“How do you know that, Joe?” asked his father. Joe replied by relating what he had heard said by the Lady Augusta that afternoon. It did not conciliate the porter in the remotest degree: he was not more favourably inclined to Gerald Yorke than he was to Tom Channing. Had he heard the school never was to have a senior again, or a junior either, that might have pleased him. But on the following morning, when he fell into dispute with the boys in the cloisters, he spoke out his information in a spirit of triumph over Huntley. Bit by bit, angered by the boys’ taunts, he repeated every word he had heard from Jenkins. The news, as it was busily circulated from one to the other, caused no slight hubbub in the school, and gave rise to that explosion of Tom Channing’s at the dinner-table. Huntley sought Jenkins, as he had said he would do, and received confirmation of the report, so far as the man’s knowledge went. But Jenkins was terribly vexed that the report had got abroad through him. He determined to pay a visit to Mr. Ketch, and reproach him with his incaution. Mr. Ketch sat in his lodge, taking his supper: bread and cheese, and a pint of ale procured at the nearest public-house. Except in the light months of summer, it was his habit to close the cloister gates before supper-time; but as Mr. Ketch liked to take that meal early--that is to say, at eight o’clock--and, as dusk, for at least four months in the year, obstinately persisted in putting itself off to a later hour, in spite of his growling, and as he might not shut up before dusk, he had no resource but to take his supper first and lock up afterwards. The “lodge” was a quaint abode, of one room only, built in an obscure nook of the cathedral, near the grand entrance. He was pursuing his meal after his own peculiar custom: eating, drinking, and grumbling. “It’s worse nor leather, this cheese! Selling it to a body for double-Gloucester! I’d like to double them as made it. Eight-pence a pound!--and short weight beside! I wonder there ain’t a law passed to keep down the cost o’ provisions!” A pause, given chiefly to grunting, and Mr. Ketch resumed:-- “This bread’s rougher nor a bear’s hide! Go and ask for new, and they palms you off with stale. They’ll put a loaf a week old into the oven to hot up again, and then sell it to you for new! There ought to be a criminal code passed for hanging bakers. They’re all cheats. They mixes up alum, and bone-dust, and plaster of Paris, and--Drat that door! Who’s kicking at it now?” No one was kicking. Some one was civilly knocking. The door was pushed slightly open, and the inoffensive face of Mr. Joseph Jenkins appeared in the aperture. “I say, Mr. Ketch,” began he in a mild tone of deprecation, “whatever is it that you have gone and done?” “What d’ye mean?” growled old Ketch. “Is this a way to come and set upon a gentleman in his own house? Who taught you manners, Joe Jenkins?”