And mixed up in all this affair of Deering and his “crowd,” there was in Mr. Roylston’s mind a sense, not clear but keen, that Finch was somehow concerned. He genuinely believed that Doctor Forester had made a mistake in taking Finch at Deal, and the passage of words with Morris on the occasion of the boy’s arrival, had irritated him intensely. He knew, and was sometimes ashamed of the fact, that he had let that irritation affect his treatment, in little ways, of the boy himself. He had always disliked Morris, and quite sincerely thought Morris’s unaffected good nature and genial optimism with regard to boys was a pose. The incident of Finch’s hazing, wherein he had punished the rescuers instead of the hazers, increased his uncomfortable feeling about the whole situation. But the discomfort did not increase his humility. He knew that in much he was wrong, but he was so accustomed to the idea of supposing himself to be right, that he argued away the accusations of his conscience. On Finch he therefore continued to vent a good deal of his spleen. And on Finch the old sledge-hammer method of sarcasm was an effective weapon. The boy bore the master’s reproofs with a little less outward wincing than of old, but inwardly they racked his very soul. Mr. Roylston’s attitude affected him very differently from the way it affected Deering. He could not work in his class. A shaft of sarcasm, an expression of patient suffering on the master’s face as the boy blundered through his recitation, altogether confused him. Day after day he would fail in a lesson which he had spent hours in preparing. From a sense of duty Mr. Roylston now and then would see the delinquent outside of the classroom, and make an attempt to clear up his difficulties. But on these occasions Finch seemingly was more completely bereft of his senses than during a recitation. Mr. Roylston mistook this confusion for willful refusal to understand, and in time treated him accordingly. “What the deuce is the matter with you, Jake?” Tony asked once, after a trying period in Latin, wherein Finch had floundered about in absurd fashion. “You know a heap more Latin than I do, but you go in before Gumshoe and act as if he were asking you questions in Sanscrit.” “I know—I know,” Finch answered, miserably. “But I can’t help it. I just can’t get my wits before him. Every idea flies out of my head when he asks me a question. I am doing all right in other subjects.” “Well, why don’t you go to Gumshoe and tell him?” “Oh, I’ve tried,” said Finch. “That’s worse.” “It’s a beastly shame,” said Tony. “But there’s nothing I can do; I’m in with Gumshoe worse than ever.” “And that’s all my fault!” “Not a bit,” said Tony. “I had no business to write that thing in the first place; neither had Jimmie for that matter,—about Gumshoe or anybody else. I wish I could convince him that I am really sorry.”