ground, but also in order to find out new methods of deceit by which we
could allure our Indians into narrow places, or daring methods of attack
by which we could successfully outflank them on the broader street and
drive them into their own retreats with public ignominy.

Within the building the glory of the Seminary was a massive stone stair,
circular in shape, and having a "well" surrounded on the ground floor by
a wall some three feet high. Down this stair the masters descended at
nine o'clock for the opening of the school, with Bulldog, who was the
mathematical master and the awful pride of the school, at their head,
and it was strictly forbidden that any boy, should be found within the
"well." As it was the most tempting of places for the deposit of
anything in the shape of rubbish, from Highland bonnets to little boys,
and especially as any boy found in the well was sure to be caned, there
was an obvious and irresistible opportunity for enterprise. Peter
McGuffie, commonly called the Sparrow, or in Scotch tongue "Speug," and
one of the two heads of our commonwealth, used to wait with an
expression of such demureness that it ought to have been a danger
signal till Bulldog was halfway down the stair, and a row of boys were
standing in expectation with their backs to the forbidden place. Then,
passing swiftly along, he swept off half a dozen caps and threw them
over, and suddenly seizing a tempting urchin landed him on the bed of
caps which had been duly prepared. Without turning his head one-eighth
of an inch, far less condescending to look over, Bulldog as he passed
made a mental note of the prisoner's name, and identified the various
bonnetless boys, and then, dividing his duty over the hours of the day,
attended to each culprit separately and carefully. If any person, from
the standpoint of this modern and philanthropic day, should ask why some
innocent victim did not state his case and lay the blame upon the
guilty, then it is enough to say that that person had never been a
scholar at Muirtown Seminary, and has not the slightest knowledge of the
character and methods of Peter McGuffie. Had any boy of our time given
information to a master, or, in the Scotch tongue, "had clyped," he
would have had the coldest reception at the hands of Bulldog, and when
his conduct was known to the school he might be assured of such constant
and ingenious attention at the hands of Speug that he would have been
ready to drown himse