University Grammar School on Fourth
street, south of Arch, and had, I thought, great pleasure in seeing the
rough play of the lads. Or often, as we came home at noon, he liked to
turn into Paradise alley, out of Market street, and did this, indeed, so
often that I came to wonder at it, and the more because in an open space
between this alley and Commerce street was the spot where almost every
day the grammar-school boys settled their disputes in the way more
common then than now. When first we chanced on one of these encounters I
was surprised to see Mr. Wholesome look about him as if to be sure that
no one else was near, and then begin to watch the combat with a strange
interest. Indeed, on one occasion he utterly astonished me by taking by
the hand a small boy who had been worsted and leading him with us, as if
he knew the lad, which may well have been. But presently he said,
"Reuben thee said was thy name?"--"Yes, sir," said the lad.--"Well,"
said Mr. Wholesome, after buying him a large and very brown horse
gingerbread, two doughnuts and a small pie, "when you think it worth
while to hit a fellow, never slap his face, because then he will strike
you hard with his fist, which hurts, Reuben. Now, mind: next thee
strikes first with thee fist, my lad, and hard, too." If I had seen our
good Bishop White playing at taws, I could not have been more overcome,
and I dare say my face may have shown it, for, glancing at me, he said
demurely, "Thee has seen in thy lifetime how hard it is to get rid of
what thee liked in thy days of boyhood." After which he added no more in
the way of explanation, but walked along with swift strides and a dark
and troubled face, silent and thoughtful.

Sometimes in the early morning I walked to my place of business with Mr.
Schmidt, who was a man so altogether unlike those about him that I found
in him a new and varied interest. He was a German, and spoke English
with a certain quaintness and with the purity of speech of one who has
learned the tongue from books rather than from men. I learned after a
while that this guess of mine was a good one, and that, having been bred
an artist, he had been put in prison for some political offence, and had
in two years of loneliness learned English from our older authors. When
at last he was set free he took his little property and came away with a
bitter heart to our freer land, where, with what he had and with the
lessons he gave in drawing, he was well abl