My sage prognostications were falsified doubly. My mother, though she wept to see me come home in this style, did me justice at once. To think I could ever have doubted her! "Of course, sonny dear," said she, kissing me, "it was very hard. Still, I am sure it would have been a shabby thing to tell tales." "I wasn't going to do it, at any rate," said I, growing a little cocky, and deciding that some women, at any rate, can see more than meets the eye. But Mr Girdler, when he called in during the evening, was most disappointing. "So this is what you call being a comfort to your mother?" began he, without so much as giving me a chance to say a word. "Oh, but you don't understand, sir," began I. "Don't understand!" said he. "I understand you are a naughty little boy"--to think that I should live to be called a little boy!--"and that the mischief about your schooling is that you've not been smacked as often as you ought. Understand, indeed! What do you suppose your mother's to do with a boy like you, that's wasted his time, and then tells people they don't understand?" "I don't think Tommy meant--" began my mother; but my guardian was too quick for her. "No, that's just it. They never do, and yet you pay fifty pounds a year to teach him. It doesn't matter to some children who else is troubled as long as they enjoy themselves." Children! And I had once caught Parkin at cover-point! "Go up to bed now," said my guardian. "Your mother and I must see what's to be done with you. Don't I understand, indeed?" The conceit was fairly taken out of me now. To be called a little boy was bad enough; to be referred to as a child was even worse; but to be sent to bed at a quarter to eight on a summer evening was the crowning stroke. Certainly, Plummer's itself was better than this. What my mother and guardian said to one another I do not know. My mother, I think, had great faith in Mr Girdler's wisdom; and although she tried not to think ill of me, would probably feel that he knew better than she did. I knew my fate next morning--it was worse than my most hideous forebodings. I was to work at my guardian's office every morning, and in the afternoon I was to go up and learn Latin and arithmetic at--oh, how shall I say it?--a girls' school! For an hour after this discovery I candidly admit that I was sorry, unfeignedly sorry, I had not turned sneak and informed against Harry Tempest. I think even he would have wished me to do it rather than suffer this awful humiliation. I had serious thoughts of running away, of going to sea, or sweeping a London crossing. But there were difficulties in the way; the chief of them being my mother. "You mustn't worry about it, Tommy," said she. "Mr Girdler says it will be the best thing for you. It will be good for you to learn some business, you know, and then in the afternoon you will find Miss Bousfield very nice and clever."