d-headed, and had large red
whiskers.

Herr Egger was a gentleman of very different exterior. Tall, thick,
ungainly, with a very heavy, stupid face, coarse hands, outrageous
lower extremities. A mass of coal-black hair seemed to weigh down his
head. His attire was un-English, and, one might suspect, had been
manufactured in some lonely cottage away in the remote Swiss valley
which had till lately been the poor fellow's home. Dr. Tootle never
kept his foreign masters long. His plan was to get hold of some
foreigner without means, and ignorant of English, who would come and
teach French or German in return for mere board and lodging; when the
man had learnt a little English, and was in a position to demand a
salary, he was dismissed, and a new professor obtained. Egger had
lately, under the influence of some desperate delusion, come to our
hospitable clime in search of his fortune. Of languages he could not be
said to know any; his French and his German were of barbarisms all
compact; English as yet he could use only in a most primitive manner.
He must have been the most unhappy man in all London. Finding himself
face to face with large classes of youngsters accustomed to no kind of
discipline, in whom every word he uttered merely excited outrageous
mirth, he was hourly brought to the very verge of despair.
Constitutionally he was lachrymose; tears came from him freely when
distress had reached a climax, and the contrast between his unwieldy
form and this weakness of demeanour supplied inexhaustible occasion for
mirth throughout the school. His hours of freedom were spent in abysmal
brooding.

Waymark entered in good spirits. At the sight of him, Mr. O'Gree
started from the fireside, snatched up the poker, brandished it wildly
about his head, and burst into vehement exclamations.

"Ha! ha! you've come in time, sir; you've come in time to hear my
resolution. I can't stand ut any longer; I won't stand ut a day longer!
Mr. Waymark, you're a witness of the outrageous way in which I'm
treated in this academy--the way in which I'm treated both by Dr.
Tootle and by Mrs. Tootle. You were witness of his insulting behaviour
this very afternoon. He openly takes the side of the boys against me;
he ridicules my accent; he treats me as no gentleman can treat another,
unless one of them's no gentleman at all! And, Mr. Waymark, I won't
stand ut!"

Mr. O'Gree's accent was very strong indeed, especially in his present
mood. Waymark l