you may go now," said Mr O'Gallagher, "and mind you don't do
it again; or else there'll be a blow-up. And now Master Keene, we come
to the third and last, which is the birch for the tail--here it is--have
you ever had a taste?"

"No, sir," replied I.

"Well, then, you have that pleasure to come, and come it will, I don't
doubt, if you and I are a few days longer acquainted. Let me see--"

Here Mr O'Gallagher looked round the school, as if to find a culprit;
but the boys, aware of what was going on, kept their eyes so attentively
to their books, that he could not discover one; at last he singled out a
fat chubby lad.

"Walter Puddock, come here, sir."

Walter Puddock came accordingly; evidently he gave himself up for lost.

"Walter Puddock, I just have been telling Master Keene that you're the
best Latin scholar in the whole school. Now, sir, don't make me out to
be a liar--do me credit,--or, by the blood of the O'Gallaghers, I'll
flog ye till you're as thin as a herring. What's the Latin for a cocked
hat, as the Roman gentlemen wore with their _togeys_?"

Walter Puddock hesitated a few seconds, and then, without venturing a
word of remonstrance, let down his trousers.

"See now the guilty tief, he knows what's coming. Shame upon you,
Walter Puddock, to disgrace your preceptor so, and make him tell a lie
to young Master Keene. Where's Phil Mooney? Come along, sir, and hoist
Walter Puddock: it's no larning that I can drive into you, Phil, but
it's sartain sure that by your manes I drive a little into the other
boys."

Walter Puddock, as soon as he was on the back of Phil Mooney, received a
dozen cuts with the rod, well laid on. He bore it without flinching,
although the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"There, Walter Puddock, I told you it would end in a blow-up; go to your
dictionary, you dirty blackguard, and do more credit to your education
and superior instruction from a certain person who shall be nameless."

Mr O'Gallagher laid the rod on one side, and then continued--

"Now, Master Keene, I've just shown you the three roads to larning, and
also the three implements to persuade little boys to larn; if you don't
travel very fast by the three first, why you will be followed up very
smartly by the three last--a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse,
any day; and one thing more, you little spalpeen, mind that there's more
mustard to the sandwiches to-morrow, or else it will end in a blow-up.
Now y