yes, the
blackboard; no, the honourable master he will have the goodness to write
it in his so beautiful characters. One sentence, that is all, and you
will sit for one hour in this room where you make your studies, and you
will write all the beautiful things which come into your heads about
that sentence. You will then do me the pleasure of letting me carry
home all those beautiful things, and I will read them; and the writer
who affects me most, I will ask him to accept a book of many volumes,
and the Lor' Mayor" ("Provost," interpolated Bulldog) "will present it
on the great day in the Town Hall.

"No one, not even the honourable master himself, will know that leetle
sentence till it be written on the--the----" ("Blackboard," said
Bulldog, with asperity), "and every boy will be able to write many
things about that sentence. The scholars upon whom I do felicitate the
honourable master will write much learning," and the Count made a
graceful inclination in the direction of the two Dowbiggins; "and the
brave boys who love the sport, they will also write, ah! ah!"--and the
Count nodded cheerfully in the direction of Speug--"such wonderful
things. There will be no books; no, you will have your heads, and so it
will be the fair play, as you say," repeated the Count with much
satisfaction, "the fair play."

Bulldog dismissed the school after he had explained that no one need
come unless he wished, but that anyone who didn't come was missing the
opportunity of securing an honourable distinction, and would also show
himself to be an ungrateful little scoundrel for all that the Count had
done for the Seminary.

"Dod," said Jock Howieson, with much native shrewdness, "aifter all his
palaver it's naething but anither confounded exercise," for that worthy
had suffered much through impositions, and had never been able to
connect one sentence with another in an intelligent manner. "The
Dowbiggins can go if they want, and they're welcome to the books. I'm
going next Saturday to Woody Island--will you come, Speug?" And it hung
in the balance whether or not the Count would be openly affronted next
Saturday when he found himself in the company of half a dozen "swats,"
while his "jolly dogs" were off in a pack to their island of romance.

Speug could not imagine himself sitting in a class-room on Saturday
afternoon, except under brute force, and yet he felt it would be
ungrateful after all his kindness to leave the Count in the comp