He knew that they knew him more thoroughly than he did himself, and shrank from the intuitive vision of these small clairvoyants.
"Well ?" said the master gravely.
There was the usual interval of bashful hesitation, verging on nervous hilarity or hypocritical attention.

For the last six months this question by the master had been invariably received each morning as a veiled pleasantry which might lead to baleful information or conceal some query out of the dreadful books before him.

Yet this very element of danger had its fascinations.

Johnny Filgee, a small boy, blushed violently, and, without getting up, began hurriedly in a high key, "Tige ith got," and then suddenly subsided into a whisper.
"Speak up, Johnny," said the master encouragingly.
"Please, sir, it ain't anythin' he's seed--nor any real news," said Rupert Filgee, his elder brother, rising with family concern and frowning openly upon Johnny; "it's jest his foolishness; he oughter be licked." Finding himself unexpectedly on his feet, and apparently at the end of a long speech, he colored also, and then said hurriedly, "Jimmy Snyder--HE seed suthin'.

Ask HIM!" and sat down--a recognized hero.
Every eye, including the master's, was turned on Jimmy Snyder.