He stooped and picked up the pencil, took the slip from the
desk, with a courteous "Thank you," and moved on to his own table. He
had tallied one point.

I wonder if he did this all by himself, or if there was another hand
behind it all. Certain it is this man did not plan all this campaign
that ended so successfully. He had not counted on the boy's refusing
to write his name. It was like a flash, that it came to him to answer
"Dodd's" refusal as he did. Nor did he really intend to put the pencil
into the boy's hand when he offered it to him. But, somehow, he did
just that, and it was the saving fact in the case. Had he laid the
pencil on the table, "Dodd" would never have picked it up. Much less
would he have reached for it, or taken it from Mr. Bright's hand. But,
with the pencil in his hand, he wrote.

We say Mr. Bright did as he did "instinctively." That may be a good
word for it. But I wonder if such "instinct" as this doesn't reach
away over to the other side, even into the realm of inspiration, whose
fountain head is the spirit of the great "I AM."

Be this as it may, though, Mr. Bright had won. He was thankful for his
victory--thankful, but not proud. Perhaps this is another thing that
goes to show that there was help from without that made for him in the
fight.

"Dodd" was disappointed that Mr. Bright did not compliment him on his
writing, for he had written very well and knew that he had. But this,
Mr. Bright took as a matter of course, and gave no word of commendation
for it. It was not time for that yet. "Dodd's" starved real self, if
fed with what might once have been wholesome food for it, would have
been choked, perhaps to death, by a bit of praise, just then, and a
wholesome sense of merit would have been changed into a detestable
conceit.

A teacher has to be so careful about these things.

Mr. Bright seated himself at the table, transferred the name to his
register, then took another bit of paper and began writing on it,
remarking as he did so:

"You will please occupy the seat in front of you this afternoon, and
hereafter. I have written a list of the books you will need," he
added, picking up the strip he had just been writing on, "and you will
please procure them this afternoon. You will recite with the entering
class in this room, according to the programme that is on the board
behind my desk."

But "Dodd" did not move a muscle while Mr. Bright spoke. He did not
look u