by the very simple process of only learning "one time
one is one" for the first lesson, and that and one line more for the
second, I could have mastered the whole book in time. But oh! the weary,
dreary days, and the sad waste of time, and the anxious nervous
suffering, which arithmetic cost me in my youth, and mathematics in after
years!

But there was one class at Jacob's in which I was _facile-princeps_ and
habitual past-grand-master. This was the class which was, like the
professorship of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, for Matters and Things in
General. That is to say, we read aloud from some book--it may have been
selections from English writers--and then Jacob, picking out the hard
words or facts or phrases, required of them definition or explanation.
One day there arose in these questions a sum in arithmetic, when I shot
down to the tail of the class as a plummet drops to the bottom of the
well. I shall never forget the proud fierce impatience which I felt,
like an imprisoned chieftain who knows that he will speedily be delivered
and take dire vengeance on his foes. I had not long to wait.
"'Refectory,' what is a 'refectory'? Hillburn Jones, does thee know?
Joseph Widdifield, does thee?" But none of them knew till it came to me
"down tail," when I cried "An oyster-cellar." "That is quite right,
Charley; thee can go up head," said Jacob, and as I passed Hillburn Jones
he whispered, half in fun, half enviously, the "Kemble Refectory." This
was an oyster-cellar which had been recently opened under the Arch Street
Theatre, and whence Hillburn and I had derived our knowledge of the word,
the difference being that I remembered more promptly and risked more
boldly. But I missed it one day when I defined a _peasant_ as "a nest
full of young birds;" the fact being that I recalled a picture in AEsop's
fables, and confused _peasant_ with _pheasant_. One day Jacob rebuked
the class for letting me always be at their head, when Hillburn Jones,
who was a very honest little boy, said, "Indeed, Jacob, thee must know
that all that we do know, Charley tells us." For I was already an
insatiable reader, and always recalling what I read, and always
communicating my knowledge to others in the form of small lectures. I
had a book of Scripture stories, with a picture of Pharaoh in his
chariot, with the title, "Pharaoh's host sunk in the Red Sea." Hence I
concluded that a _host_ was a vehicle of a very superior description. A
car