soured as it was, and pitying perhaps the child's white face, he
contented himself with the effects of his look.

The simple truth was, that poor Mr. Lawley was a little wrong in the
head. A scholar and a gentleman, early misfortunes and an imprudent
marriage had driven him to the mastership of the little country
grammar-school; and here the perpetual annoyance caused to his refined
mind by the coarseness of clumsy or spiteful boys, had gradually
unhinged his intellect. Often did he tell the boys "that it was an
easier life by far to break stones by the roadside than to teach them;"
and at last his eccentricities became too obvious to be any longer
overlooked.

The dénouement of his history was a tragic one, and had come a few days
before the time when, our narrative opens. It was a common practice
among the Latin school boys, as I suppose among all boys, to amuse
themselves by putting a heavy book on the top of a door left partially
ajar, and to cry out "Crown him" as the first luckless youngster who
happened to come in received the book thundering on his head. One day,
just as the trap had been adroitly laid, Mr. Lawley walked in
unexpectedly. The moment he entered the school-room, down came an
Ainsworth's Dictionary on the top of his hat, and the boy, concealed
behind the door, unconscious of who the victim was, enunciated with mock
gravity, "Crown him! three cheers."

It took Mr. Lawley a second to raise from his eyebrows the battered hat,
and recover from his confusion; the next instant he was springing after
the boy who had caused the mishap, and who, knowing the effects of the
master's fury, fled with precipitation. In one minute the offender was
caught, and Mr. Lawley's heavy hand fell recklessly on his ears and