h, "Good morning, boys!" to which the entire body of
pupils, at the top of their lungs, and with one voice, replied,
"_G-o-o-d morning, Mr. Scott!_" This was considered a great feature in
the school; and strangers used to come from all over the city to witness
it. Somehow it made The Boy a little bit ashamed; he does not know why.
He would have liked it well enough, and been touched by it, too, if it
had been some other boy's grandfather. The Boy's father was present
once--The Boy's first day; but when he discovered that the President of
the Board of Trustees was going to call on him for a speech he ran away;
and The Boy would have given all his little possessions to have run
after him. The Boy knew then, as well as he knows now, how his father
felt; and he thinks of that occasion every time he runs away from some
after-dinner or occasional speech which he, himself, is called upon to
make.

[Illustration: "GOOD MORNING, BOYS"]

After his North Moore Street experiences The Boy was sent to study under
men teachers in boys' schools; and he considered then that he was grown
up.

The Boy, as has been said, was born without the sense of spell. The Rule
of Three, it puzzled him, and fractions were as bad; and the proper
placing of e and i, or i and e, the doubling of letters in the middle of
words, and how to treat the addition of a suffix in "y" or "tion"
"almost drove him mad," from his childhood up. He hated to go to school,
but he loved to _play_ school; and when Johnny Robertson and he were not
conducting a pompous, public funeral--a certain oblong hat-brush, with a
rosewood back, studded with brass tacks, serving as a coffin, in which
lay the body of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, or the Duke of Wellington,
all of whom died when Johnny and The Boy were about eight years
old--they were teaching each other the three immortal and exceedingly
trying "R's"--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic--in a play-school. Their
favorite spelling-book was a certain old cook-book, discarded by the
head of the kitchen, and considered all that was necessary for their
educational purpose. From this, one afternoon, Johnnie gave out
"Dough-nut," with the following surprising result. Conscious of the
puzzling presence of certain silent consonants and vowels, The Boy thus
set it down: "D-O, dough, N-O-U-G-H-T, nut--doughnut!" and he went up
head in a class of one, neither teacher nor pupil perceiving the
marvellous transposition.

All The Boy's