trained the boys. We recall one white mouse,
who lived in the cover of a Latin dictionary,
who ran up ladders, drew Roman chariots,
shouldered muskets, turned wheels, and even
made a very creditable appearance on the
stage as the Dog of Montargis. He might
have achieved greater things, but for having
the misfortune to mistake his way in a
triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he
fell into a deep inkstand, and was dyed black
and drowned. The mice were the occasion
of some most ingenious engineering, in the
construction of their houses and instruments
of performance. The famous one belonged
to a Company of proprietors, some of whom
have since made Railroads, Engines, and
Telegraphs; the chairman has erected mills
and bridges in New Zealand.

The usher at our school, who was considered
to know everything as opposed to the Chief
who was considered to know nothing, was a
bony, gentle-faced, clerical-looking young man
in rusty black. It was whispered that he was
sweet upon one of Maxby's sisters (Maxby
lived close by, and was a day pupil), and
further that he "favoured Maxby." As we
remember, he taught Italian to Maxby's
sisters on half-holidays. He once went to
the play with them, and wore a white waist-coat
and a rose: which was considered among
us equivalent to a declaration. We were of
opinion on that occasion that to the last
moment he expected Maxby's father to ask
him to dinner at five o'clock, and therefore
neglected his own dinner at half-past one, and
finally got none. We exaggerated in our
imaginations the extent to which he punished
Maxby's father's cold meat at supper; and we
agreed to believe that he was elevated with
wine and water when he came home. But, we
all liked him; for he had a good knowledge of
boys, and would have made it a much better
school if he had had more power. He was
writing-master, mathematical master, English
master, made out the bills, mended the
pens, and did all sorts of things. He
divided the little boys with the Latin master
(they were smuggled through their
rudimentary books, at odd times when there
was nothing else to do), and he always
called at parents' houses to inquire after sick
boys, because he had gentlemanly manners.
He was rather musical, and on some remote
quarter-day had bought an old trombone;
but a bit of it was lost, and it made the most
extraordinary sounds when he sometimes
tried to play it of an evening. His holidays
never began (on account of the bills) until
long after ours; but, in the summer-vacations
he used to take pedestrian excursions with a
knapsack; and at Christmas-time, he went to
see his father at Chipping Norton, who we all
said (on no authority) was a dairy-fed-pork-butcher.
Poor fellow! He was very low all
day on Maxby's sister's wedding-day, and
afterwards was thought to favor Maxby
more than ever, though he had been expected
to spite him. He has been dead these twenty
years. Poor fellow!

Our remembrance of Our School, presents
the Latin master as a colorless doubled-up
near-sighted man with a crutch, who was
always cold, and always putting onions into
his ears for deafness, and always disclosing
ends of flannel under all his garments, and
almost always applying a ball of
pocket-handkerchief to some part of his face with a
screwing action round and round. He was a
very good scholar, and took great pains where
he saw intelligence and a desire to learn:
otherwise, perhaps not. Our memory presents
him (unless teased into a passion) with as
little energy as color—as having been worried
and tormented into monotonous feebleness—as
having had the best part of his life ground out
of him in a Mill of boys. We remember with
terror how he fell asleep one sultry afternoon
with the little smuggled class before him, and
awoke not when the footstep of the Chief fell
heavy on the floor; how the Chief aroused
him, in the midst of a dread silence, and said,
"Mr. Blinkins, are you ill, sir?" how he
blushingly replied, "Sir, rather so"; how the
Chief retorted with severity, "Mr. Blinkins,
this is no place to be ill in" (which was very,
very true), and walked back, solemn as the
ghost in Hamlet, until, catching a wandering
eye, he caned that boy for inattention, and
happily expressed his feelings towards the
Latin master through the medium of a
substitute.

There was a fat little dancing-master who
used to come in a gig, and taught the more
advanced among us hornpipes (as an
accomplishment in great social demand in after-life);
and there was a brisk little French master who
used to come in the sunniest weather, with a
handleless umbrella, and to whom the Chief
was always polite, because (as we believed), if
the Chief offended him, he would instantly
address the Chief in French, and for ever
confound him before the boys with his
inability to understand or reply.

There was, besides, a serving man, whose
name was Phil. Our retrospective glance
presents Phil as a shipwrecked carpenter,
cast away upon the desert island of a school,
and carrying into practice an ingenious inkling
of many trades. He mended whatever was
broken, and made whatever was wanted. He
was general glazier, among other things, and
mended all the broken windows—at the prime
cost (as was darkly rumoured among us) of
ninepence, for every square charged three-and-six
to parents. We had a high opinion of his
mechanical genius, and generally held that the
Chief "knew something bad of him," and on
pain of divulgence enforced Phil to be his
bondsman. We particularly remember that
Phil had a sovereign contempt for learning:
which engenders in us a respect for his sagacity,
as it implies his accurate observation of
the relative positions of the Chief and the
ushers. He was an impenetrable man, who