Little Tommy Snooks, we will say, arrives home one afternoon in a taxi in the middle of term, and announces briefly but apprehensively to his parents that he has been "sacked." He is accompanied or preceded by a letter from his Headmaster, expressing genuine sorrow for the occurrence, and adding that though it has been found necessary for the sake of discipline to remove Master Thomas from the School, his offence has not been such as to involve any moral stigma. Little Tommy's parents, justly incensed that their offspring should have been expelled from school without incurring any moral stigma, write demanding instant reparation. The Headmaster, in his reply, states that Thomas has been expelled because he has broken a certain rule, the penalty for breaking which happens to be--and is known to be--expulsion. _Voilà tout._ In other words, he has been expelled, not for smoking or drinking or breaking bounds (or whatever he may happen to have done), but for deliberately and wantonly flying in the face of the Law which prohibits these misdemeanours. Either Tommy must go, or the Law be rendered futile and ridiculous. This paltry and frivolous attempt to evade the real point at issue--which appears to be that many people, including Tommy's parents and the Headmaster himself, smoke, drink, and go out after dark and are none the worse--is treated with the severity which it deserves. A letter is despatched, consigning the Headmaster to scholastic perdition. The Headmaster briefly acknowledges receipt, and suggests that the correspondence should now cease. [Illustration: RANK AND FILE] So far the campaign has followed well-defined and perfectly natural lines, for a parent is seldom disposed to take his boy's expulsion "lying down." But at this point the new-style parent breaks right away from tradition--kicks over the traces, in fact. Despatching that slightly dazed but on the whole deeply gratified infant martyr, Master Tommy, to salve outraged nature at an adjacent Picture Palace, the parent sits down at his (or her) desk and unmasks the whole dastardly conspiracy to a halfpenny newspaper of wide circulation. "I do this," he explains, "not from any feeling of animosity towards the Headmaster of the School, but in order to clear my son's good name and fair fame in the eyes of the world." This is interesting and valuable news to the world, which has not previously heard of Tommy Snooks. The astute editor of the halfpenny paper, with a paternal smile upon his features and his tongue in his cheek, publishes the letter in a conspicuous position--if things in the football and political world happen to be particularly dull, he sometimes finds room for Tommy's photograph too--and invites general correspondence on the subject.