little boys noticed the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve-buttons,
once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous in the Old French War.

Abner Briggs, Junior, did not apparently think he was ready, at any rate;
for he rose up in his place, and stood with clenched fists, defiant, as
the master strode towards him. The master knew the fellow was really
frightened, for all his looks, and that he must have no time to rally.
So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, with one great pull, had
him out over his desk and on the open floor. He gave him a sharp fling
backwards and stood looking at him.

The rough-and-tumble fighters all clinch, as everybody knows; and Abner
Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had floored
Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try to repeat
his former successful experiment an the new master. He sprang at him,
open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike,--once, but very
hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority that doth
hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the blow was
itself a neat one, and did not require to be repeated.

"Now go home," said the master, "and don't let me see you or your dog
here again." And he turned his cuffs down over the gold sleeve-buttons.

This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School rebellion. What could be
done with a master who was so pleasant as long as the boys behaved
decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got "riled," as they called
it? In a week's time everything was reduced to order, and the
school-committee were delighted. The master, however, had received a
proposition so much more agreeable and advantageous, that he informed the
committee he should leave at the end of his month, having in his eye a