ing. He was suspended from school
for three days, and he returned more perverse and insolent than before.
Derossi said to him one day, "Stop it! don't you see how much the
teacher suffers?" and the other threatened to stick a nail into his
stomach. But this morning, at last, he got himself driven out like a
dog. While the master was giving to Garrone the rough draft of _The
Sardinian Drummer-Boy_, the monthly story for January, to copy, he threw
a petard on the floor, which exploded, making the schoolroom resound as
from a discharge of musketry. The whole class was startled by it. The
master sprang to his feet, and cried:--

"Franti, leave the school!"

The latter retorted, "It wasn't I;" but he laughed. The master
repeated:--

"Go!"

"I won't stir," he answered.

Then the master lost his temper, and flung himself upon him, seized him
by the arms, and tore him from his seat. He resisted, ground his teeth,
and made him carry him out by main force. The master bore him thus,
heavy as he was, to the head-master, and then returned to the schoolroom
alone and seated himself at his little table, with his head clutched in
his hands, gasping, and with an expression of such weariness and trouble
that it was painful to look at him.

"After teaching school for thirty years!" he exclaimed sadly, shaking
his head. No one breathed. His hands were trembling with fury, and the
perpendicular wrinkle that he has in the middle of his forehead was so
deep that it seemed like a wound. Poor master! All felt sorry for him.
Derossi rose and said, "Signor Master, do not grieve. We love you." And
then he grew a little more tranquil, and said, "We will go on with the
lesson, boys."

THE SARDINIAN DRUMMER-BOY.

(_Monthly Story._)

On the first day of the battle of Custoza, on the 24th of July, 1848,
about sixty soldiers, belonging to an infantry regiment of our army, who
had been sent to an elevation to occupy an isolated house, suddenly
found themselves assaulted by two companies of Austrian soldiers, who,
showering them with bullets from various quarters, hardly gave them time
to take refuge in the house and to barricade the doors, after leaving
several dead and wounded on the field. Having barred the doors, our men
ran in haste to the windows of the ground floor and the first story, and
began to fire brisk discharges at their assailants, who, approaching
gradually, ranged in a semicircle, made vigorous reply. The sixty
Italian sol