n be set before a schoolboy. It was
safe to say that in many cases a whipping would be gratefully preferred.
But for the disgrace of the thing, Bert would certainly rather at any
time have taken a mild whipping than sit down and write an essay.

At the first, taking pity upon his evident helplessness, Mr. Lloyd gave
him a good deal of assistance, or allowed Mary--the ever-willing and
ever-helpful Mary--to do so. But after a while he thought Bert should
run alone, and prohibited further aid. Thus thrown upon his own
resources, the poor fellow struggled hard, to very little purpose. Even
when his father gave him a lift to the extent of suggesting a good
theme, he found it almost impossible to write anything about it.

One Friday he went without having prepared a composition. He hoped that
Dr. Johnston would just keep him in after school for a while, or give
him an "imposition" of fifty lines of Virgil to copy as a penalty, and
that that would be an end of the matter. But, as it turned out, the
doctor thought otherwise. When Bert presented no composition he inquired
if he had any excuse, meaning a note from his father asking that he be
excused this time. Bert answered that he had not.

"Then," said Dr. Johnston, sternly, "you must remain in after school
until your composition is written."

Bert was a good deal troubled by this unexpected penalty, but there was
of course no appeal from the master's decision. The school hours passed,
three o'clock came, and all the scholars save those who were kept in for
various shortcomings went joyfully off to their play, leaving the big,
bare, dreary room to the doctor and his prisoners. Then one by one, as
they met the conditions of their sentence, or made up their deficiencies
in work, they slipped quietly away, and ere the old yellow-faced clock
solemnly struck the hour of four, Bert was alone with the grim and
silent master.

He had not been idle during that hour. He had made more than one attempt
to prepare some sort of a composition, but both ideas and words utterly
failed him. He could not even think of a subject, much less cover two
pages of letter paper with comments upon it. By four o'clock despair had
settled down upon him, and he sat at his desk doing nothing, and waiting
he hardly knew for what.

Another hour passed, and still Bert had made no start, and still the
doctor sat at his desk absorbed in his book and apparently quite
oblivious of the boy before him. Six o'cl