if I did, it would be very inefficiently done."

"Oh, I'll undertake it," said the Major, "though I believe I shall have
an easy task. He won't want much flogging."

At this moment Mrs. Buckley approached with a basketful of
fresh-gathered flowers. "The roses don't flower well here, Doctor," she
said, "but the geraniums run mad. Here is a salmon-coloured one for
your button-hole."

"He has earned it well, Agnes," said her husband. "He has decided the
discussion we had last night by offering to undertake Sam's education
himself."

"And God's blessing on him for it!" said Mrs. Buckley warmly. "You have
taken a great load off my mind, Doctor. I should never have been happy
if that boy had gone to school. Come here, Sam."

Sam came bounding into the verandah, and clambered up on his father, as
if he had been a tree. He was now eleven years old, and very tall and
wellformed for his age. He was a good-looking boy, with regular
features, and curly chestnut hair. He had, too, the large grey-blue eye
of his father, an eye that never lost for a moment its staring
expression of kindly honesty, and the lad's whole countenance was one
which, without being particularly handsome, or even very intelligent,
won an honest man's regard at first sight.

"My dear Sam," said his mother, "leave off playing with your father's
hair, and listen to me, for I have something serious to say to you.
Last night your father and I were debating about sending you to school,
but Doctor Mulhaus has himself offered to be your tutor, thereby giving
you advantages, for love, which you never could have secured for money.
Now, the least we can expect of you, my dear boy, is that you will be
docile and attentive to him."

"I will try, Doctor dear," said Sam. "But I am very stupid sometimes,
you know."

So the good Doctor, whose head was stored with nearly as much of human
knowledge as mortal head could hold, took simple, guileless little Sam
by the hand, and led him into the garden of knowledge. Unless I am
mistaken, these two will pick more flowers than they will dig potatoes
in the aforesaid garden, but I don't think that two such honest souls
will gather much unwholesome fruit. The danger is that they will waste
their time, which is no danger at all, but a certainty.

I believe that such an education as our Sam got from the Doctor would
have made a slattern and a faineant out of half the boys in England. If
Sam had been a clever boy, or a conceited