The bishop could read truth as well as any one--better than many--and he saw that it was being told to him now. “Which of you must be punished for this trick as ringleader?” he asked. “I, my lord, if any one must be,” frankly avowed Bywater. “We should have let him out at ten o’clock. We never meant to keep him there all night. If I am punished, I hope your lordship will be so kind as allow it to be put down to your own account, not to Ketch’s. I should not like it to be thought that I caught it for _him_. I heartily beg your pardon, my lord, for having been so unfortunate as to include you in the locking-up. We are all as sorry as can be, that it should have happened. I am ready to take any punishment, for that, that you may order me.” “Ah!” said the bishop, “had you known that I was in the cloisters, your friend Ketch would have come off scot free!” “Yes, that he would, until--” “Until what?” asked the bishop, for Bywater had brought his words to a standstill. “Until a more convenient night, I was going to say, my lord.” “Well, that’s candid,” said the bishop. “Bywater,” he gravely added, “you have spoken the truth to me freely. Had you equivocated in the slightest degree, I should have punished you for the equivocation. As it is, I shall look upon this as a confidential communication, and _not_ order you punishment. But we will not have any more tricks played at locking up Ketch. You understand?” “All right, my lord. Thank you a hundred times.” Bywater, touching his trencher, leaped off. The bishop turned to enter his palace gates, which were close by, and encountered Ketch talking to the head-master. The latter had been passing the lodge, when he was seen and pounced upon by Ketch, who thought it a good opportunity to make his complaint. “I am as morally sure it was them, sir, as I am that I be alive.” he was saying when the bishop came up. “And I don’t know who they has dealings with; but, for certain, they have sperited away them rusty keys what did the mischief, without so much as putting one o’ their noses inside my lodge. I placed ‘em safe in the knife-box last night, and they’re gone this morning. I hope, sir, you’ll punish them as they deserve. I am nothing, of course. If they had locked me up, and kept me there till I was worn to a skeleton, it might be thought light of; but his lordship, the bishop”--bowing sideways to the prelate--“was a sufferer by their wickedness.” “To be sure I was,” said the bishop, in a grave tone, but with a twinkle in his eye; “and therefore the complaint to Mr. Pye must be preferred by me, Ketch. We will talk of it when I have leisure,” he added to Mr. Pye, with a pleasant nod, as he went through the palace gates. The head-master bowed to the bishop, and walked away, leaving Ketch on the growl.