time before the
ringing of the last bell, which really did not go off until some
minutes after it should have done; and then there was the back way of
written excuses, by which a fellow could sneak up in the rear and rub
out a mark that really stood against him, and not have it count on the
board down in the hall; and absences of a certain character were not
counted either. So, take it all in all, "Dodd" saw clearly that the
shown record and the real record were not the same things by a long
way, but that it was the former on which Mr. Sharp relied for his power
and glory with the patrons of the school, and before the board of
education. So it was that Mr. Sharp watered what Mr. Sliman planted,
and "Dodd" had to stand it all.

And then there was Miss Slack, and Miss Trotter, and Mr. Skimpole (a
lineal descendant of the urbane Harold), and Mr. Looseley, and Mr.
Rattler, and Striker, and Bluffer, and Smiley; all these took a hand at
the mill that was rolling out the character of "Dodd" Weaver, and there
are marks of their varied crankings upon him to this day.

One year he fell into the hands of old Mrs. Heighten. She was a widow
who had been rich, but was now poor, and who had a place in the schools
because she needed it. She was so much like all the rest of this sort
that she need not be further described, and were it not for one
characteristic she should remain in oblivion, so far as this record is
concerned. But for this I must have her out.

She was poor and really a proud beggar of public charity, yet she was
of such genteel and lofty birth and bearing that teaching was a bore to
her. She really despised and hated her pupils, and they returned these
sentiments with interest. There was always rebellion in her room, and
to suppress it she resorted to all sorts of penalties and punishments.
She used to make pupils stand on the floor and extend an arm on a level
with the shoulder, and so hold a book till it seemed as if the arm
would break off. She herself stood by with a pin in her hand,
meanwhile, holding it at a slight distance below the extended arm and
sticking it into the hand of the suffering one if the aching member
were lowered an inch.

O Dante, you didn't begin to exhaust the possibilities of outrageous
punishments in all you saw in the infernal regions. Old Mrs. Heighten
could give you several points that you never dreamed of, and not tax
her powers of ingenuity very much either.

Yet "Dodd" w