_scenario_ of a conscience.

"I can't."

"All right, don't, then. But you ought to send back that postal
order."

"Look here, Phipps," said Spencer plaintively, "you needn't be an
idiot, you know."

And the trivial matter of Thomas B. A. Shearne was shelved.

* * * * *

Thomas, as he had stated in his letter to his mother, was exceedingly
happy at Eckleton, and getting on very nicely indeed. It is true that
there had been one or two small unpleasantnesses at first, but those
were over now, and he had settled down completely. The little troubles
alluded to above had begun on his second day at Blackburn's. Thomas,
as the reader may have gathered from his glimpse of him at the station,
was not a diffident youth. He was quite prepared for anything Fate
might have up its sleeve for him, and he entered the junior day-room at
Blackburn's ready for emergencies. On the first day nothing happened.
One or two people asked him his name, but none inquired what his father
was--a question which, he had understood from books of school life, was
invariably put to the new boy. He was thus prevented from replying
"coolly, with his eyes fixed on his questioner's": "A gentleman. What's
yours?" and this, of course, had been a disappointment. But he reconciled
himself to it, and on the whole enjoyed his first day at Eckleton.