extraordinary thing,” said Railsford, who began to feel his dignity somewhat put upon, “that Dr Ponsford should tell me to come to-day, and that no preparations—”

“’Tain’t got to do with me. You’d best go to the doctor’s house, out of that gate, across the little square, the house on the far side of the chapel.”

Railsford, leaving his luggage stacked on the pavement outside the porter’s lodge, started off with flushed cheeks to the lion’s den. The doctor, said the maid, was in, but was at dinner. The gentleman had better call again in half an hour.

So Railsford, in the closing twilight, took a savage walk round the school precincts, in no mood to admire the natural beauties of the place, or to indulge in any rhapsodies at this near view of the scene of his coming triumphs. In half an hour he returned, and was shown into the doctor’s study.

“How do you do, Mr —;” here the doctor took up his visitor’s card to refresh his memory—“Mr Railsford?”

“I was afraid, sir,” said Mark, “I had mistaken your letter about coming to-day; there appears to be no one—no one who can—I have been unable to ascertain where I am to go.”

The doctor waited patiently for the end of this lucid explanation.

“I rather wonder it did not suggest itself to you to call on me for information.”

Railsford wondered so too, and felt rather sheepish.

“Your train must have been late. I expected you an hour ago.”

“I think we were up to time. I walked from Blankington here.”

“Really—I wish I had known of your intention.”

“I trust,” said Railsford, struck by a horrible suspicion, “you were not waiting dinner for me.”

“Not in the least,” said the doctor, with a grim smile; “but I had calculated on taking you round before nightfall. We must defer our visit till the morning. Talking of dinner,” he added, “you will be ready for something after your journey, will you not?”

As Railsford was nearly famishing, he could only colour up and reply—

“Thank you.”

The doctor rang the bell.

“See that Mr Railsford gets dinner. I have to go out,” he added, “but you will, no doubt, make yourself at home;” and the great man withdrew, leaving the new master in a very crestfallen and disturbed state of mind.

If this was a sample of the sympathy he might expect at head-quarters, Moss’s prognostications, after all, were not quite baseless. He made the best of his solitary dinner, and then sallied out in the dark to try to find the porter’s lodge once more and rescue his luggage. That functionary was still absent, and Mark was compelled himself to haul his belongings in under cover, and leave word with the little girl that they were to be taken over to Mr Railsford’s rooms as soon as her father came in. Then taking with him a bag which contained what he wanted for the night, he returned to the head-master’s house and made a point of retiring to rest before his host reappeared on the scene.

Once more luck was against him.

“You vanished early last night,” said the doctor, blandly, at breakfast next morning. “I brought Mr Roe in to supper, thinking you and he might like a chat about the work in the Shell, about which he could have given you some useful hints. However, early hours are very commendable.”

“I am extremely sorry,” faltered Railsford. “I had no idea you would be home so early. I should have liked to meet Mr Roe so much.”

“Take some more coffee?” said the doctor.

After breakfast Mark was conducted in state to his house. The floors were all damp and the carpets up; beds and washstands were piled up in the passages, and nowhere was a fire to be seen.

“There are your rooms,” said the doctor, pointing out a suite of three apartments opening one into the other, at the present time reeking of soft-soap and absolutely destitute of furniture. “You will find them comfortable and central. The inner room is the bedroom, the middle your private sitting-room, and this larger one the house-parlour. Now we will go to the dormitories and studies. You understand your head boys—those in the Sixth and Fifth—have a study to themselves; the Shell have studies in pairs, and the junior school-work in the common room. But all these points you will make yourself familiar with very shortly. As a house-master, you will of course be responsible for everything that takes place in the house—the morals, work and play of the boys are under your supervision. You have four Sixth-form boys in the house, who are prefects under you, and in certain matters exercise an authority of their own without appeal to you. But you quite understand that you must watch that this is not abused. The house dame, Mrs Farthing, superintends everything connected with the boy’s wardrobes, but is under your direction in other matters. I shall introduce you to her as we go down.

“I refer you to the school time-table for particulars as to rising, chapel, preparation, and lights out, and so forth. Discipline on all these points is essential. Cases of difficulty may be referred to a session of the other masters, or in extreme cases to me; but please remember I do not invite consultation in matters of detail. A house-master may use the cane in special cases, which must be reported through the masters’ session to me. So much for your house duties.

“As Master of the Shell, you preside at morning school there every day, and, as you know, have to teach classics, English, and divinity. In the afternoon the boys are taken by the French, mathematical, and chemical masters. But you are nominally responsible for the whole, and any case of insubordination or idleness during afternoon school will be reported to you by the master in charge, and you must deal with it as though you had been in charge at the time.

“Now come and make Mrs Farthing’s acquaintance.”

Mrs Farthing, a lean, wrathful-looking personage, stood in the midst of a wilderness of sheets and blankets, and received her new superior with a very bad grace. She looked him up and looked him down, and then sniffed.

“Very good, Mr Railsford; we shall become better acquainted, I’ve no doubt.”

Railsford shuddered at the prospect; and finding that his luggage was still knocking about at the porter’s lodge, he made further expedition in search of it, and at last, with superhuman efforts, succeeded in getting it transferred to his quarters, greatly to the disgust of Mrs Hastings, who remarked in an audible aside to her fellow-scrubber, Mrs Willis, that people ought to keep their dirty traps to themselves till the place is ready for them.

After which Railsford deemed it prudent to take open-air exercise, and await patiently the hour when his carpets should be laid and Grandcourt should wake up into life for the new term.