I went on my way soothed in my ruffled spirits. But my perturbation revived when I stood on the doorstep of the Girls' High School, and rang the head mistress's bell. It was a bitter pill, I can tell you, for a fellow who had once been caned by Plummer for practising on the horizontal bar without the mattress underneath to fall on. Miss Bousfield was a shrewd, not disagreeable-looking little body, who saved me all the trouble of self-introduction by knowing who I was and why I came. "Well, Jones," said she--I liked that, I had dreaded she would call me Tommy--"here you are. How is your mother? Why, what a state your hair is in! I really think you'd like to go into the cloak room; you'll find a brush and comb there. It looks as if your hair were standing on end with horror at me, you know." Little she knew what my hair was on end about. I was almost grateful to her for the way she put it, and meekly retired to the cloak room, where--I confess it--with a long-tailed girl's comb, and a soft brush, and a big looking-glass, I contrived to restore my truant locks to their former masculine order. When I returned to the room. Miss Bousfield was sitting at a table, at which was also seated a young lady of about twenty, with an exercise book and dictionary in front of her. Was it a trap? Was I to be taught along with the girls after all? Miss Bousfield evidently divined my perturbation and hastened to explain. "Miss Steele, this is Master Jones, who is going to read Latin with us. Miss Steele is one of my teachers, Jones, and we three are going to brush up our classics together, you see." Oh, all right. That wasn't so bad. I had no objection to assist Miss Steele, or Miss Bousfield, for the matter of that, in brushing-up their classics, as long as the girls at large were kept out of the way. I acknowledged Miss Steele's greeting in a patronising way, and then looked about for a chair. I wished Mr Evans and his lot could see how far removed I was from the common schoolgirl; here were two females actually going to pick my brains for their own good. If women must learn Latin at all, they could hardly do better than secure a public schoolboy to brush them up. "Now, let us see," said Miss Bousfield, "how far we have all got. Miss Steele, you have read some Cicero, I know, already." Cicero! That girl read Cicero, when I had barely begun Caesar! This was a crusher for me. How about the brushing-up now? "And you, Jones, have you begun Cicero yet?" "Well, no," I said, "not yet." "Caesar, then; I think we shall both be ready to take that up again. How far were you--or shall we begin at the beginning?" "Better begin at the beginning," said I, anxious not to have to confess that I had not yet got through the first chapter.