f, I do admire learning in others, to be sure! Being
here and having met with your kind attention, Master, might I, afore I
go, ask a question of these here young lambs of yourn?'

'If it is in the way of school,' said Bradley, always sustaining his
dark look at the other, and speaking in his suppressed voice, 'you may.'

'Oh! It's in the way of school!' cried Riderhood. 'I'll pound it,
Master, to be in the way of school. Wot's the diwisions of water, my
lambs? Wot sorts of water is there on the land?'

Shrill chorus: 'Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds.'

'Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds,' said Riderhood. 'They've got all the
lot, Master! Blowed if I shouldn't have left out lakes, never having
clapped eyes upon one, to my knowledge. Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds.
Wot is it, lambs, as they ketches in seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds?'

Shrill chorus (with some contempt for the ease of the question):

'Fish!'

'Good a-gin!' said Riderhood. 'But wot else is it, my lambs, as they
sometimes ketches in rivers?'

Chorus at a loss. One shrill voice: 'Weed!'

'Good agin!' cried Riderhood. 'But it ain't weed neither. You'll never
guess, my dears. Wot is it, besides fish, as they sometimes ketches in
rivers? Well! I'll tell you. It's suits o' clothes.'

Bradley's face changed.

'Leastways, lambs,' said Riderhood, observing him out of the corners
of his eyes, 'that's wot I my own self sometimes ketches in rivers. For
strike me blind, my lambs, if I didn't ketch in a river the wery bundle
under my arm!'

The class looked at the master, as if appealing from the irregular
entrapment of this mode of examination. The master looked at the
examiner, as if he would have torn him to pieces.

'I ask your pardon, learned governor,' said Riderhood, smearing his
sleeve across his mouth as he laughed with a relish, 'tain't fair to the
lambs, I know. It wos a bit of fun of mine. But upon my soul I drawed
this here bundle out of a river! It's a Bargeman's suit of clothes. You
see, it had been sunk there by the man as wore it, and I got it up.'

'How do you know it was sunk by the man who wore it?' asked Bradley.

'Cause I see him do it,' said Riderhood.

They looked at each other. Bradley, slowly withdrawing his eyes, turned
his face to the black board and slowly wiped his name out.

'A heap of thanks, Master,' said Riderhood, 'for bestowing so much of
your time, and of the lambses' time, upon a man as hasn't got no other
recommenda