The young master’s quick eye soon noticed that a particular part of the wall was most favored with these ornamental appendages.  Their position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of the room they came from.  In fact, there was a nest of young mutineers just there, which must be broken up by a coup d’etat.  This was easily effected by redistributing the seats and arranging the scholars according to classes, so that a mischievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious imponderable, should find himself between two non-conductors, in the shape of small boys of studious habits.  It was managed quietly enough, in such a plausible sort of way that its motive was not thought of.  But its effects were soon felt; and then began a system of correspondence by signs, and the throwing of little scrawls done up in pellets, and announced by preliminary a’h’ms! to call the attention of the distant youth addressed.  Some of these were incendiary documents, devoting the schoolmaster to the lower divinities, as “a stuck-up dandy,” as “a purse-proud aristocrat,” as “a sight too big for his, etc.,” and holding him up in a variety of equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the youthful community of School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre.

Presently the draughtsman of the school set a caricature in circulation, labelled, to prevent mistakes, with the schoolmaster’s name.  An immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed, swallow-tailed coat showed that the artist had in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than any actual human aspect of the time.  But it was passed round among the boys and made its laugh, helping of course to undermine the master’s authority, as “Punch” or the “Charivari” takes the dignity out of an obnoxious minister.  One morning, on going to the schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this sketch, with its label, pinned on the door.  He took it down, smiled a little, put it into his pocket, and entered the schoolroom.  An insidious silence prevailed, which looked as if some plot were brewing.  The boys were ripe for mischief, but afraid.  They had really no fault to find with the master, except that he was dressed like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows always consider a personal insult to themselves.  But the older ones were evidently plotting, and more than once the warning a’h’m! was heard, and a dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad shot from one seat to another.  One of these happened to strike the stove-funnel, and lodged on the master’s desk.  He was cool enough not to seem to notice it.  He secured it, however, and found an opportunity to look at it, without being observed by the boys.  It required no immediate notice.