He was
examined, re-examined, cross-examined, sent to the retirement of his
own bedroom and cross-examined again; the smoking in Mrs. Jones's
kitchen all came out; which boys smoked and which did not; which
boys owed money and, roughly, how much and where; which boys swore and
used bad language. Theobald was resolved that this time Ernest should,
as he called it, take him into his confidence without reserve, so
the school list which went with Dr. Skinner's half-yearly bills was
brought out, and the most secret character of each boy was gone
through seriatim by Mr. and Mrs. Pontifex, so far as it was in
Ernest's power to give information concerning it, and yet Theobald had
on the preceding Sunday preached a less feeble sermon than he commonly
preached, upon the horrors of the Inquisition. No matter how awful was
the depravity revealed to them, the pair never flinched, but probed
and probed, till they were on the point of reaching subjects more
delicate than they had yet touched upon. Here Ernest's unconscious
self took the matter up and made a resistance to which his conscious
self was unequal, by tumbling him off his chair in a fit of fainting.
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