It was an awful tribunal, that head master's study! "All hope abandon, ye who enter here," was the motto--if not written, at least clearly implied--over the door.

The mere mention of the place was enough to make one's flesh creep.

Yet, somehow or other, Sam Scamp, was always finding himself there.

He must have abandoned hope once a week at least during his school life, and before he left school I am certain he must have worn that awful carpet threadbare, for all _his_ offences were special offences.

When half a dozen boys had spent one afternoon in throwing stones over a certain wall, the stone which broke the doctor's conservatory window was, as might be expected, Sam's.