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Mr. Neatby frowned, but never looked up from his corrections. He had not been long at the school, and was not upon intimate terms with any of the masters, so that it was hardly likely to be a caller for him. He heard somebody open the front door, then some vehicle drive away. A moment later there was a knock at his door, and Jemima, Mrs. Vyner’s niece, came in, bearing a hamper.

“Please, sir, this ’ave just come by rail; there wasn’t nothing to pay.”

“Very well,” Mr. Neatby answered without looking up; “put it down, please; I can’t attend to it just now.”

Jemima did as she was told, and once more silence settled upon the room.

But not for long. Kitten number one got restless; it walked round and round the hamper, and sniffed and mewed, and mewed and sniffed, with irritating persistency. Moreover, a curious muffled echo seemed to accompany its mewing. Mr. Neatby bore it for five minutes, then pushed back his chair, caught the disturbing kitten by the scruff of its neck, and bore it to the top of the kitchen stairs, calling to Jemima to take it down. That young lady obeyed his summons, taking the kitten tenderly into her arms with many endearments; but all the same she remarked to her aunt, “Well, I do think as ’e might manage to look after one on ’em ’isself, that I do.”