d no good.

What passed between these worthies on this occasion--whether the
attorney really persuaded Jack that, if he set about it, he would
undertake to find him a flaw in his contract with Squire Bull, which
would enable him to take the matter of the usherships into his own hand,
and to do as he pleased; or whether Jack--as he seemed afterwards to
admit in private--believed nothing of what the attorney told him, but
was resolved to take advantage of the Squire's good-nature, and to run
all risks as to the result, 'tis hard to say. Certain it was, however,
that Jack posted down at once from the attorney's chamber to the village
school, which happened to be then vacant, and gathering the elder boys
about him, he told them he had reason to believe the Squire was about to
send them another usher, very different from the last, who was a mortal
enemy to marbles, pitch-and-toss, chuck-farthing, ginger-bread, and half
holydays; with a corresponding liking to long tasks and short commons;
that the use of the cane would be regularly taught, along with that of
the globes, accompanied with cuts and other practical demonstrations;
that the only chance of escaping this visitation was to take a bold
line, and show face to the usher at once, since otherwise the chance
was, that at no distant period they might be obliged to do the very
reverse.

Jack further reasoned the matter with the boys learnedly, somewhat in
this fashion--"That as no one could have so strong an interest in the
matter, so no one could be so good a judge of the qualifications of the
schoolmaster as the schoolboy; that the close and intimate relation
between these parties was of the nature of a mutual contract, in the
formation of which both had an equal right to be consulted; so that,
without mutual consent, or, as it were, a harmonious call by the boys,
there could be no valid ushership, but a mere usurpation of the power of
the tawse, and unwarrantable administration of the birchen twig; that,
further, this latter power involved a fundamental feature, in which they
could not but feel they had all a deep interest--and which, he might
say, lay at the bottom of the whole question; that he himself perfectly
remembered that, in former days, the schoolboys had always exercised
this privilege, which he held to be equally salutary and constitutional;
and that he would, at his leisure, show them a private memorandum-book
of his own, in which, though he had hitherto sa