ompensation that is usual amongst
gentlemen"

"This, sir, to a minister of the Word!" bawls out Ward, starting up,
and who knew perfectly well the lads' skill in fence, having a score of
times been foiled by the pair of them.

"You are not a clergyman yet. We thought you might like to be considered
as a gentleman. We did not know."

"A gentleman! I am a Christian, sir!" says Ward, glaring furiously, and
clenching his great fists.

"Well, well, if you won't fight, why don't you forgive?" says Harry. "If
you don't forgive, why don't you fight? That's what I call the horns of
a dilemma;" and he laughed his frank, jolly laugh.

But this was nothing to the laugh a few days afterwards, when, the
quarrel having been patched up, along with poor Mr. Ward's eye, the
unlucky tutor was holding forth according to his custom. He tried to
preach the boys into respect for him, to reawaken the enthusiasm which
the congregation had felt for him; he wrestled with their manifest
indifference, he implored Heaven to warm their cold hearts again, and to
lift up those who were falling back. All was in vain. The widow wept no
more at his harangues, was no longer excited by his loudest tropes and
similes, nor appeared to be much frightened by the very hottest menaces
with which he peppered his discourse. Nay, she pleaded headache, and
would absent herself of an evening, on which occasion the remainder of
the little congregation was very cold indeed. One day, then, Ward,
still making desperate efforts to get back his despised authority, was
preaching on the beauty of subordination, the present lax spirit of the
age, and the necessity of obeying our spiritual and temporal rulers.
"For why, my dear friends," he nobly asked (he was in the habit of
asking immensely dull questions, and straightway answering them with
corresponding platitudes), "why are governors appointed, but that we
should be governed? Why are tutors engaged, but that children should be
taught?" (here a look at the boys). "Why are rulers----" Here he paused,
looking with a sad, puzzled face at the young gentlemen. He saw in their
countenances the double meaning of the unlucky word he had uttered,
and stammered, and thumped the table with his fist. "Why, I say, are
rulers----"

"Rulers," says George, looking at Harry.

"Rulers!" says Hal, putting his hand to his eye, where the poor tutor
still bore marks of the late scuffle. Rulers, o-ho! It was too much. The
boys burst ou