lying face upwards in his coffin under the earth. For months he dreamed of him; for months he passed the door of the bedroom at a run.

Mr. Dimsdale thereafter fixed the type of all corpses. Mr. Dimsdale lay in every passing hearse. Rudd had but to hear that some one was dead, and Mr. Dimsdale's inflexible lines sprang to mind. One day he too would lie like that.

T

CHAPTER XIII

LIES: BASE AND SPLENDID

HERE was a boy at Rudd's school named Keast. He was rather stupid and slow; very plain, with that kind of red coarse plainness which never grows into attractiveness; untidy, grubby. Hence, although he had fine true eyes (a feature, however, of which schoolboys know nothing), he became a butt, and Rudd, who could be an ingenious tease, never hesitated to pull his leg and get a rise out of him. Being very good-natured, Keast took this all in good part: disappointingly so, in fact. It was Rudd who had called him Gargoyle, a name which gave great delight to those of his schoolfellows who knew enough about architecture.

Mr. Pollitt, the mathematical master, had a special form of imposition for boys who misbehaved. Instead of lines, he set them sums which had not only to be done within the time allotted-usually a half-holiday-but had also to be correct. In order that they should be correct, Mr. Pollitt (whom the boys naturally called Jumbo, for this was at a time in England's history when anyone who was fat, or indeed anyone

who was merely plumper than his neighbours, automatically acquired that nickname)-Mr. Pollitt had instituted a system peculiar to himself. Each boy with an imposition had to find another boy to check it before it was brought up.

This may be thought an unfair plan, since it involved as the associate of a guilty boy an innocent one, but there was some sense in it, too, for the difficulty of finding a free-born Briton, conscious of rectitude, to give up his time to one who had really deserved punishment, not only was considerable, but it conferred a distasteful unpopularity on the searcher : one of the reasons being that if, after this outside corroboration, there should happen to be an error in the sum or problem (or rather, if Jumbo detected it, for often enough he merely glanced at it and justice was satisfied), the virtuous ally was punished as severely as though he had been the original sinner. Thus did Jumbo strive for the efficiency of his pupils both in season and out; for the knowledge of the risks, and the natural dislike of a boy to get another boy into trouble, all worked towards zeal and mathematical righteousness.

It happened, however, that with the arrival of the homely and otherwise clumsy and inept Keast much of this improvement vanished, for Keast was a firstclass arithmetician, and he was so amenable to any malefactor's beck and call that at the time of Rudd's entry into the class impositions had become common again.

So much explanation is necessary to make clear that which follows.

Rudd had been mathematically remiss, and was set a punitive task. This he postponed doing till the last minute, as it presented few difficulties; and he then dashed it off and took it straight to Jumbo without thinking it necessary to seek the usual ratification. It was too simple for a mistake to have crept in, and Rudd knew himself to be no fool.

Jumbo glanced at the paper, and was handing it back, when a figure seemed to strike him. He examined it carefully, and Rudd changed feet.

"I thought you all understood that these sums must be checked before I see them?" he said.

"Yes," said Rudd as boldly as he could.

"Then why didn't you get some one to check this?" Jumbo, who seemed to be in a bad temper, glared sternly.

What was Rudd to do? He was not normally dishonest nor out of the way cowardly, but it was absurd to let the man think he had omitted such a necessary precaution as that.

He temporized. "Surely it's not wrong, sir?" he said.

"It is wrong," Mr. Pollitt replied. "I want to know why? Didn't you have it checked ?"

Here was Rudd's chance; but he missed it. "Yes, sir," he said.

"Who checked it?"

"Keast, sir," said Rudd, on an inspiration; and in

stantly he saw the necessity of intercepting old Gargoyle as quickly as possible and squaring him.

"Keast?" Mr. Pollitt asked in surprise.

"Yes," Rudd replied, adding as a brilliant afterthought, in palliation of Keast's defective work as a supervisor, "but he had to do it against time. I didn't ask him till just as the bell rang."

"Rayner," said Mr. Pollitt, talking to another boy, "go and find Keast and bring him to me at once. You stay here," he said to Rudd, and resumed the book he was reading.

Rudd felt the perspiration working out all over him. His knees shook. His heart beat 500 to the minute. His blood turned cold. He stood at the desk in an agony. What an infernal ass he had been! What an insanely silly lie to have told, and-more-be found out over! How could he have been so idiotic; and the worst of it was that he couldn't confess now, it would make it all too gratuitous.

What would Jumbo say if he did? Rudd wondered. Jumbo had never been very keen about him, but he would be fearfully surprised to find him such a sneaking little beast as this. It would spoil everything afterwards. No more fun. A lie to save oneself was all right, comparatively, but a lie involving another chap-that was too low.

It was such a jolly day too, and he was looking forward to the half-holiday and a long walk, and then this rotten thing happened without any warning.

Jumbo did not look up. He read steadily.