no time
to rally. So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, with one great
pull, had him out over his desk and on the open floor. He gave him a
sharp fling backwards and stood looking at him.

The rough-and-tumble fighters all _clinch_, as everybody knows; and
Abner Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had
floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try
to repeat his former successful experiment on the new master. He sprang
at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike,--once,
but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority
that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the
blow was itself a neat one, and did not require to be repeated.

"Now go home," said the master, "and don't let me see you or your dog
here again." And he turned his cuffs down again over the gold
sleeve-buttons.

This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School rebellion. What could be
done with a master who was so pleasant as long as the boys behaved
decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got "riled," as they called
it? In a week's time, everything was reduced to order, and the
school-committee were delighted. The master, however, had received a
proposition so much more agreeable and advantageous, that he informed
the committee he should leave at the end of his month, having in his eye
a sensible and energetic young college-graduate who would be willing and
fully competent to take his place.

So, at the expiration of the appointed time, Bernard Langdon, late
master of the School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his
departure from that place for another locality, whither we shall follow
him, carrying with him the regrets of the committee, of most of the
scholars, and of several young ladies; also two locks of hair, sent
unbeknown to payrents, one dark and one warmish auburn, inscribed with
the respective initials of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly Braowne.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE.

The invitation which Mr. Bernard Langdon had accepted came from the
Board of Trustees of the "Apollinean Female Institute," a school for the
education of young ladies, situated in the flourishing town of Rockland.
This was an establishment on a considerable scale, in which a hundred
scholars or thereabouts were taught the ordinary English branches,
several of the modern languages, something of Latin, if desired, with a
little