,
setting myself to work in the evening, I produced half-a-dozen stanzas
on the ball, which were received as good, in evidence that I actually
could rhyme; and for some weeks after I was rather a favourite with the
new master.

I had, however, ere now become a wild insubordinate boy, and the only
school in which I could properly be taught was that world-wide school
which awaited me, in which Toil and Hardship are the severe but noble
teachers. I got into sad scrapes. Quarrelling, on one occasion, with a
boy of my own standing, we exchanged blows across the form; and when
called up for trial and punishment, the fault was found to attach so
equally to both sides, that the same number of _palmies_, well laid on,
were awarded to each. I bore mine, however, like a North American
Indian, whereas my antagonist began to howl and cry; and I could not
resist the temptation of saying to him in a whisper that unluckily
reached the ear of the master, "Ye big blubbering blockhead, take that
for a drubbing from me." I had of course to receive a few palmies
additional for the speech; but then, "who cared for that?" The master,
however, "cared" considerably more for the offence than I did for the
punishment. And in a subsequent quarrel with another boy--a stout and
somewhat desperate mulatto--I got into a worse scrape still, of which he
thought still worse. The mulatto, in his battles, which were many, had a
trick, when in danger of being over-matched, of drawing his knife; and
in our affair--the necessities of the fight seeming to require it--he
drew his knife upon me. To his horror and astonishment, however, instead
of running off, I immediately drew mine, and, quick as lightning,
stabbed him in the thigh. He roared out in fright and pain, and, though
more alarmed than hurt, never after drew knife upon a combatant. But the
value of the lesson which I gave was, like most other very valuable
things, inadequately appreciated; and it merely procured for me the
character of being a dangerous boy. I had certainly reached a dangerous
stage; but it was mainly myself that was in jeopardy. There is a
transition-time in which the strength and independence of the latent man
begin to mingle with the wilfulness and indiscretion of the mere boy,
which is more perilous than any other, in which many more downward
careers of recklessness and folly begin, that end in wreck and ruin,
than in all the other years of life which intervene between childhood