tchel thrown over his shoulder.

"Well, Arnobius,"(2) he cried, "how does rhetoric proceed? are we to take
the law line, or turn professor? Who's the boy? some younger brother?"

"I've taken pity on the little fool," answered Arnobius; "these
schoolmasters are a savage lot. I suffered enough from them myself, and
'miseris succurrere disco.' So I took him from under the roof of friend
Rupilius, and he's under my tutelage. How did he treat thee, boy?"

"He treated me like a slave or a Christian," answered he.

"He deserved it, I'll warrant," said Jucundus; "a pert, forward imp. 'Twas
Gete against Briton. Much good comes of schooling! He's a wicked one
already. Ah, the new generation! I don't know where the world's going."

"Tell the gentleman," said Arnobius, "what he did first to you, my boy."

"As the good gentleman says," answered the boy, "first I did something to
him, and then he did something to me."

"I told you so," said Jucundus; "a sensible boy, after all; but the
schoolmaster had the best of it, I'll wager."

"First," answered he, "I grinned in his face, and he took off his wooden
shoe, and knocked out one of my teeth."

"Good," said Jucundus, "the justice of Pythagoras. Zaleuchus could not
have done better. The mouth sins, and the mouth suffers."

"Next," continued he, "I talked in school-time to my chum; and Rupilius
put a gag in my jaws, and kept them open for an hour."

"The very Rhadamanthus of schoolmasters!" cried Jucundus: "and thereupon
you struck up a chant, divine though inarticulate, like the statue of
Memnon."

"Then," said the boy, "I could not say my Virgil, and he tore the shirt
from off my back, and gave it me with the leather."

"Ay," answered Jucundus, " 'arma virumque' branded on your hide."

"Afterwards I ate his dinner for him," continued the boy, "and then he
screwed my head, and kept me without food for two days."

"Your throat, you mean," said Jucundus; "a cautious man! lest you should
steal a draught or two of good strong air."

"And lastly," said he, "I did not bring my pence, and then he tied my
hands to a gibbet, and hung me up _in terrorem_."

"There I came in," said Arnobius; "he seemed a pretty boy, so I cut him
down, paid his aera, and took him home."

"And now he is your pupil?" asked Jucundus.

"Not yet," answered Arnobius; "he is still a day-scholar of the old
wolf's; one is like another; he could not change for the better: but I am
his bully, and shall t