"A very unpleasant and discreditable thing has happened. The municipal authorities have recently erected a pair of extremely ornate and expensive--er--lamp-posts outside the residence of the Mayor of the town. These lamp-posts appear to have attracted the unfavourable notice of the School. Last Sunday evening, between seven and eight o'clock, they were attacked and wrecked, apparently by volleys of stones." There was a faint but appreciative murmur from those members of the School to whom the news of this outrage was now made public for the first time. But a baleful flash from the Head's spectacles restored instant silence. "Several parties of boys," he continued, "must have passed these lamp-posts on that evening, on their way back to their respective houses after Chapel. I wish to see all boys who in any way participated in the outrage in my study directly after Second School. I warn them that I shall make a severe example of them." His voice rose to a blare. "I will not have the prestige and fair fame of the School lowered in the eyes of the Town by the vulgar barbarities of a parcel of ill-conditioned little street-boys. You may go!" The audience rose to their feet and began to steal silently away. But they were puzzled. The Old Man was no fool as a rule. Did he really imagine that chaps would be such mugs as to own up? But before the first boy reached the door the Head spoke again. "I may mention," he added very gently, "that the attack upon the--er--lamp-posts was witnessed by a gentleman resident in the neighbourhood, a warm friend of the School. He was able to identify _one_ of the culprits, whose name is in my possession. That is all." And quite enough too! When the Head visited his study after Second School, he found seventeen malefactors meekly awaiting chastisement. But he never divulged the name of the boy who had been identified, or for that matter the identity of the warm friend of the School. I _wonder!_ * * * * *