red for the army?"

The vicar laughed, and held his sides in hearty merriment.--"Sally,
Sally!"--he exclaimed after a while.--"You will be the death of me some
day! I did not allude to physical cramming, such as the Strasbourg
geese undergo; but, mental stuffing. A `crammer' is a `coach,' you
know."

"I'm sure I don't,"--said little Miss Pimpernell, energetically;--"for,
what with your crammers and coaches, I really do not know what you are
speaking about!"

"Well, my dear, I'll now enlighten you,"--said the vicar, still laughing
at the old lady's very natural mistake.--"Crammers and coaches, are
certain high-pressure machines, in the form of man, for forcing any
amount of superficial knowledge into uneducated youths within a fixed
time. It is an unnatural process, resulting pretty much in the same way
as does the artificial mode of fattening geese:--the latter have
diseased livers; while, the subjects of high-pressure cram are usually
afterwards subject to unmitigated ignorance--of the worst kind, because
it pretends to learning--in addition to an insufferable pedantry, which
can never convince judges acquainted with the genuine article! Ah, my
dear, as Pope wisely wrote, `a little learning is a dangerous thing!'"

"Then you mean tutors,"--said Miss Pimpernell.--"Why could you not call
them by their proper name?"

"I could, my dear,"--said the vicar, good-humouredly,--"but, the term I
used, is an old relic of college jargon; you see how hard it is to cure
oneself of bad habits!"

"And you think Frank will want to be `crammed,' then?"--asked Miss
Pimpernell, making use of the very word she had just abused, because she
thought her brother might feel hurt at her implied reproach. The dear
old lady would have talked slang all day if she had believed it would
have given the vicar any satisfaction!

"Yes, my dear,"--he replied.--"You see, he might have to compete for his
appointment with a dozen others; and, as the examination for the civil
service is now pretty stiff in its way, it would not do for him to fail.
Frank has received a good sound public school education; but, they ask
so many purely-routine questions of candidates, that he had better have
a tutor who makes these subjects his speciality, to put him up in the
little details of the machinery."

"I never thought of that,"--said I.--"It is so long since I left school,
that I fear I may be plucked!"

"Oh, you'll be quite ready for the examination in a