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 ask what Laurie meant by it. It was almost as if Laurie had caught him at something, instead of its being just the other way about! But he was too stubborn to speak first, and they went out of the room with the silence still unbroken.

At breakfast, Mr. Brock, at whose table they sat, made the disquieting announcement that Edward and Laurence Turner were wanted at the Doctor's study at 8:30. Involuntarily the gaze of the two boys met swiftly. Each thought at once of examinations, although further consideration told them that it was still too soon for any shortcomings of theirs to reach the principal.

Although they had entered the dining-hall separately, now a common uneasiness took them together to the Doctor's, albeit in silence. They were asked to be seated, which they accepted as a favorable sign, but there was, nevertheless, something unsympathetic in Dr. Hillman's countenance. The latter swung himself around in his chair and faced them, his head thrust forward a little because of a near-sightedness not wholly corrected by his spectacles. And then Laurie observed that the Doctor was gazing intently at a