Yere's all yer three bosses waiting
for ye."

And the supposed expressman and late narrator of amusing stories came
forward and presented his credentials as the assistant teacher of Pine
Clearing.

CHAPTER II.

Even the practical Mr. Sperry was taken aback. The young man before him
was squarely built, with broad shoulders, and a certain air of muscular
activity. But his face, although good-humored, was remarkable for
offering not the slightest indication of studious preoccupation or
mental training. A large mouth, light blue eyes, a square jaw, the other
features being indistinctive--were immobile as a mask--except that,
unlike a mask, they seemed to actually reflect the vacuity of the mood
within, instead of concealing it. But as he saluted the trustees they
each had the same feeling that even this expression was imported and not
instinctive. His face was clean-shaven, and his hair cut so short as to
suggest that a wig of some kind was necessary to give it characteristic
or even ordinary human semblance. His manner, self-assured yet lacking
reality, and his dress of respectable cut and material, yet worn as if
it did not belong to him, completed a picture as unlike a student or
schoolmaster as could be possibly conceived.

Yet there was the letter in Mr. Peaseley's hands from Barstow,
introducing Mr. Charles Twing as the first assistant teacher in the Pine
Clearing Free Academy!

The three men looked hopelessly at each other. An air of fatigued
righteousness and a desire to be spiritually at rest from other trials
pervaded Mr. Peaseley. Whether or not the young man felt the evident
objection he had raised, he assumed a careless position, with his back
and elbows against the bar; but even the attitude was clearly not his
own.

"Are you personally known to Mr. Barstow?" asked Sperry, with a slight
business asperity.

"Yes."

"That is--you are quite well acquainted with him?"

"If you'd heard me gag his style a minute ago, so that everybody here
knew who it was, you'd say so."

Mr. Peaseley's eyes sought the ceiling, and rested on the hanging lamp,
as if nothing short of direct providential interference could meet the
occasion. Yet, as the eyes of his brother trustees were bent on him
expectantly, he nerved himself to say something.

"I suppose, Mr.--Mr. Twing, you have properly understood the great--I
may say, very grave, intellectual, and moral responsibilities of the
work you seek to undertake--and