he neck, and jammed the sticky pie crust on his face, where it stuck
like an adhesive plaster. Jimmie, taken by surprise, and rendered
nerveless by the pangs of an accusing conscience, made no resistance,
but set up a howl that attracted the attention of the master and the
whole company.

"Why, Jimmie!" exclaimed the master, removing the doughy mixture from
the little lad's face, "what on earth are you trying to do? What is
wrong, Aleck?"

"He ate my pie," said Aleck, defiantly.

"Ate it? Well, apparently not. But never mind, Aleck, we shall get you
another pie."

"There isn't any more," said Aleck, mournfully; "that was the last
piece."

"Oh, well, we shall find something else just as good," said the master,
going off after one of the big girls; and returning with a doughnut
and a peculiarly deadly looking piece of fruit cake, he succeeded in
comforting the disappointed and still indignant Aleck.

The afternoon was given to the more serious part of the school
work--writing, arithmetic, and spelling, while, for those whose
ambitions extended beyond the limits of the public school, the master
had begun a Euclid class, which was at once his despair and his
pride. In the Twentieth school of that date there was no waste of the
children's time in foolish and fantastic branches of study, in showy
exercises and accomplishments, whose display was at once ruinous to
the nerves of the visitors, and to the self-respect and modesty of
the children. The ideal of the school was to fit the children for the
struggle into which their lives would thrust them, so that the boy who
could spell and read and cipher was supposed to be ready for his life
work. Those whose ambition led them into the subtleties of Euclid's
problems and theorems were supposed to be in preparation for somewhat
higher spheres of life.

Through the various classes of arithmetic the examination proceeded, the
little ones struggling with great seriousness through their addition
and subtraction sums, and being wrought up to the highest pitch of
excitement by their contest for the first place. By the time the fifth
class was reached, the air was heavy with the feeling of battle. Indeed,
it was amazing to note how the master had succeeded in arousing in the
whole school an intense spirit of emulation. From little Johnnie Aird up
to Thomas Finch, the pupils carried the hearts of soldiers.

Through fractions, the "Rule of Three," percentages, and stocks, the
seni