* At the spelling lesson the children were obliged to put down each a pin, he who held the first place got them all with the exception of the queen—­that is the boy who held the second place! who got two; and the prince, the third who got one.  The last boy in the class was called Bobtail.

Having gone through the spelling-task, it was Mat’s custom to give out six hard words selected according to his judgment—­as a final test; but he did not always confine himself to that.  Sometimes he would put a number of syllables arbitrarily together, forming a most heterogeneous combination of articulate sounds.

“Now, boys, here’s a deep word, that’ll thry yez:  come Larry spell me-mo-man-dran-san-ti-fi-can-du-ban-dan-li-al-i-ty, or mis-an-thro-po-mor-phi-ta-ni-a-nus-mi-ca-li-a-lioy;—­that’s too hard for you, is it?  Well, then, spell phthisic.  Oh, that’s physic you’re spellin’.  Now, Larry, do you know the difference between physic and phthisic?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, I’ll expound it:  phthisic, you see, manes—­whisht, boys:  will yez hould yer tongues there—­phthisic, Larry, signifies—­that is, phthisic—­mind, it’s not physic I’m expounding, but phthisic—­boys, will yez stop yer noise there—­signifies——­but, Larry, it’s so deep a word in larnin’ that I should draw it out on a slate for you.  And now I remimber, man alive, you’re not far enough on yet to understand it:  but what’s physic, Larry?”

“Isn’t that sir, what my father tuck the day he got sick, sir?”

“That’s the very thing, Larry:  it has what larned men call a medical property, and resembles little ricketty Dan Reilly there—­it retrogrades.  Och!  Och!  I’m the boy that knows things—­you see now how I expounded them two hard words for yez, boys—­don’t yez?”

“Yes, sir,” etc., etc.

“So, Larry, you haven’t the larnin’ for that either:  but here’s an ’asier one—­spell me Ephabridotas (Epaphroditas)—­you can’t! hut! man—­you’re a big dunce, entirely, that little shoneen Sharkey there below would sack.  God be wid the day when I was the likes of you—­it’s I that was the bright gorsoon entirely—­and so sign was on it, when a great larned traveler—­silence boys, till I tell yez this [a dead silence]—­from Thrinity College, all the way in Dublin, happened to meet me one day—­seeing the slate and Gough, you see, undher my arm, he axes me—­’ Arrah, Mat,’ says he, ‘what are you in?’ says he.  ’Faix, I’m in my breeches, for one thing,’ says I, off hand—­silence childhre, and don’t laugh so loud—­(ha, ha, ha!) So he looks closer at me:  ’I see that,’ says he; ‘but what are you reading?’ ‘Nothing at all at all,’ says I; ’bad manners to the taste, as you may see, if you’ve your eyesight.’  ‘I think,’ says he, ‘you’ll be apt to die in your breeches;’ and set spurs to a fine saddle mare he rid—­faith, he did so—­thought me so cute—­(omnes—­ha, ha, ha!) Whisht, boys, whisht; isn’t it a terrible thing that I can’t tell yez a joke, but you split your sides laughing at it—­(ha, ha, ha!)—­don’t laugh so loud, Barney Casey.”—­(ha, ha, ha!)