his hat
in the excitement and turmoil, and sadly discomposed his powdered
ringlets. Advices were brought to him (we must now use the phrase
military) of the demonstration made by the young gentlemen in the
schoolroom. He hurried with the pitchfork in his hand, which he had
been using, and appeared at the entrance of his pandemonium, almost,
considering his demoniac look, in character. He made a speech, enforced
by thumping the handle of the fork against the floor, which speech,
though but little attended to, was marked by one singularity. He did
not tell the lads to turn up any of his hard words. However, he hoped
that the young gentlemen had yet sense of propriety enough left, to
permit the servants to clear the tables of the plates, knives, forks,
and other dinner appurtenances. This was acceded to by shouts of "Let
them in--let them in." The girls and the two school men-servants came
in, one of the latter being the obnoxious hoister, and they were
permitted to perform their office in a dead silence. It speaks well for
our sense of honour, and respect for the implied conditions of the
treaty, when it is remembered that this abhorred Tom, the living
instrument of our tortures, and on whose back we had most of us so often
writhed, was permitted to go into the darkest corners of the room
unmolested, and even uninsulted. When the tables were cleared, then
rung out exultingly the shout of "Bar him out--bar him out!"

"I never yet," roared out Mr Root, "was barred out of my own premises,
and I never will be!" He was determined to resist manfully, and, if he
fell, to fall like Caesar, in the capitol, decorously: so, as togae are
not worn in our unclassical days, he retired to prepare himself for the
contention, by getting his head newly powdered, telling his assistants
to keep the position they still held, at all hazards, near the door.

Before I narrate the ensuing struggle--a struggle that will be ever
remembered in the town in which it took place, and which will serve
anyone that was engaged in it, as long as he lives, to talk of with
honest enthusiasm, even if he has been happy enough to have been engaged
in real warfare; it is necessary to describe exactly the battle-field.
The school was a parallelogram, bowed at one end, and about the
dimensions of a moderately-sized chapel. It was very lofty, and, at the
bowed end, which looked into the fields, there were three large windows
built very high, and arched a