long for the Bible-lesson. Was that it, sir?” “N-no,” said Stone. “What was your reason, then, for not telling me?” Stone looked at him in a sort of stunned despair. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. * * * * *