Mark stopped at the door of the Upper Fourth Classroom, which was Mr. Shelford's, and went in. It was a plain room, not unlike his own, but rather smaller; it had a dais with a somewhat larger desk for the master, and a different arrangement of the benches and lockers, but it was quite as gloomy, with an outlook into a grim area giving a glimpse of the pavement and railings above. Mr. Shelford was evidently just going, for as they came in he had put a very large hat on the back of his head, and was winding a long grey comforter round his throat; but he took off the hat courteously as he saw Mark. He was a little old man, with a high brick-red colour on his smooth, scarcely wrinkled cheeks, a big aquiline nose, a wide thin-lipped mouth, and sharp little grey eyes, which he cocked sideways at one like an angry parrot. Langton retired to a form out of hearing, and sat down on one end of it, nursing his detention paper anxiously. 'Well, Ashburn,' began the Reverend James Shelford, 'is there anything I can do for _you_?' 'Why,' said Mark, 'the fact is, I----' 'Eh, what?' said the elder. 'Wait a minute--there's that impident fellow back again! I thought I'd seen the last of him. Here, you sir, didn't I send you up for a flogging?' 'I--I believe you did, sir,' said Langton with extreme deference. 'Well, why ain't you _getting_ that flogging--eh, sir? No impidence, now--just tell me, why ain't you being flogged? You ought to be in the middle of it now!' 'Well, you see,' said Mark, 'he's one of _my_ boys----' 'I don't care whose boy he is,' said the other, testily; 'he's an impident fellow, sir.' 'I don't think he is, really,' said Mark. 'D'ye know what he did, then? Came whooping and shouting and hullabalooing into my room, for all the world as if it was his own nursery, sir. He's _always_ doing it!' 'I never did it before,' protested Langton, 'and it wasn't my fault this time.' 'Wasn't your fault! You haven't got St. Vitus' dance, have you? I never heard there were any Tarantula spiders here. You don't go dancing into the Doctor's room, do you? _He'll_ give you a dancing lesson!' said the old gentleman, sitting down again to chuckle, and looking very like Mr. Punch. 'No, but allow me,' put in Mark; 'I assure you this boy is----' 'I know what you're going to tell me--he's a model boy, of course. It's singular what shoals of model boys _do_ come dancing in here under some irresistible impulse after school. I'll put a stop to it now I've caught one. You don't know 'em as well as I do, sir, you don't know 'em--they're all impident and all liars--some are cleverer at it than others, and that's all.' 'I'm afraid that's true enough,' said Mark, who did not like being considered inexperienced.