st inquired his name,
which he entered with extreme neatness in his class-book--a book in
which there was not a single blot from the first page to the last. He
then put him on as he had put on the rest.

"I had no book, sir, and didn't know what the lesson was," said Walter.

"Excuses, sir, excuses!" said Mr Paton sternly. "You mean that you
haven't learnt the lesson."

"Yes, sir."

"A bad beginning, Evson; bring me no excuses in future. You must write
the lesson out." And an ominous entry implying this fact was written by
Walter's freshly-entered name. Most men would have excused the first
punishment, and contented themselves with a word of admonition; but this
wasn't Mr Paton's way. He held with Escalus that--

"Mercy is not itself that oft looks so!
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe."

[Measure for Measure, act two, scene 1.]

Now it happened that Walter hated excuses, and had always looked on them
as first cousins to lies, and he determined never again to render to Mr
Paton any reason which could by any possibility be construed into an
excuse. He therefore had to undergo a large amount of punishment, which
he flattered himself could not by any possibility have been avoided.

On this occasion Henderson was also turned, and with him a boy named
Bliss. It was quite impossible for Henderson to be unemployed on some
nonsense, and heedless of the fact that he was himself Bliss's companion
in misfortune, he opened a poetry-book, and taking Lycidas as his model,
sat unusually still, while he occupied himself in composing a "Lament
for Blissidas," beginning pathetically--

"Poor Blissidas is turned; turned ere his prime
Young Blissidas, and hath not left his peer;
Who would not weep for Blissidas? He knew
Himself to say his Rep.--but give him time--
He must not quaff his glass of watery beer
Unchaffed, or write, his paper ruled and lined,
Without the meed of some melodious jeer."

"I'll lick you, Flip, after school," said the wrathful Bliss, shaking
his fist, as Henderson began to whisper to him this monody.

"Why do they call you Flip?" asked Walter laughing.

"Short for Flibberty-gibbet," said Bliss.

"Bliss, Henderson, and Evson, do me two hundred lines each," said Mr
Paton; and so on this, his first morning in school, a second punishment
was entered against Walter's name.

"Whew-w-w... abomination of... spoken of by... hush!" was Henderson's
whispered comment. "I cal