"Using blasphemous and profane language again!" he finally began, as he stood and glared at the scowling pupil. "Gentlemen never abuse a servant for obeying orders. Gentlemen avoid the use of profanity. We must have a new name,--a more descriptive title for our _monstrum horrendum_, our roaring Polyphemus. What say you, Bertram, Imperator? What say you, Joy? Come, wake your nimble wits, young gentlemen. The astute head of the class is silent, the second is dumb, the third sits mute," and now the great but shapely white hand, with its taper index, points to one after another, "the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. What? Have we no wits left to-day? You, Beekman; you, Satterlee; the iconoclastic Bagshot, the epicurean Doremus" (a titter now, for Doremus's taste for cream-puffs is proverbial). Speak up, Van Sandtvoordt. Gihon, Post, Dix, Bliss, Seymour, Grayson, next, next, next; the late belligerent Mr. Turner, the benignant Briggs, Hoover we'll skip, and now the other gladiator, Loquax. _What?_" "Polyblasphemous!" says Shorty, with twitching lips, the Irish in him coming to the top despite his weight of woe. An instant of silence, then, shaking from head to foot, the tears fairly starting from his eyes, unable for the moment to speak at all, laughing himself to the verge of apoplexy, the Doctor motions the youngster from the foot to the head of the class, and it is a full minute before order is restored and the laughter of the First Latin subsides. Even then, every little while some boy bursts out into a chuckle of merriment, and Hoover glares at him with new malevolence. Every little while the Doctor settles back in his chair and shakes anew. That _jeu d'esprit_ saves three culprits from deserved suspension and brings sunshine through the storm-clouds for the day at least. But it thickens the hide of Hoover's hate. "You think you were smart this afternoon" (with an adjective to the smart), sneers Hoover to the youngster after school. "You'll find out where the smart comes in before you're a month older, young feller." And Hoover means it. [Illustration: She was permitted to read and to weep over Snipe's pathetic letter.] CHAPTER X.