“In most respects, I dare say,” replied Eugene, enjoying his cigar, “though whether high or low is of no importance. You have my name very correctly. Pray what is yours?”

“It cannot concern you much to know, but⁠—”

“True,” interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting him short at his mistake, “it does not concern me at all to know. I can say Schoolmaster, which is a most respectable title. You are right, Schoolmaster.”

It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of Bradley Headstone, that he had made it himself in a moment of incautious anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, but they quivered fast.

“ Mr. Eugene Wrayburn,” said the boy, “I want a word with you. I have wanted it so much, that we have looked out your address in the book, and we have been to your office, and we have come from your office here.”