at he had got one of my fish-hooks deeply
imbedded in the palm of his hand--a sort of just retaliation, I thought
it, for all he had made me suffer from his cruel "pandies."

He guessed who was the offender at once, as he caught me laughing when
he turned round, with the end of the smouldering match still held
between my fingers.

"Oh--ah! It is you, is it?" he gasped out, giving me a ponderous slap
on one side of my face with the big broad hand that was uninjured, which
made me reel and tumble down; but a second blow, a backhander on the
opposite side of my head, brought me up again, "all standing." Still,
although I felt these gentle taps, I could not help grinning, which, of
course, increased his rage, if that were possible.

He certainly presented a most comical spectacle, dancing there before
us, first on one leg and then on the other, his bulky frame swaying to
and fro, like that of an elephant performing a jig, with the crackers
exploding every instant, and his bald head surrounded apparently with a
halo of smoke like a "nimbus." The boys fairly shrieked with laughter,
and even Smiley and the Cobbler had to turn their heads aside, to hide
their irrepressible grins. As for myself, I confess that at the moment
of perpetrating the cruel joke, I felt that I wouldn't have missed the
sight for anything. I was really extremely proud of my achievement,
although conscious that I should have to pay dearly bye-and-bye for my
freak in the way of "pandies" and forced abstention from food; but I
little thought of the stern Nemesis at a later period of my life
Providence had in store for me.

In a little time the crackers had all expended their force; when the
Doctor, jamming down the wig and his somewhat crushed and dirty hat over
his fuming brows, with a defiant glare at the lot of us, resumed his
march homeward--taking the precaution of clutching hold of my arm with a
policeman-like grip, as if he were afraid of my giving him the slip
before he had pandied the satisfaction he clearly intended to have out
of my unhappy body. But he need not have been thus alarmed on the score
of any attempted flight on my part, at least then; for I was quite as
anxious to reach the school as he was to get me there. Much as I had
enjoyed this cracker scene, which I had brought about on my own account,
I was longing to see the denouement of the deeply-planned plot, the
details of which Tom and I had so carefully arranged before starti