He took his pipe up from the table as he spoke, knocked the ashes out of it, and put it into its case. An intimation, John Jetty thought, that their social hour was at an end: and he went away, respectfully wishing his lodger good-evening. Easter was over; and the time for going back to Oxford for the coming term was past. Charles Raynor had not gone up to keep it. He had to confess to the major that he did not care to go back without a good sum of money, apart from his allowance; he might have said, dared not go. It was not convenient to find the sum: so the major decided that Charles must miss that one term, and keep the next. The weeks went on. Charles had in a degree got over his dread of the Tiger--who still remained on in his lodgings--for it was now very evident that if that mysterious man's mission at Grassmere were to take him into custody for debt, it might have been accomplished ere this. Nevertheless, so strongly do first impressions retain their hold upon us, his dislike of the man continued in all its force. But, as Charles's alarm subsided, Frank's increased. The more evident it became that Charles was not the Tiger's object, the more surely did it seem to Frank that he himself was. It was a fear he could not speak of, but his secret uneasiness was great. Neither he nor Charles could fail to see that the man's daily business appeared to be that of watching the movements of the Raynor family, especially those of the two young men. Not watching offensively, but in a quiet, easy, unobtrusive manner. Frank fully believed that the man was a secret emissary of Blase Pellet's sent there to see that he did not escape his toils. Major Raynor had never seen this man: and Frank and Charles, each for his own private and individual reasons, had refrained from speaking about him. Of late the major had chiefly confined himself to the gardens immediately attached to his house. There were two reasons for this: the one, that he had now grown so very stout as to render walking a trouble to him, and when he did go out it was in a carriage; the other, that he never went beyond his inner fence but he was sure to meet one or other of those wretched malcontents; who thought nothing of accosting him and asking him to do this, and to do that. So matters remained pretty stationary: the major indolently nursing himself in his easy-chair on the lawn; the young men enjoying their private discomforts; and the Tiger peering into every conceivable spot open to him, and making himself better acquainted with the general shortcomings of the Raynors, in regard to the estate and the people on it, than they were themselves.