boy who had been led astray by his comrade, a gifted narrator and jester, a plump, white, chubby little chap, wept without restraint and with all his childish might. The other, the chief offender, a hump-nosed boy with a thin-featured, clever face, became pale, his lips quivered, his eyes looked wildly and angrily at his joyous comrades, and occasionally his face was unnaturally distorted by a sob. His cap, with a torn peak, was stuck on the very back of his head; his hair was ruffled, his clothes soiled with chalk. All this now struck me and everybody else as though we saw it for the first time. The unkindly attention of all was directed to him, and he felt it painfully. When, with bent head and without looking round, he started homeward with (as it seemed to me) a peculiar, criminal gait, and when the boys ran after him in a crowd, teasing him in an unnatural and strangely cruel way as though, against their will, they were moved by some evil spirit, something told me that we were not doing right. But things took their course, and the thief wore the card that whole day. From this time he began, as it seemed to me, to learn worse, and one did not see him playing and talking with his fellows out of class. One day I came to a lesson, and the pupils informed me, with a kind of horror, that the boy had again stolen. He had taken twenty copecks (seven pence) in coppers from the teacher's room, and had been caught hiding them under the stairs. We again hung a card on him; and again the same revolting scene recommenced. I began to admonish him, as all masters admonish; and a big boy, fond of talking, who was present, also admonished him--probably repeating words he had heard his father, an innkeeper, use: 'You steal once, and you do it again,' said he distinctly, glibly, and with dignity; 'it becomes a habit, and leads to no good.' I began to get vexed. I glanced at the face of the punished boy, which had become yet paler, more suffering and harder than before; and somehow I thought of convicts, and suddenly I felt so ashamed and disgusted that I tore the stupid card off him, told him to go where he liked, and became convinced--and convinced not by reason, but by my whole nature--that I had no right to torment that unfortunate boy, and that it was not in my power to make of him what I and the innkeeper's son wanted to make of him. I became convinced that there are secrets of the soul, hidden from us, on which life may act, but which precepts and punishments do not reach.