Chawner was the leader of this conscientious band; he revelled in the system. It gave him the means at once of gratifying the almost universal love of power and of indulging a catlike passion for playing with the feelings of others, which, it is to be hoped, is more uncommon. He knew he was not popular, but he could procure most of the incidents of popularity; he could have his little court of cringing toadies; he could levy his tribute of conciliatory presents, and vent many private spites and hatreds into the bargain--and he generally did. Having himself a tendency to acts of sly disobedience, he found it a congenial pastime to set the fashion from time to time in some one of the peccadilloes to which boyhood is prone, and to which the Doctor's somewhat restrictive code added a large number, and as soon as he saw a sufficient number of his companions satisfactorily implicated, his opportunity came. He would take the chief culprits aside, and profess, in strict confidence, certain qualms of conscience which he feared could only be appeased by unburdening his guilt-laden soul. To this none would have had any right to object--had it not necessarily, or at least from Chawner's point of view, involved a full, true, and particular account of the misdoings of each and every one; and consequently, for some time after these professions of misgivings, Chawner would be surrounded by a little crowd of anxiously obsequious friends, all trying hard to overcome his scruples or persuade him at least to omit their names from his revelations. Sometimes he would affect to be convinced by their arguments and send them away reassured; at others his scruples would return in an aggravated form; and so he would keep them on tenterhooks of suspense for days and weeks, until he was tired of the amusement--for this practising on the fears of weaker natures is a horribly keen delight to some--or until some desperate little dog, unable to bear his torture any longer, would threaten to give himself up and make an end of it. Then Chawner, to do him justice, always relieved him from so disagreeable a necessity, and would go softly into the Doctor's study, and, in a subdued and repentant tone, pour out his general confession for the public good. Probably the Doctor did not altogether respect the instruments he saw fit to use in this way; some would have declined to hear the informer out, flogged him well, and forgotten it; but Dr. Grimstone--though he was hardly likely to be impressed by these exhibitions of noble candour, and did not fail to see that the prospect of obtaining better terms for the penitent himself had something to do with them--yet encouraged the system as a matter of policy, went thoroughly into the whole affair, and made it the cause of an explosion which he considered would clear the moral atmosphere for some time to come. I hope that, after this explanation, Chawner's opposition to Mr. Bultitude's plans will be better understood.