and then you won't mind so much."

"I will follow the directions," said he, squirming in his chair.

"Thank you for letting me do it, and for the algebra, and--good-night."

"Good-night."

He immediately abandoned all pretense of working. To him it seemed that
the climax of the turpentine had come instantly; there was no more
working up about it than there was about a live red coal. The mordant
tooth bit into his blood; he rose and tramped the floor, muttering
savagely to himself. But he would not pluck the hateful thing off, no,
no--for that would have been an admission that he was wrong in putting
it on; and he was never wrong.

So Bylash, reading one of Miss Jibby's works in the parlor, and pausing
for a drink of water at the end of a glorious chapter, found him
tramping and muttering. His flying look dared Bylash to address him, and
Bylash prudently took the dare. But he poured his drink slowly, stealing
curious glances and endeavoring to catch the drift of the little
Doctor's murmurings.

In this attempt he utterly failed, because why? Obviously because the
Doctor cursed exclusively in the Greek and Latin languages.

In five minutes, Queed was upon his work again. Not that the turpentine
was yet dying slowly away, as Fifi had predicted that it would. On the
contrary it burned like the fiery furnace of Shadrach and Abednego. But
_One Hour a Day to be given to Bodily Exercise!_... Oh, every second
must be made to count now, whether one's head was breaking into flame or
not.

Whatever his faults or foibles, Mr. Queed was captain of his soul. But
the fates were against him to-night. In half an hour, when the
sting--they called this conflagration a sting!--was beginning to get
endurable and the pencil to move steadily, the door opened and in strode
Professor Nicolovius; he, it seemed, wanted matches. Why under heaven,
if a man wanted matches, couldn't he buy a thousand boxes and store them
in piles in his room?

The old professor apologized blandly for his intrusion, but seemed in no
hurry to make the obvious reparation. He drew a match along the bottom
of the mantle-shelf, eyeing the back of the little Doctor's head as he
did so, and slowly lit a cigar.

"I'm sorry to see that you've met with an accident, Mr. Queed. Is there
anything, perhaps, that I might do?"

"Nothing at all,'thanks," said Queed, so indignantly that Nicolovius
dropped the subject at once.

The star-boarder of Mrs. Paynter's might hav