The landlord looked at him with astonishment.—“What! you, you a country schoolmaster! why times have fallen heavily upon you I fear!—But really, if you are disposed to teach, I will answer for it you shall have the preference.” As he said this, his eye lighted on one of his guests, and there was such an expression of malignity in the man’s face, that he started. This man had only arrived a few minutes before Arthur. He came, with two heavy, uncouth looking trunks, and two ugly looking dogs; ordered a bed-room for himself, a kennel for his dogs, and then took his seat at the table. “I intend to offer myself as candidate too,” said this man to Arthur, “so we start fair, young man; I will set my acquirements and recommendations against yours, and then wait the issue.” “If it depend upon letters of recommendation,” said Arthur, “you will surely succeed, for I did not bring one, and I am but slightly known to my good friend here.” The landlord turned round and winked slyly at his wife, for the idea of such a gnarled, old hickory knot, as this man, with his spiteful eye and face, pretending to compete with Arthur was too ridiculous. Mr. Green was a landholder, and a justice of the peace, he was in high request as a politician, had money at interest, and had four children to educate. When dinner was over, the stranger whose name was Godfried Darg, drew near to Arthur, and in a sort of snuffling voice, breathing hard through the nose between his sentences, he “begged to box the compass with him.” Arthur smiled, and said “he had no objection; he might be questioned on any subject which came within the reach of the advertisement, and perhaps something further.” So the rough man began to spout Latin. Arthur acquitted himself very well, and to the satisfaction of the other stranger, who had taken dinner with them, and who now drew near also, to listen. There are very few persons who would have indulged this queer-looking old fellow in this whim, but as we observed, Arthur was good-natured, and being indifferent about the issue, he let the man draw out the little learning he possessed. Mr. Conway, the other stranger had been in France, and understood the language well, and in a short time he found that Arthur left his antagonist far behind in that language. Darg said nothing at the end of the French trial, but proceeded at once to the German, he was foiled here too, and so they went on from one branch to another, Mr. Conway deciding in his own mind that the young man was an excellent scholar, and would suit his own purpose exactly. Godfried Darg having ‘boxed the compass’ without tripping up his rival, now descended to the minor points.—“Can you mend pens as quickly as I can?” said he, cutting up and making half-a-dozen pens in a shorter time than ever pens were made before. “There you beat me over and over,” said Arthur, “for I never made a decent pen in my life, I use steel pens, or rather a gold pen altogether.”