y he was sent to the
reform school.

"Oh," was the reply, "I stole a sawmill, and when I went back after
the water dam the copper scooped me in."

Another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him
the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was A, he
called out: "How do you know that is A?"

"Why, when I went to school my teacher told me it was A."

"Well," said the little imp, "how do ye know but what that feller
lied?"

At one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a
speaker, a man by the name of Holmes, and wishing to impress the
boys favorably, he announced him as Professor Holmes. The orator was
annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be "funny," commenced
by saying: "I am not Professor Holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his
maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass--" At this point, quick as a
flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted: "Well, if you
ain't Professor Holmes' ass, whose ass be ye?"

Then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering
pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect
imitation of Holmes' affected grandiloquence; then he launched into
the coon song:--

"De bigger dat you see de smoke
De less de fire will be,
And de leastest kind ob possum
Climbs de biggest kind ob tree.

"De nigger at de camp-groun'
Dat kin loudest sing an' shout,
Am gwine ter rob some hen-roos'
Befo' de week am out."

Thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would
unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and
unprecedented attractiveness.

CHAPTER IX.

SUNLIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PALACE AND COTTAGE.

My pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the
Bowery, while those at S---- were from the palaces of Fifth Avenue;
but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally
and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. I
was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the
millionaire parents of my scholars, and I verily believe that I saw as
much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the
poor.

On my arrival in Berkshire County, I found both of my employers were
off on a spree, and that I was ordered to do the work of receiving and
organizing. One day, a princely equipage with liveried coachman and
outrider halted at the schoolroom door, a "bloated bondh