With the morning came the discipline of school rules. Talbot was going on quite favourably, and all outward excitement had subsided. The breakfast hour was half-past seven; from eight to a quarter-past the pupils from the masters' houses arrived, also those who lived altogether out of bounds, with their friends or in lodgings; slightingly called by the college, these latter, "outsiders." During this quarter of an hour the roll was called, and the boys did what they pleased: it was recreation with them. At a quarter-past eight the chapel bell called all to service. The boys stood in groups this morning in the quadrangle, not availing themselves of their liberty to be noisy during this quarter of an hour, but discussing in an undertone the startling events of the previous night. Dick Loftus had openly avowed the whole; and somebody, not Dick, had contrived to betray Mr. Smart's share in it. Dick protested that whoever had peered at them was a master: he judged by the cap. It appeared equally certain that it could not have been a master: the only masters arrived were Mr. Jebb and Mr. Long, and they, at this very selfsame hour, had been with Dr. Brabazon in his private study. But it was easy for any one of the senior boys to have taken up a master's trencher by mistake, or to have gone out in it wilfully to mislead. Had the boy, whoever it was, purposely shot Talbot? The opinion, rejected at first, was gaining ground now; led to, possibly, by the appropriation of the master's cap. Altogether it was a very unpleasant affair, enshrouded in some mystery. William Gall was there this morning, the senior of the school; a slight, short young man, the age of Loftus major, with an undoubted ugly face, but an honest one, and dark hair. There was not much good feeling existing between Gall and Loftus, as was well known, but it had never broken into an open explosion. Gall despised Loftus for his pride and his fopperies, his assumption of superiority and condescension; and Loftus looked down on Gall and his family as vulgar city people. The Galls lived at Orville Green, but the son was an in-door scholar. Mr. Gall was in some mysterious trade that had to do with tallow. There was plenty of money; but Loftus thought, on the whole, that it was out of the order of right things for the son of a tallow-man to be head of the college and senior over _him_. Three or four new scholars came straggling in during this quarter of an hour, and they attracted the usual amount of attention and quizzing. One of them was a tall, agile, upright boy of sixteen, or rather more, with a handsome, open countenance, dark chestnut hair, and bright grey eyes. He stood looking about, as if uncertain where to go. Mr. Long went up to him. "Are you belonging to the college?—a new student?" "Yes."