was it subordinate? and, above all, was it classical?  However, I will show you what greatness of mind is.  I will convince you that it is more noble and god-like to forgive an injury, or rather five dozen injuries, than to avenge one; when—­hem—–­yes, I say, when I—­I—­might so easily avenge it.  I now present you wid an amnesty:  return to you allegiance; but never, while in this seminary, under my tuition, attempt to take the execution of the laws into your own hands.  Homerians, come up!”

This address, into which he purposely threw a dash of banter and mock gravity, delivered with the accompaniments of his swelled nose and drooping eye, pacified his audience more readily than a serious one would have done.  It was received without any reply or symptom of disrespect, unless the occasional squeak of a suppressed laugh, or the visible shaking of many sides with inward convulsions, might be termed such.

In the course of the day, it is true, their powers of maintaining gravity were put to a severe test, particularly when, while hearing a class, he began to adjust his drooping eye-lid, or coax back his nose into its natural, position.  On these occasions a sudden pause might be noticed in the business of the class; the boy’s voice, who happened to read at the time, would fail him; and, on resuming his sentence by command of the master, its tone was tremulous, and scarcely adequate to the task of repeating the words without his bursting into laughter.  The master observed all this clearly enough, but his mind was already made up to take no further notice of what had happened.

All this, however, conduced to render the situation of the poor scholar much more easy, or rather less penal, than it would otherwise have been.  Still the innocent lad was on all possible occasions a butt for this miscreant.  To miss a word was a pretext for giving him a cruel blow.  To arrive two or three minutes later than the appointed hour was certain on his part to be attended with immediate punishment.  Jemmy bore it all with silent heroism.  He shed no tear—­he uttered no remonstrance; but, under the anguish of pain so barbarously inflicted, he occasionally looked round upon his schoolfellows with an I expression of silent entreaty that was seldom lost upon them.  Cruel to him the master often was; but to inhuman barbarity the large scholars never permitted him to descend.  Whenever any of the wealthier farmers’-sons had neglected their lessons, or deserved chastisement, the mercenary creature substituted a joke for the birch; but as soon as the son of a poor man, or, which was better still, the poor scholar, came before him, he transferred that punishment which the wickedness or idleness of respectable boys deserved, to his or their shoulders.  For this outrageous injustice the hard-hearted:  old villain had some plausible excuse ready, so that it was in many cases difficult for Jemmy’s generous companions to interfere; in his behalf, or parry the sophistry of such:  a petty tyrant.