"Silence!" thundered the master, with a frown that caused the small boy
to quake down to the points of his toes.

"Asia!" answered dux.

"Next?"

"Turkey!"

"Next, next, next? Hallo! John Ward," cried the master, starting up in
anger from his seat, "what do you mean by that, sir?"

"What, sir?" said John Ward, tremulously, while a suppressed titter ran
round the class.

"Your face, sir! Who blacked your face, eh?"

"I--I--don't know," said the boy, drawing his sleeve across his face,
which had the effect of covering it with sooty streaks.

An uncontrollable shout of laughter burst from the whole school, which
was instantly followed by a silence so awful and profound that a pin
might have been heard to fall.

"Martin Rattler, you did that! I know you did,--I see the marks on your
fingers. Come here, sir! Now tell me; _did_ you do it?"

Martin Rattler never told falsehoods. His old aunt had laboured to
impress upon him from infancy that to lie was to commit a sin which is