man experience
referred to as "life's page," was up to the usual average.

Now the master, mellow almost to the verge of geniality, put his chair
aside, turned his back to the audience, and began to draw a map of
America on the blackboard, to exercise the geography class upon. But he
made a sad business of it with his unsteady hand, and a smothered
titter rippled over the house. He knew what the matter was, and set
himself to right it. He sponged out lines and remade them; but he only
distorted them more than ever, and the tittering was more pronounced.
He threw his entire attention upon his work, now, as if determined not
to be put down by the mirth. He felt that all eyes were fastened upon
him; he imagined he was succeeding, and yet the tittering continued; it
even manifestly increased. And well it might. There was a garret above,
pierced with a scuttle over his head; and down through this scuttle
came a cat, suspended around the haunches by a string; she had a rag
tied about her head and jaws to keep her from mewing; as she slowly
descended she curved upward and clawed at the string, she swung
downward and clawed at the intangible air. The tittering rose higher
and higher--the cat was within six inches of the absorbed teacher's
head--down, down, a little lower, and she grabbed his wig with her
desperate claws, clung to it, and was snatched up into the garret in an
instant with her trophy still in her possession! And how the light did
blaze abroad from the master's bald pate--for the sign-painter's boy
had GILDED it!

That broke up the meeting. The boys were avenged. Vacation had come.

NOTE:--The pretended "compositions" quoted in
this chapter are taken without alteration from a
volume entitled "Prose and Poetry, by a Western
Lady"--but they are exactly and precisely after
the schoolgirl pattern, and hence are much
happier than any mere imitations could be.

CHAPTER XXII

TOM joined the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by
the showy character of their "regalia." He promised to abstain from
smoking, chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now he
found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the
surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very
thing. Tom soon found himself tormented with a desire to drink and
swear; the desire grew to be so intense that nothing but the hope of a
chance to display himself in his red sas