"Hold out your hand. If you flinch, sir, you will receive another."

The punishment was moodily received, and the governor went back to the closet. Charlie and Wort were soon consigned to the same spot for disobedience. Pip was noisily moving about.

"Say," whispered Sid, "Be good, and take your seat properly."

"Take your seat properly!" he then roared.

"Pip, you may read about the 'Caravan,' on the fifth page. Take Wort's book."

"Jutht thee--" began Pip.

"Juggie and Tony, you may both go into the closet for giggling," sharply interposed the teacher. "Go now!"

There were now five boys inside the closet, five restless immortals with ten restless legs and ten restless arms.

"Read, Pip, about the caravan."

"Jutht thee, the wild beathth--"

In harmony with this thought came a loud roar from the closet.

"Now you've got to be better," said Sid, turning to the wild beasts, "or I will resign and I won't teach."

"Let me be teacher," squeaked Pip.

The princ.i.p.al, though, did not resign; but, advancing to the closet or cage door, was about to make an appeal to his infuriated caravan. They antic.i.p.ated him.

"Teacher, Charlie is pinching me."

"Ow! somebody's on my foot."

"There isn't room! I can't breathe!" declared a third.

"It is disgraceful, boys, how you act," said their aged teacher. "You can't play school worth a cent. Pip, come here!"

The only scholar now on duty had disgraced himself by making up faces behind his teacher's back, and as Sid suddenly turned, the culprit was detected.

"Pip, hold out your hand. There, take that!"

"Ow! you hit too hard."

"He will cry. Don't hit too hard!" shouted a warning voice from the closet.

"Booh-ooh-ooh!" went Pip.

"I didn't hit you hard," explained the "princ.i.p.al of the academy," as he had several times called himself. "You mustn't be a-foolin' in school. If you were in a real school you would get worse whippings than that."

Pip's only answer was, "Booh-ooh-ooh!"

"Wort, come here. You are not presenting a respectful face to your teacher. I caught you, sir. Hold out your hand."

"I don't want to."

"Do you rebel?" and the princ.i.p.al swelled as if ambitious to puff himself into a giant.

It is not pleasant to put it on record that Wort did rebel. He refused to hold out his hand, and when Sid seized him he resisted. Then a tussle set in, and it was doubtful whether the teacher would floor the scholar, or the scholar floor the teacher. But they drew off and scowled at one another like two thunder clouds.

"There," said the princ.i.p.al of the academy finally, "I am not going to be teacher any more. Who wants my chance may have it."

"And I won't belong to this old club any more," said Wort, smarting under the castigation he had received. "Who wants my chance may have it."

"'t.i.th an old club," sobbed Pip, "and who wantth my chanth may have it."

"O, fellers, let's not get mad," said the president.

"Pooh!" exclaimed the governor. "You can say so, who gave all the lickin's."

"And not had one yourself," said Charlie.

"O, fellers, don't get mad," besought Sid once more. "You know it was for your good."

This last remark was greeted with sneers, showing that Sid's labors for the welfare of youth were not appreciated. There was not only a determination to get mad, but to stay mad. Besides, the offended ones were moving toward the door, and this in a quarrel always looks bad.

"Let it go," said Sid. "I did not mean to hurt you. Come, let's march down stairs. I was going to have you march down stairs properly, just as we do at school. Come, let's form a line."

"Yes, and you be cap'n," sulked Wort.

"You may be, then," said Sid.

"I aint goin' to march," sobbed Pip.

That feather was too much for the camel's back, especially as the camel in this case was a two-legged one, and a boy like Sid, and he made no further attempts at reconciliation.

"Go it as you please, then," he said, angrily, and it was, indeed, a go-it-as-you-please column that rushed down stairs.

"I'm going home," said Wort.

"O, don't!" pleaded Charlie.

"Let him go!" shouted Sid.

"And me, too," squeaked Pip, and a second sullen knight pa.s.sed out of the yard.

"It's of no us staying here, and I guess I'll go off and find Billy,"

observed the governor, and he left to hunt up his absent cousin.

"My mother wants me, and I might as well go, for the club is broken up,"

said Sid. He sauntered out of the yard with a reckless air, his hands in his pockets.