Examination day came, and Ruth bent her determined steps to the City
Hall. The apartment designated was already crowded with waiting
applicants, who regarded, with jealous eye, each addition to their
number as so much dimunition of their own individual chance for success.
Ruth's cheeks grew hot, as their scrutinizing and unfriendly glances
were bent on her, and that feeling of utter desolation came over her,
which was always so overwhelming whenever she presented herself as a
suppliant for public favor. In truth, it was but a poor preparation for
the inquisitorial torture before her.
The applicants were called out, one by one, in alphabetical order;
Ruth inwardly blessing the early nativity of the letter H, for these
anticipatory-shower-bath meditations were worse to her than the shock
of a volley of chilling interrogations.
"Letter H."
Ruth rose with a flutter at her heart, and entered a huge,
barren-looking room, at the further end of which sat, in august state,
the dread committee. _Very_ respectable were the gentlemen of whom that
committee was composed; _respectable_ was written all over them, from
the crowns of their scholastic heads to the very tips of their polished
boots; and correct and methodical as a revised dictionary they sat, with
folded hands and spectacle-bestridden noses.
Ruth seated herself in the victim's chair, before this august body,
facing a flood of light from a large bay-window, that nearly
extinguished her eyes.
"What is your age?" asked the elder of the inquisitors.
Scratch went the extorted secret on the nib of the reporter's pen!
"Where was you educated?"
"Was Colburn, or Emerson, your teacher's standard for Arithmetic?"
"Did you cipher on a slate, or black-board?"
"Did you learn the multiplication table, skipping, or in order?"
"Was you taught Astronomy, or Philosophy, first?"
"Are you accustomed to a quill, or a steel-pen? lines, or blank-paper,
in writing?"
"Did you use Smith's, or Jones' Writing-Book?"
"Did you learn Geography by Maps, or Globes?"
"Globes?" asked Mr. Squizzle, repeating Ruth's answer; "possible?"
"They use Globes at the celebrated Jerrold Institute," remarked Mr.
Fizzle.
"Impossible!" retorted Mr. Squizzle, growing plethoric in the face;
"Globes, sir, are exploded; no institution of any note uses Globes, sir.
I know it."
"And I know you labor under a mistake," said Fizzle, elevating his
chin, and folding his arms pugnaciously over his striped vest. "I am
acquainted with one of the teachers in that highly-respectable school."
"And I, sir," said Squizzle, "am well acquainted with the Principal,
who is a man of too much science, sir, to use globes, sir, to teach
geography, sir."
At this, Mr. Fizzle settled down behind his dicky with a quenched air;
and the very important question being laid on the shelf, Mr. Squizzle,
handing Ruth a copy of "Pollock's Course of Time," requested her to read
a marked passage, indicated by a perforation of his pen-knife. Poor Ruth
stood about as fair a chance of proving her ability to read poetry, as
would Fanny Kemble to take up a play, hap-hazard, at one of her dramatic
readings, without a previous opportunity to gather up the author's
connecting thread. Our heroine, however, went through the motions. This
farce concluded, Ruth was dismissed into the apartment in waiting, to
make room for the other applicants, each of whom returned with red
faces, moist foreheads, and a "Carry-me-back-to-Old-Virginia" air.
An hour's added suspense, and the four owners of the four pair of
inquisitorial spectacles marched, in procession, into the room in
waiting, and wheeling "face about," with military precision, thumped on
the table, and ejaculated:
"Attention!"
Instantaneously, five-and-twenty pair of eyes, black, blue, brown, and
gray, were riveted; and each owner being supplied with pen, ink, and
paper, was allowed ten minutes (with the four-pair of spectacles
levelled full at her) to express her thoughts on the following subject:
"Was Christopher Columbus standing up, or sitting down, when he
discovered America?"
The four watches of the committee men being drawn out, pencils began to
scratch; and the terminus of the allotted minutes, in the middle of a
sentence, was the place for each inspired improvisatrice to stop.
These hasty effusions being endorsed by appending each writer's
signature, new paper was furnished, and "A-t-t-e-n-t-i-o-n!" was again
ejaculated by a short, pursy individual, who seemed to be struggling to
get out of his coat by climbing over his shirt collar. Little armies of
figures were then rattled off from the end of this gentleman's tongue,
with "Peter Piper Pipkin" velocity, which the anxious pen-women in
waiting were expected to arrest in flying, and have the "sum total of
the hull," as one of the erudite committee observed, already added up,
when the illustrious arithmetician stopped to take wind.
This being the finale, the ladies were sapiently informed that, as only
_one_ school mistress was needed, only _one_ out of the large number of
applicants could be elected, and that "the Committee would now sit on
them."
At this gratifying intelligence, the ladies, favored by a plentiful
shower of rain, betook themselves to their respective homes;
four-and-twenty, God help them! to dream of a reprieve from starvation,
which, notwithstanding the six-hours' purgatory they had passed through,
was destined to elude their eager grasp.
The votes were cast. Ruth was _not_ elected. She had been educated,
(whether fortunately or unfortunately, let the sequel of my story
decide,) at a school where "Webster" was used instead of "Worcester."
The greatest gun on the Committee was a Worcesterite. Mr. Millet and Mr.
Develin always followed in the wake of _great_ guns. Mr. Millet and Mr.
Develin voted _against_ Ruth.