orm had ceased, Kinch looked up and
intimated to Charlie that it was quite late, and that there was a
probability of their being after time at school.

This information caused Charlie to make rather a hasty descent, in doing
which his dinner-basket was upset, and its contents displayed at the feet
of the voracious Kinch.

"Now I'll be even with you for that sawdust," cried he, as he pocketed two
boiled eggs, and bit an immense piece out of an apple-tart, which he would
have demolished completely but for the prompt interposition of its owner.

"Oh! my golly! Charlie, your mother makes good pies!" he exclaimed with
rapture, as soon as he could get his mouth sufficiently clear to speak.
"Give us another bite,--only a nibble."

But Charlie knew by experience what Kinch's "nibbles" were, and he very
wisely declined, saying sadly as he did so, "You won't get many more
dinners from me, Kinch. I'm going to leave school." "No! you ain't
though, are you?" asked the astonished Kinch. "You are not going, are you,
really?"

"Yes, really," replied Charlie, with a doleful look; "mother is going to
put me out at service."

"And do you intend to go?" asked Kinch, looking at him incredulously.

"Why of course," was the reply. "How can I help going if father and mother
say I must?"

"I tell you what I should do," said Kinch, "if it was me. I should act so
bad that the people would be glad to get rid of me. They hired me out to
live once, and I led the people they put me with such a dance, that they
was glad enough to send me home again."

This observation brought them to the school-house, which was but a trifling
distance from the residence of Mrs. Ellis.

They entered the school at the last moment of grace, and Mr. Dicker looked
at them severely as they took their seats. "Just saved ourselves,"
whispered Kinch; "a minute later and we would have been done for;" and with
this closing remark he applied himself to his grammar, a very judicious
move on his part, for he had not looked at his lesson, and there were but
ten minutes to elapse before the class would be called.

The lessons were droned through as lessons usually are at school. There was
the average amount of flogging performed; cakes, nuts, and candy,
confiscated; little boys on the back seats punched one another as little
boys on the back seats always will do, and were flogged in consequence.
Then the boy who never knew his lessons was graced with the fool's cap, and