"Your friends may well smile, sir," he began majestically. (Cheers and laughter.) "So serene are you in your conceit and self-assurance that you proceed to break rules, to behave like a board-school boy, without even taking the trouble to observe if one in Authority"--he smacked his lips--"be present or no. What is the result? Pride has a fall, my young friend. You make a spectacle of yourself--" Here the speaker was interrupted by a perfect tornado of merriment. A master can always raise a snigger at the expense of a boy, but such whole-hearted appreciation as this had not fallen to Mr. Bradshaw's lot before. "--a ludicrous exhibition," he continued, after the noise had subsided. Cheers and laughter, as before. "If you could only see yourself now, my boy, only behold the spectacle you present--" This time his audience became so hysterical that Braddy was conscious of an uneasy suspicion that something must be wrong. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pad of foolscap before him, upon which he had been emphasising his remarks by vigorous slappings. The paper was covered with numerous impressions of his hand, neatly outlined in some jet-black substance. After a hasty inspection of the hand itself the awful truth began to dawn upon him, and the now frenzied Lower Sixth were regaled with the spectacle of a man attempting to scrutinise his own countenance by squinting along his nose. It must have been about this time, according to the best authorities, that the Head came in. That benevolent despot, passing the door on his way to his study, had been attracted by the sounds of mirth within; and under the impression that owing to some misunderstanding Mr. Bradshaw was not taking his form that hour, he entered the room to maintain discipline until the errant master could be found. After his usual punctilious knock--he was a head master of the velvet glove type--he opened the door, and stood an interested and astonished spectator of the scene within. What he saw was this-- On the benches rolled thirty boys, helpless, speechless, tearful with laughter; and upon the rostrum, with a parti-coloured bald head and a coal-black face, there mowed and gibbered a creature, which rolled frenzied eyes and gnashed unnaturally whitened teeth in impotent frenzy upon the convulsed throng before him. Linklater had covered the door-handle with lampblack, and Mr. Bradshaw's favourite mannerism had done the rest. II Linklater's escapade took place at the end of the Christmas term. Early in the following January the Cricket Committee held their customary meeting in the President's study, to elect a Captain and Secretary of the School Eleven for the following summer term.