the family, and feeling too well assured of his own social position
to care for any effect the signing of such a paper might have, the young
man courageously let the ruffian up and signed the apology. Two days
after, Charlie came back to the office, thoroughly mortified and
penitent for his outrage, voluntarily gave up the paper, and apologized
in the amplest manner for his folly.

I might enumerate other instances by the score, were it necessary, to
show the character of the boy with whom I had to deal. But these are
probably sufficient. His passions were as quick as gunpowder, and as
indiscriminate. Had I known all that I afterwards knew in regard to his
disposition and his antecedents, I certainly would not have undertaken
the charge of his education.

The Grahams had been with me nearly a year without the occurrence of
anything to attract attention or call for discipline. The school had
considerable reputation among the people of Tompkinsville for the
strictness of its discipline. Though the relations between the pupils
and myself were for the most part thoroughly kind and friendly, yet it
was well understood by every boy who entered school that the will of the
Principal was supreme. Mr. Graham had probably brought his boys to the
school for that very reason. The routine of obedience had been so
thoroughly established, that his boys, he thought, would submit through
mere force of example. Bob was too young to give any uneasiness. He
fell, of course, into many of the peccadilloes of boys of his age, and
received, without demur, the treatment of a little boy. Charlie, for a
long time, was almost a model of propriety. He was diligent in his
studies, and observed the rules of the school with scrupulous care. He
was fair, almost girlish, in appearance, and gentle in his speech. No
one, merely observing the quiet, modest boy, going about his usual
routine of duty, without noise or turbulence, would have dreamed of the
sleeping volcano that lay beneath this placid exterior.

About the middle of the second term I began to notice in Charlie
symptoms that I did not like. The harness evidently chafed him
somewhere, and there was no telling when he might kick out of the
traces. The crisis at length came. One morning, when the boys were in
the washroom, under the charge of the senior teacher, Charlie, with what
precise provocation I could never ascertain, drew back his basin of
water and threw it full into the teacher's face.