get a sight of the
picture.

The boys laughed aloud, and there was a tittering among the girls, which
made Cipher very angry. "Silence!" he roared, and stamped upon the floor
so savagely that the windows rattled. "Come out here, Sir. I'll give you
a drawing-lesson of another sort." He seized Paul by the collar, and
threw him into the space in front of his own desk. "Hold out your hand."

Paul felt that he was about to receive a tremendous thrashing; but he
determined that he would not flinch. He held out his right hand, and
spat! came the blow from a heavy ferule. His hand felt as if he had been
struck by a piece of hot iron.

"The other, sir."

Whack! it fell, a blow which made the flesh purple. There was an Oh!
upon his tongue; but he set his teeth together, and bit his lips till
they bled, and so smothered it. Another blow,--another,--another,--which
were hard to bear; but his teeth were set like a vice. There was a
twitching of the muscles round his lips; he was pale. When the blows
fell, he held his breath, but he did not snivel.

"I'll see if I can't bring you to your feeling, you good-for-nothing
scape-grace," said the master, mad with passion, and surprised that Paul
made no outcry. He gave another round, bringing the ferule down with
great force. Blood began to ooze from the pores. The last blow spattered
the drops around the room. Cipher came to his senses. He stopped.

"Are you sorry, sir?"

"I don't know whether I am or not. I didn't mean any harm. I suppose I
ought not to have drawn it in school; but I didn't do it to make fun. I
drew you just as you are," said Paul,--his voice trembling a little in
spite of his efforts to control it.

The master could not deny that it was a perfect likeness. He was
surprised at Paul's cleverness at drawing, and for the first time in his
life saw that he cut a ridiculous figure wearing that long, loose,
swallow-tailed coat, with great, flaming brass buttons, and resolved
upon the spot that his next coat should be a frock, and that he would
get a longer pair of pants.

"You may take your seat, sir!" he said, puzzled to know whether to
punish Paul still more, and compel him to say that he was sorry, or
whether to accept the explanations, and apologize for whipping him so
severely.

Paul sat down. His hands ached terribly; but what troubled him most was
the thought that he had been whipped before the whole school. All the
girls had witnessed his humiliation. There