urder to dissect--
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives."--_Wordsworth._

TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER.

About six weeks after the beginning of the half, as Tom and Arthur
were sitting one night before supper beginning their verses, Arthur
suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said: "Tom, do you know anything
of Martin?"

"Yes," said Tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, and delighted
to throw his Gradus ad Parnassum[1] on to the sofa; "I know him pretty
well. He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He's called
Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of
rum[2] things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to
carry them about in his pocket, and I'll be bound he's got some
hedge-hogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one knows what
besides."

[1] #Gradus ad Parnassum#: a dictionary specially designed to
aid pupils in writing Greek and Latin verses.

[2] #Rum#: queer.

"I should like very much to know him," said Arthur; "he was next to me
in the form to-day, and he'd lost his book and looked over mine, and
he seemed so kind and gentle that I liked him very much."

"Ah, poor old Madman, he's always losing his books," said Tom, "and
getting called up and floored because he hasn't got them."

"I like him all the better," said Arthur.

"Well, he's great fun, I can tell you," said Tom, throwing himself
back on the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. "We had such a
game with him one day last half. He had been trying chemical
experiments and kicking up horrid stenches for some time in his study,
till I suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor. Anyhow,
one day, a little before dinner, when he came down from the library,
the Doctor, instead of going home, came striding into the Hall. East
and I and five or six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously
we stared, for he doesn't come in like that once a year, unless it is
a wet day and there's a fight in the Hall. 'East,' says he, 'just come
and show me Martin's study.' 'Oh, here's a game,' whispered the rest
of us, and we all cut up-stairs after the Doctor, East leading. As we
got into the New Row, which was hardly wide enough to hold the Doctor
and his gown, click, click, click, we heard in the old Madman's den.
Then that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts went t