-a-vis_ of Mr. Korde's own private dwelling.
It had never once been whitewashed since it was first built; but, on
the other hand, it was richly adorned outside with the Christian names
and the nicknames of all the urchins who had ever been inside its walls,
names to which later generations of scholars had taken good care to add
such distinguishing epithets as ass, swine, &c., &c. Those, moreover,
who possessed a taste for art did not omit to paint on the wall, with
red chalk, hussars, two-legged heads with six noses and one eye, large
meerschaum pipes, &c., &c. Here and there, too, the remains of big black
ink blots and red splodges, like hideous bunches of cherries, pointed to
past combats in which inkpots had been hurled and fists used freely;
these pictorial devices, however, were but fragmentary, as the various
generations of students had from time to time dug large bits of mortar
out of the walls with their nails to serve as sand for blotting their
themes.

Inside the schoolroom the shapeless battered benches were also carved
all over with names and emblems. The window panes had for the most part
been broken to bits, and the gaps stuffed with closely written MS. torn
out of old exercise books. Layers of dust met the eye everywhere, and
there was a perfect network of dangling spiders' webs in all the
corners.

Such, in all its beauty, was the academical emporium where Mr. Michael
Korde for thirty years had been in the habit of regularly dispensing
science and slaps--with what result we shall see later on.

Worthy Mr. Korde used regularly to return to his own honourable
dwelling from the pot-house just when the night-watchmen were going home
to sleep and the cocks were crowing in the morn, and at such times he
would bellow forth ditties the whole way at the top of his voice to the
accompaniment of the howling of all the watch-dogs in the village.

The object of this singing bout was to warn the honest tutor's better
half that her lord was approaching, and give her time to open the street
door for him.

On safely reaching home he would first of all knock his wife about a bit
and break to pieces any odd articles which might stray into his hands,
whereupon, after a little miscellaneous cursing and swearing, he would
fling himself down upon the floor, light his pipe, fall asleep and snore
like a wild hog.

Heaven only knows how it was that he did not burn his house over his
head every day.

The following morning