to strike or drawing back his foot to kick, the beast makes his spring,
and the blow or the kick comes too late.

It was not so this time. The master was a fencer, and something of a
boxer; he had played at singlestick, and was used to watching an
adversary's eye and coming down on him without any of those premonitory
symptoms by which unpractised persons show long beforehand what mischief
they meditate.

"Out with you!" he said, fiercely,--and explained what he meant by a
sudden flash of his foot that clashed the yellow dog's white teeth
together like the springing of a bear-trap. The cur knew he had found
his master at the first word and glance, as low animals on four legs, or
a smaller number, always do; and the blow took him so by surprise, that
it curled him up in an instant, and he went bundling out of the open
schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and his stump of a tail shut
down as close as his owner ever shut the short, stubbed blade of his
jack-knife.

It was time for the other cur to find who his master.

"Follow your dog, Abner Briggs!" said Master Langdon.

The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the rebels were all cowed and
sat still.

"I'll go when I'm ready," he said,--"'n' I guess I won't go afore I'm
ready."

"You're ready now," said Master Langdon, turning up his cuffs so that the