boy who held the second place! who got two; and the
prince, the third who got one. The last boy in the
class was called Bobtail.

Having gone through the spelling-task, it was Mat's custom to give out
six hard words selected according to his judgment--as a final test;
but he did not always confine himself to that. Sometimes he would put a
number of syllables arbitrarily together, forming a most heterogeneous
combination of articulate sounds.

"Now, boys, here's a deep word, that'll thry yez: come Larry
spell me-mo-man-dran-san-ti-fi-can-du-ban-dan-li-al-i-ty, or
mis-an-thro-po-mor-phi-ta-ni-a-nus-mi-ca-li-a-lioy;--that's too hard
for you, is it? Well, then, spell phthisic. Oh, that's physic you're
spellin'. Now, Larry, do you know the difference between physic and
phthisic?"

"No, sir."

"Well, I'll expound it: phthisic, you see, manes--whisht, boys: will
yez hould yer tongues there--phthisic, Larry, signifies--that is,
phthisic--mind, it's not physic I'm expounding, but phthisic--boys, will
yez stop yer noise there--signifies----but, Larry, it's so deep a
word in larnin' that I should draw it out on a slate for you. And now I
remimber, man alive, you're not far enough on yet to understand it: but
what's physic, Larry?"

"Isn't that sir, what my father tuck the day he got sick, sir?"

"That's the very thing, Larry: it has what larned men call a