There was a moment of utter stillness; but the magnetism of Ralph's eye
was too much for Bill Means. The request was so polite, the master's
look was so innocent and yet so determined. Bill often wondered
afterward that he had not "fit" rather than obeyed the request. But
somehow he put the dog out. He was partly surprised, partly inveighed,
partly awed into doing just what he had not intended to do. In the week
that followed, Bill had to fight half a dozen boys for calling him
"Puppy Means." Bill said he wished he'd licked the master on the spot.
'Twould 'a' saved five fights out of the six.

And all that day and the next, the bulldog in the master's eye was a
terror to evil-doers. At the close of school on the second day Bud was
heard to give it as his opinion that "the master wouldn't be much in a
tussle, but he had a heap of thunder and lightning in him."

Did he inflict corporal punishment? inquires some philanthropic friend.
Would you inflict corporal punishment if you were tiger-trainer in Van
Amburgh's happy family? But poor Ralph could never satisfy his
constituency in this regard.

"Don't believe he'll do," was Mr. Pete Jones's comment to Mr. Means.
"Don't thrash enough. Boys won't l'arn 'less you thrash 'em, says I.
Leastways, mine won't. Lay it on good is what I says to a master. Lay it
on good. Don't do no harm. Lickin' and l'arnin' goes together. No
lickin', no l'arnin', says I. Lickin' and l'arnin,' lickin' and larnin',
is the good ole way."

And Mr. Jones, like some wiser people, was the more pleased with his