antagonists, they were quiet as statues. There
was much said on both sides, reasonings, entreaties, expostulations, and
even jocularity passed, between the adverse, but yet quiescent ranks.
In this wordy warfare the boys had the best of it, and I'm sure the
ushers had no stomach for the fray--if they fought, they must fight, in
some measure, with their hands tied; for their own judgment told them
that they could not be justified in inflicting upon their opponents any
desperate wounds. In fact, considering all the circumstances, though
they asseverated that the boys were terribly in the wrong, they could
not say that Mr Root was conspicuously in the right.

When Mr Root got among his myrmidons, he resolutely cried, "Gentlemen
assistants, advance, and seize Master Atkinson, Master Brewster, Master
Davenant, and especially Master Rattlin;" the said Master Rattlin having
very officiously wriggled himself into the first rank. Such is the
sanctity of established authority, that we actually gave back, with
serried files however, as our opponents advanced. All had now been
lost, even our honour, had it not been for the gallant conduct of young
Henry Saint Albans, a natural son of the Duke of Y---, who was destined
for the army, and, at that time, studying fortification, and to some
purpose--for, immediately behind our front ranks, and while Mr Root was
haranguing and advancing, Saint Albans had arranged the desks quite
across the room, in two tiers, one above the other; the upper tier with
their legs in the air, no bad substitute for chevaux-de-frise. In fact,
this manoeuvre was an anticipation of the barricades of Paris. When the
boys came to the obstacle, they made no difficulty of creeping under or
jumping over it; but for the magisterial Mr Root, fully powdered; or
the classical master, full of Greek; or the mathematical master,
conscious of much Algebra, to creep under these desks, would have been
infra dig, and for them to have leapt over was impossible. The younger
assistants might certainly have performed the feat, but they would have
been but scurvily treated for their trouble, on the wrong side of the
barricade.

When two antagonist bodies cannot fight, it is no bad pastime to parley.
Saint Albans was simultaneously and unanimously voted leader, though we
had many older than he, for he was but eighteen. A glorious youth was
that Saint Albans! Accomplished, generous, brave, handsome, as are all
his race, and