pupils a high percentage in examinations for promotion.

I grew restless under the restraints imposed by a committee of
incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the Board,
considered a Unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious
life of the young. I grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and
accepted a "louder" call from that quaint town where the historic
Lloyd Ireson "with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und Korrid in
a Kort by the wimmun o' Marrble ed."

Here I had one hundred boys in one room, many of whom went fishing in
summer to get up muscle to lick the schoolmaster in winter. They had
been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my
school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. On the
first morning, I was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard
as brickbats, and I at once reciprocated these favors by knocking
down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound
cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later I was
busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful
instrument.

These owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile,
saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then
stalked out, leaving me to my fate. A young Hercules fisherman at once
suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the
window as they had so many of my predecessors. To this I stoutly
objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, I swung it
fiercely close to their heads. This was more than they had bargained
for, and the uproar pro tem subsided.