youngsters accustomed to no kind of discipline, in whom every word he uttered merely excited outrageous mirth, he was hourly brought to the very verge of despair.  Constitutionally he was lachrymose; tears came from him freely when distress had reached a climax, and the contrast between his unwieldy form and this weakness of demeanour supplied inexhaustible occasion for mirth throughout the school.  His hours of freedom were spent in abysmal brooding.

Waymark entered in good spirits.  At the sight of him, Mr. O’Gree started from the fireside, snatched up the poker, brandished it wildly about his head, and burst into vehement exclamations.

“Ha! ha! you’ve come in time, sir; you’ve come in time to hear my resolution.  I can’t stand ut any longer; I won’t stand ut a day longer!  Mr. Waymark, you’re a witness of the outrageous way in which I’m treated in this academy—­the way in which I’m treated both by Dr. Tootle and by Mrs. Tootle.  You were witness of his insulting behaviour this very afternoon.  He openly takes the side of the boys against me; he ridicules my accent; he treats me as no gentleman can treat another, unless one of them’s no gentleman at all!  And, Mr. Waymark, I won’t stand ut!”

Mr. O’Gree’s accent was very strong indeed, especially in his present mood.  Waymark listened with what gravity he could command.

“You’re quite right,” he said in reply.  “Tootle’s behaviour was especially scandalous to-day.  I should certainly take some kind of notice of it.”

“Notuss, sir, notuss!  I’ll take that amount of notuss of it that all the metropoluss shall hear of my wrongs.  I’ll assault ’um, sir; I’ll assault ’um in the face of the school,—­the very next time he dares to provoke me!  I’ll rise in my might, and smite his bald crown with his own ruler!  I’m not a tall man, Mr. Waymark, but I can reach his crown, and that he shall be aware of before he knows ut.  He sets me at naught in my own class, sir; he pooh-poohs my mathematical demonstrations, sir; he encourages my pupils in insubordination!  And Mrs. Tootle!  Bedad, if I don’t invent some device for revenging myself on that supercilious woman.  The very next time she presumes to address me disrespectfully at the dinner-table, sir, I’ll rise in my might, sir,—­see if I don’t!—­and I’ll say to her, ’Mrs. Tootle, ma’am, you seem to forget that I’m a gentleman, and have a gentleman’s susceptibilities.  When I treat you with disrespect, ma’am, pray tell me of ut, and I’ll inform you you speak an untruth!’”

Waymark smiled, with the result that the expression of furious wrath immediately passed from his colleague’s countenance, giving place to a broad grin.

“Waymark, look here!” exclaimed the Irishman, snatching up a piece of chalk, and proceeding to draw certain outlines upon a black-board.  “Here’s Tootle, a veritable Goliath;—­here’s me, as it were David.  Observe; Tootle holds in his hand his ’little compendium,’ raised in haughty superciliousness.  Observe me with the ruler!—­I am on tiptoe; I am taking aim; there is wrath in every sinew of my arrum!  My arrum descends on the very centre of Tootle’s bald pate—­”