t the boy too; there were signs
of intellect in every line of his face, and he dearly loved brains.

As the school passed out for their morning intermission he beckoned the
youth to him. Dan Murphy made a covert grimace expressive of his whole
being's revolt against any such degrading task, and Scotty went forward
reluctantly. He wanted to disobey, but the man's courtesy held him.

An old school register in which were written some seventy names lay
open on the desk.

"I am hopelessly entangled in all these MacDonalds," said the new
master, in a tone one man would use in addressing another. "Here are
four Betseys and six Johnnies, and Donalds without number. Would you
be so good as to assist me?"

Scotty's inbred Highland courtesy and the generous desire to help which
was part of his nature, impelled him to answer politely. Striving to
ignore the violent pantomime being enacted by Dan in the porch, he gave
the man the key to the situation. His big finger ran awkwardly down
the page as he gave the name by which each pupil was known. The
stranger listened in some amusement and not a little bewilderment to
the list: Roarin' Sandy's Donald, Crooked Duncan's Donald, Peter Archie
Red's Donald. They were rather unwieldy, but he planted them down
heroically, and then proceeded to disentangle the Murphys and the
Tuckers after the same fashion.

"I am very much obliged to you," he said with the same quiet
seriousness when the work was finished, and Scotty took his seat
wondering if the new master ever smiled. Most likely that grave,
unbending manner was just the natural outcome of his inevitably
stuck-up nature, he reflected.

Affairs went harmoniously enough until school was dismissed for the
noon recess. As soon as the word was given dinner-pails were seized,
bread-and-butter, meat, pie, and cake began to appear and disappear
again with equal rapidity; a crowd of the bigger girls made
preparations for brewing tea on the stove; and before the new master
could get on his overcoat and gloves preparatory to leaving, dinner was
well under way, and the room was filled with a strong aroma of tea and
pork.

Scotty had gone to the door to administer a farewell snowball to the
unclassified aliens who went home to the village for dinner. A prompt
answer came hurtling back, and as he dodged into the porch with a
derisive yell of laughter, he barely escaped knocking over the new
master. He hastily stepped aside to let hi