"My boys, while it is true that you come to Merivale to be instructed by me and those who labor here among you on my behalf, it is also true that I learn occasionally from those whom I teach. Indeed, new problems are almost as often set by you for my solution as by me for yours, and seldom has a more intricate difficulty confronted me than that which yesterday challenged my attention. There has recently happened among us a mysterious disappearance of coins of the realm. Now a shilling, a sixpence, a penny-piece, if deposited in one spot, will usually remain there until removed by human agency. And the human agent who removes money which belongs to another without that other’s sanction is a thief. Boys, briefly there has been a thief among you--a thief whose moral obliquity has taken such an extraordinary turn, whose views of rectitude have become so distorted, that even my own experience of school-boy ethics cannot parallel his performance. This lad has looked around him upon the world, and found in it, as we all must find, a vast amount of suffering and privation, of honest toil and of humble heroism, displayed by the lowest among us. He has also observed that Providence is pleased to make wide distinctions between the rich and the poor; he has noted that where one labors for daily bread another reaps golden harvests without the trouble of putting in the sickle. This extraordinary boy contrasted the position of one of these humble workers with that of those among whom his own lot was thrown here, and he found that whereas that obscure but necessary and excellent person, Mrs. Gouger, she whose duty it is to cleanse, scour, and otherwise purify the disorder produced by our assemblies--he found, I say, that whereas Mrs. Gouger worked extremely hard for sums not considerable, albeit handsome in connection with the nature of her labors, others of the human family--yourselves--were in receipt of weekly allowances of varying amounts for which you toiled not, neither did you spin.