begin with _you_." He then took the boy into the library and flogged
him; and, on issuing forth again, had the face to say, with an air of
indifference, "I have not time, after all, to punish these two other
boys; let them take care how they provoke me another time."

Often did I wish that I was a fairy, in order to play him tricks like a
Caliban. We used to sit and fancy what we should do with his wig; how we
would hamper and vex him; "put knives in his pillow, and halters in his
pew." To venture on a joke in our own mortal persons, was like playing
with Polyphemus. One afternoon, when he was nodding with sleep over a
lesson, a boy of the name of Meaer, who stood behind him, ventured to
take a pin, and begin advancing with it up his wig. The hollow,
exhibited between the wig and the nape of the neck, invited him. The
boys encouraged this daring act of gallantry. Nods and becks, and then
whispers of "Go it, M.!" gave more and more valor to his hand. On a
sudden, the master's head falls back; he starts, with eyes like a shark;
and seizing the unfortunate culprit, who stood helpless in the act of
holding the pin, caught hold of him, fiery with passion. A "swinging
task" ensued, which kept him at home all the holidays. One of these
tasks would consist of an impossible quantity of Virgil, which the
learner, unable to retain it at once, wasted his heart and soul out "to
get up," till it was too late.

Sometimes, however, our despot got into a dilemma, and then he did not
know how to get out of it. A boy, now and then, would be roused into
open and fierce remonstrance. I recollect S., afterward one of the
mildest of preachers, starting up in his place, and pouring forth on his
astonished hearer a torrent of invectives and threats, which the other
could only answer by looking pale, and uttering a few threats in return.
Nothing came of it. He did not like such matters to go before the
governors. Another time, Favell, a Grecian, a youth of high spirit, whom
he had struck, went to the school-door, opened it, and, turning round
with the handle in his grasp, told him he would never set foot again in
the place, unless he promised to treat him with more delicacy. "Come
back, child--come back!" said the other, pale, and in a faint voice.
There was a dead silence. Favell came back, and nothing mere was done.

A sentiment, unaccompanied with something practical, would have been
lost upon him D----, who went afterward to the Military