The poor French teacher had been the hereditary object of annoyance for several generations of boys.  The meekest and most chicken-hearted scrubs in the school tried their apprenticeship to mischief upon him, and were tutored to more noble game by beginning with the Count.  They split and cut his pens into a thousand fantastic shapes during a momentary absence; they filled his snuff with the most odious pulverulents.  They placed on his desk rude, but expressive designs of a guillotine, with a meagre fellow in ruffles and no shirt, running in the extremity of speed from the spot.  These, and a thousand exhibitions of budding genius, and original sin, were our daily subjects of merriment and applause.  I taught them nobler arts, or rather the spirit of Pickle which spake within me.  It was nothing to annoy on such a petty and momentary scale; let the art and forethought of Hatchway be exhibited.

The amiable Frenchman was a zealous Catholic, and upon certain festivals always received from a Catholic gentleman of rank and fortune in the neighbourhood, an invitation to visit him.  On these occasions his dress was the most ludicrous imaginable, being compounded of remnants of pristine finery, such as his wardrobe could afford, without attention to uniformity, or consistency of colour.  Above all, he possessed a pair of light pea-green small clothes, on which he much prided himself, and I swore by old Trunnion to be their murderer.  His custom on the aforesaid visits was to dress early, and then hastily to dismiss his lessons, and proceed immediately.

Having gained intelligence of an approaching field day, we prepared a strong solution of gum, with which we varnished the bottom of a leather chair upon which he sat in the school.  The morning came, his green media and white silk stockings were hailed with the most extravagant but secret exultation.  He seated himself, and let us run as we pleased through our tasks, with an unusual portion of smiles and pleasantries, and then looking at his watch, he attempted hastily to rise! in vain—­there seemed an indissoluble bond of union between him and the chair; the most grotesque series of strugglings ensued, and by one desperate effort he was erect, a thin coating of the black leather which he had torn off, firmly adhering to his dress!  Nothing abated my delight at my success, but the thought that my magnus Apollo, Pickle, was not there to enjoy it; to see the poor Count stand mute with a mixed passion of rage and distress for several seconds, and then to witness his fruitless attempts to view the full extent of the injury, which, notwithstanding the surprising flexibility of his vertebrae, he was unable to compass.  Tom Pipes I felt certain would have died on the spot, he must have split.

The Inspector.

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CONTRAST OF CLIMATE.