ed the gentleman to comply with
his courtesy; but no sooner had he fixed himself upon the seat than
it overturned, and stretched him, black coat and all, across a wide
concavity in the floor nearly filled up with white ashes produced from
mountain turf. In a moment he was completely white on one side, and
exhibited a most laughable appearance; his hat, too, was scorched and
nearly burned on the turf coals. Squire Johnston laughed heartily, so
did the other schoolmaster, whilst the Englishman completely lost his
temper--swearing that such another uncivilized establishment was not
between the poles.

"I solemnly supplicate upwards of fifty pardons," said Mat; "bad manners
to it for a stool! but, your honor, it was my own detect of speculation,
bekase, you see, it's minus a leg--a circumstance of which you waren't
wi a proper capacity to take cognation, its not being personally
acquainted with it. I humbly supplicate upwards of fifty pardons."

The Englishman was now nettled, and determined to wreak his ill-temper
on Mat, by turning him and his establishment into ridicule.

"Isn't this, Mister ------ I forget your name, sir."

"Mat Kavanagh, at your sarvice."

"Very well, my learned friend, Mr. Mat Kevanagh, isn't this precisely
what is called a hedge-school?"

"A hedge-school!" replied Mat, highly offended; "my seminary a
hedge-school! No, sir; I scorn the cognomen in toto. This, sir, is a
Classical and Mathematical Seminary, under the personal superintendence
of your humble servant."

"Sir," replied the other master, who till then was silent, wishing,
perhaps, to sack Mat in presence of the gentlemen, "it is a
hedge-school; and he is no scholar, but an ignoramus, whom I'd sack in
three minutes, that would be ashamed of a hedge-school."

"Ay," says Mat, changing his tone, and taking the cue from his
friend, whose learning he dreaded, "it's just for argument's sake, a
hedge-school; and, what is more, I scorn to be ashamed of it."

"And do you not teach occasionally under the hedge behind the house
here?"

"Granted," replied Mat; "and now where's your _vis consequentiae?_"

"Yes," subjoined the other, "produce your _vis consequentiae_; but any
one may know by a glance that the divil a much of it's about you."

The Englishman himself was rather at a loss for the _vis consequentiae_,
and replied, "Why don't you live, and learn, and teach like civilized
beings, and not assemble like wild asses--pardon me, my frie