was about,
looked up, and said abruptly, `What is a proper noun?'

"`A well-behaved one,' replied Doddle.

"At this the whole school tittered violently.

"`Silence, boys,' cried the master, in a tone that produced the desired
effect so thoroughly that you might have heard a pin drop. Then laying
his hand on Doddle's shoulder, he looked him full in the face, and said
solemnly, `Thompson, _I have found you out_. Go, sir, to your seat, and
remain behind when the other boys go to the playground.'

"We observed that Doddle grew very red in the face as he came back to
his seat, and during the rest of the hour he never once looked up.

"During the whole of the play-hour the master and he remained shut up
together in the schoolroom. We never discovered what took place there
between them, for neither threats nor coaxing could induce Doddle
afterwards to speak on the subject; but from that day forward he was a
changed boy. He not only learned his lessons, but he learned them well,
and in the course of time became one of the best scholars in the school;
so that although he never would admit it, we all came to the conclusion
he had been shamming stupid--attempting to deceive the master into the
belief that he was incurable, and thus manage to get rid of lessons and
school altogether."

"A most remarkable boy," observed Jack when Peterkin concluded.
"Certainly he beat the monkeys hollow."

"I wonder," said I, "what the master said or did to him that wrought
such a mighty change."

"Don't know," replied Peterkin; "I suppose he told him that now he had
found him out, he would flay him alive if he didn't give in, or
something of that sort."

We had now entered the dark forest that edged the plain over which we
had been walking, and further conversation on this subject was stopped,
and the subject itself banished utterly from our minds by the loud,
startling cry of a gorilla at no great distance from us.

"Hist! that's him," whispered Peterkin.

Instantly throwing our rifles into a position of readiness we pushed
rapidly through the underwood in the direction whence the cry had come.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

WE GET INTO "THE THICK OF IT"--GREAT SUCCESS.

In a few minutes we came upon a female gorilla, which, all unconscious
of our approach, was sitting at the foot of a vine, eating the leaves.
There were four young ones beside her, engaged in the same occupation.
In order to approach within shot of these, we had to