As soon as I gained the play-ground, which was, in fact, nothing more
than a small piece of waste land, to which we had no more claim than any
other people, I sat down by a post, and commenced my dinner off what Mr
O'Gallagher had thought proper to leave me. I was afraid of him, it is
true, for his severity to the other boys convinced me that he would have
little mercy upon me, if I dared to thwart him; but indignation soon
began to obtain the mastery over my fears and I began to consider if I
could not be even with him for his barefaced robbery of my dinner; and
then I reflected whether it would not be better to allow him to take my
food if I found out that by so doing he treated me well; and I resolved,
at all events, to delay a little. The hour of play was now over, and a
bell summoned us all to school; I went in with the others and took my
seat where Mr O'Gallagher had before desired me.
As soon as all was silent, my pedagogue beckoned me to him.
"Now, Mr Keene," said he, "you'll be so good as to lend me your ears--
that is, to listen while I talk to you a little bit. D'ye know how many
roads there are to larning? Hold your tongue. I ask you because I know
you don't know, and because I'm going to tell you. There are exactly
three roads: the first is the eye, my jewel; and if a lad has a sharp
eye like yours, it's a great deal that will get into his head by that
road; you'll know a thing when you see it again, although you mayn't
know your own father--that's a secret only known to your mother. The
second road to larning, young spalpeen, is the ear; and if you mind all
people say, and hear all you can, you'll gain a great many truths and
just ten times as much more in the shape of lies. You see the wheat and
the chaff will come together, and you must pick the latter out of the
former at any seasonable future opportunity. Now we come to the third
road to larning, which is quite a different sort of road; because, you
see, the two first give us little trouble, and we trot along almost
whether we will or not: the third and grand road is the head itself,
which requires the eye and the ear to help it; and two other assistants,
which we call memory and application; so you see we have the visual,
then the aural, and then the mental roads--three hard words which you
don't understand, and which I shan't take the trouble to explain to such
an animal as you are; for I never throw away pearls to swine, as the
saying is. Now, then, Mr Keene, we must come to another part of our
history. As there are three roads to larning, so there are three manes
or implements by which boys are stimulated to larn: the first is the
ruler, which you saw me shy at the thick skull of Johnny Target, and you
see'd what a rap it gave him; well, then, the second is the ferrule--a
thing you never heard of, perhaps; but I'll show it you; here it is,"
continued Mr O'Gallagher, producing a sort of flat wooden ladle with a
hole in the centre of it. "The ruler is for the head, as you have seen;
the ferrule is for the hand. You have seen me use the ruler; now I'll
show you what I do with the ferrule."
"You Tommy Goskin, come here, sir."
Tommy Goskin put down his book, and came up to his master with a good
deal of doubt in his countenance.
"Tommy Goskin, you didn't say your lesson well to-day."
"Yes I did, Mr O'Gallagher," replied Tommy, "you said I did yourself."
"Well then, sir, you didn't say it well yesterday," continued Mr
O'Gallagher.
"Yes I did, sir," replied the boy, whimpering.
"And is it you who dares to contradict me?" cried Mr O'Gallagher; "at
all events, you won't say it well to-morrow, so hold out your right
hand."
Poor Tommy held it out, and roared lustily at the first blow, wringing
his fingers with the smart.
"Now your left hand, sir; fair play is a jewel; always carry the dish
even."
Tommy received a blow on his left hand, which was followed up with
similar demonstrations of suffering.
"There sir you may go now," said Mr O'Gallagher, "and mind you don't do
it again; or else there'll be a blow-up. And now Master Keene, we come
to the third and last, which is the birch for the tail--here it is--have
you ever had a taste?"
"No, sir," replied I.
"Well, then, you have that pleasure to come, and come it will, I don't
doubt, if you and I are a few days longer acquainted. Let me see--"
Here Mr O'Gallagher looked round the school, as if to find a culprit;
but the boys, aware of what was going on, kept their eyes so attentively
to their books, that he could not discover one; at last he singled out a
fat chubby lad.
"Walter Puddock, come here, sir."
Walter Puddock came accordingly; evidently he gave himself up for lost.
"Walter Puddock, I just have been telling Master Keene that you're the
best Latin scholar in the whole school. Now, sir, don't make me out to
be a liar--do me credit,--or, by the blood of the O'Gallaghers, I'll
flog ye till you're as thin as a herring. What's the Latin for a cocked
hat, as the Roman gentlemen wore with their _togeys_?"
Walter Puddock hesitated a few seconds, and then, without venturing a
word of remonstrance, let down his trousers.
"See now the guilty tief, he knows what's coming. Shame upon you,
Walter Puddock, to disgrace your preceptor so, and make him tell a lie
to young Master Keene. Where's Phil Mooney? Come along, sir, and hoist
Walter Puddock: it's no larning that I can drive into you, Phil, but
it's sartain sure that by your manes I drive a little into the other
boys."
Walter Puddock, as soon as he was on the back of Phil Mooney, received a
dozen cuts with the rod, well laid on. He bore it without flinching,
although the tears rolled down his cheeks.
"There, Walter Puddock, I told you it would end in a blow-up; go to your
dictionary, you dirty blackguard, and do more credit to your education
and superior instruction from a certain person who shall be nameless."