e always had a love for boys--for I was the
youngest of our family, and the rest were girls--seven dear girls,
gentle and sweet. They taught me sympathy. And don't you think that
boys, as well as older people, are ruled by kindness and not by force?
When I remember how I was treated, I feel this is how other boys would
wish to be treated. Muffins? Buttered, if you please. I dote on muffins!
So I am a schoolmaster."

"You are needed at the Seminary, Mr. Byles, I can tell you, for the
place is just a den of savages! Will you believe me, that a boy rolled
James on the ground till he was like a clay cat yesterday--and James is
so particular about being neat!--and when I complained to Mr. MacKinnon,
he laughed in my face and told me that it would do the laddie good?
There's a master for you! Thomas John tells me that he is called
'Bulldog,' and although I don't approve of disrespect, I must say it is
an excellent name for Mr. MacKinnon. And I've often said to the Doctor,
'If the masters are like that, what can you expect of the boys?'"

"Let us hope, Mrs. Dowbiggin, that there will soon be some improvement;
and it will not be my fault if there isn't. What I want to be is not a
master, but the boys' friend, to whom the boys will feel as to a mother,
to whom they will confide their difficulties and trials," and Mr. Byles'
face had a soft, tender, far-away look.

It was only for one winter that he carried on his mission, but it
remains a green and delectable memory with old boys of the Seminary. How
he would not use the cane, because it brutalised boys, as he explained,
but kept Peter McGuffie in for an hour, during which time he
remonstrated with Peter for his rude treatment of James Dowbiggin, whom
he had capsized over a form, and how Peter's delighted compatriots
climbed up one by one to the window and viewed him under Mr. Byles'
ministrations with keen delight, while Speug imitated to them by signs
that they would have to pay handsomely for their treat. How he would
come on Jock Howieson going home in a heavy rain, and ostentatiously
refusing even to button his coat, and would insist on affording him the
shelter of an umbrella, to Jock's intense humiliation, who knew that
Peter was following with derisive criticism. How, by way of
conciliation, Mr. Byles would carry sweets in his coat-tail pocket and
offer them at unsuitable times to the leading anarchists, who regarded
this imbecility as the last insult. It is now agreed