sequence, the latter gentleman might have claimed an equal, if not a
premier right.

Mr. Ketch stood in his lodge, leaning for support upon the shut-up
press-bedstead, which, by day, looked like a high chest of drawers with
brass handles, his eyes fixed on the keys, hanging on the opposite
nail. His state of mind may be best expressed by the strong epithet,
"savage." Mr. Ketch had not a pleasant face at the best of times: it
was yellow and withered; and his small bright eyes were always dropping
water; and the two or three locks of hair, which he still possessed,
were faded, and stood out, solitary and stiff, after the manner of
those pictures you have seen of heathens who decorate their heads with
upright tails. At this moment his countenance looked particularly
unpleasant.

Mr. Ketch had spent part of the night and the whole of this morning
revolving the previous evening's affair of the cloisters. The more he
thought of it, the less he liked it, and the surer grew his conviction
that the evil had been the work of his enemies, the college boys.

"It's as safe as day," he wrathfully soliloquized. "There be the right
keys," nodding to the two on the wall, "and there be the wrong ones,"
nodding towards an old knife-tray, into which he had angrily thrown the
rusty keys, upon entering his lodge last night, accompanied by the
crowd. "They meant to lock me up all night in the cloisters, the wicked
cannibals! I hope the dean'll expel 'em! I'll make my complaint to the
head-master, I will! Drat all college schools! there's never no good
done in 'em!"

"How are you this morning, Ketch?"