was dear to him.

"I zent him into ze Charman _Kladderadatch_ (it is a paper like your
_Ponch_). It--mein choke--was upon ze Schleswig-Holstein gomplication;
ze beginning was in this way----"

And he proceeded to set out in great length all the circumstances which
had given materials for his "choke," with the successive processes by
which he had shaped and perfected it, passing on to a recital of the
masterpiece itself, and ending up by a philosophical analysis of the
same, which must have placed his pupils in full possession of the point,
for they laughed consumedly.

"I dell you zis," he said, "not to aggustom your minds vid frivolity and
lightness, but as a lesson in ze gonstruction of ze langwitch. If you
can choke in Charman, you will be able also to gonverse in Charman."

"Did the German what's-its-name print your joke?" inquired Coggs.

"It has not appeared yet," Herr Stohwasser confessed; "it takes a long
time to get an imbortant choke like that out in brint. But I vait--I
write to ze editor every week--and I vait."

"Why don't you put it in your Grammar?" suggested Tipping.

"I haf--ze greater part of it--(it vas a long choke, but I gompressed
him). If I haf time, some day I will make anozer liddle choke to
aggompany, begause I vant my Crammar to be a goot Crammar, you
understandt. And now to our Tell. Really you beople do noding but
chadder!"

All this, of course, had no interest for Mr. Bultitude, but it left him
free to pursue his own thoughts in peace, and indeed this lesson would
never have been recorded here, but for two circumstances which will
presently appear, both of which had no small effect on his fortunes.

He sat nearest the window, and looked out on the pinched and drooping
laurels in the enclosure, which were damp with frost melting in the
sunshine. Over the wall he could see the tops of passing vehicles, the
country carrier's cart, the railway parcels van, the fly from the
station. He envied even the drivers; their lot was happier than his!

His thoughts were busy with Dick. Oddly enough, it had scarcely occurred
to him before to speculate on what he might be doing in his absence; he
had thought chiefly about himself. But now he gave his attention to the
subject, what new horrors it opened up! What might not become of his
well-conducted household under the rash rule of a foolish schoolboy! The
office, too--who could say what mischief Dick might not be doing there,
under the cover of