"And I want it stopped," Everard Rutledge growled.

One week after my arrival at the Sudbury School in March of 1817, Rutledge faced me over his desk in his private study.

The headmaster had a large, flat face, a bulbous nose, and short graying hair that looked as though perpetually whipped by high wind. His coat hung untidily on his large frame, his ivory waistcoat was rumpled, his yellowing cravat twisted. The effect was as though a bull had climbed into an expensive suit and then gone about its business.

He had just told me a story of vicious pranks that had been perpetrated in the school-a chandelier in the dining hall coming down, a fire in the maids' attic, threatening letters written in blood, and three boys falling ill due to poisoned port.

"Not nice," I remarked. "Worse than the usual pranks boys play on each other."

"Exactly," Rutledge barked. "What do you intend to do about it, eh?"

I looked at him in surprise. I had not thought discovering pranksters would be in the sphere of the secretary's duties, but Rutledge glared at me as though waiting for me to produce the name of the culprit then and there.

"What would you have me do?" I asked him.

"Well, damn it, man, is this not why you are here? Grenville told me you were a master at poking your nose into things that did not concern you."

"I do hope Grenville did not put it quite like that," I said mildly.

Rutledge scowled. "He neglected to tell me how impertinent you are. I cannot imagine you made a very good soldier."

"My commander would agree with you," I said. Colonel Brandon, once my closest friend, had often lectured me about my tendency to disobey orders and tell my superiors what I thought of them.

"But please continue about the problem," I said, my curiosity piqued in spite of myself. "If you wish me to discover which boys are responsible, I will need as much information as I can obtain."