freed herself from restraining hooks and eyes; Isidore Applebaum had
discarded shoe-laces; and Abie Ashnewsky had bartered his only necktie
for a yard of "shoe-string" licorice.

Miss Bailey was greatly disheartened by this reversion to the original
type. She delivered daily lectures on nail-brushes, hair-ribbons, shoe
polish, pins, buttons, elastic, and other means to grace. Her talks on
soap and water became almost personal in tone, and her insistence on a
close union between such garments as were meant to be united, led to a
lively traffic in twisted and disreputable safety-pins. And yet the
First-Reader Class, in all other branches of learning so receptive and
responsive, made but halting and uncertain progress toward that state of
virtue which is next to godliness.

Early in January came the report that "Gum Shoe Tim" was on the
war-path and might be expected at any time. Miss Bailey heard the
tidings in calm ignorance until Miss Blake, who ruled over the adjoining
kingdom, interpreted the warning. A license to teach in the public
schools of New York is good for only one year. Its renewal depends upon
the reports of the Principal in charge of the school and of the
Associate Superintendent in whose district the school chances to be.
After three such renewals the license becomes permanent, but Miss Bailey
was, as a teacher, barely four months old. The Associate Superintendent
for her vicinity was the Honorable Timothy O'Shea, known and dreaded as
"Gum Shoe Tim," owing to his engaging way of creeping softly up
back-stairs and appearing, all unheralded and unwelcome, upon the
threshold of his intended victim.

This, Miss Blake explained, was in defiance of all the rules of
etiquette governing such visits of inspection. The proper procedure had