'Perfect!' he cried again. 'Puer pulchre! Next!' He never went further than that with me in the way of correction. My size and my skill as a wrestler, that shortly ensured for me the respect of the boys, helped me to win the esteem of the master. I learned my lessons and kept out of mischief. But others of equal proficiency were not so fortunate. He was apt to be hard on a light man who could be handled without over-exertion. Uncle Eb came in to see me one day and sat awhile with me in my seat. While he was there the master took a boy by the collar and almost literally wiped the blackboard with him. There was a great clatter of heels for a moment. Uncle Eb went away shortly and was at Sol Rollin's when I came to dinner. 'Powerful man ain't he?' said Uncle Eb. 'Rather,' I said. 'Turned that boy into a reg'lar horse fiddle,' he remarked. 'Must 'ave unsot his reason.' 'Unnecessary!' I said. 'Reminded me o' the time 'at Tip Taylor got his tooth pulled,' said he. 'Shook 'im up so 'at he thought he'd had his neck put out o' ji'nt.' Sol Rollin was one of my studies that winter. He was a carpenter by trade and his oddities were new and delightful. He whistled as he worked, he whistled as he read, he whistled right merrily as he walked up and down the streets--a short, slight figure with a round boyish face and a fringe of iron-grey hair under his chin. The little man had one big passion--that for getting and saving. The ancient thrift of his race had pinched him small and narrow as a foot is stunted by a tight shoe. His mind was a bit out of register as we say in the printing business. His vocabulary was rich and vivid and stimulating. 'Somebody broke into the arsenic today,' he announced, one evening, at the supper table. 'The arsenic,' said somebody, 'what arsenic?' 'Why the place where they keep the powder,' he answered. 'Oh! the arsenal.' 'Yes, the arsenal,' he said, cackling with laughter at his error. Then he grew serious. 'Stole all the ambition out of it,' he added. 'You mean ammunition, don't you, Solomon?' his wife enquired. 'Certainly,' said he, 'wasn't that what I said.' When he had said a thing that met his own approval Sol Rollin would cackle most cheerfully and then crack a knuckle by twisting a finger. His laugh was mostly out of register also. It had a sad lack of relevancy. He laughed on principle rather than provocation. Some sort of secret comedy of which the world knew nothing, was passing in his mind; it seemed to have its exits and its entrances, its villain, its clown and its miser who got all the applause.