In general, Old Bob was good-tempered, patient, and forbearing, not punishing without fair warning, and then with deliberate dignity. But on peculiar provocation, as by anything like the exhibition of a mutinous spirit, especially on the part of a big boy, he lost all control of himself. His face grew pale, his eyes twinkled ominously, he would puff his cheeks out, and his whole form appeared actually to swell. Then, pulling up his nether garments—a habit with him when in a rage—and his voice shaking with passion, he would exclaim, ‘Take care, Sir. Let me not hear thee say that again. If thou dost, I’ll whip thee. I’d whip thee if thou wast as high as the house! I’d whip thee if thou wast as big as Goliath!! I’d whip thee if thou wast an angel from Heaven!!!’ And it was generally understood among us that he would have done it in either case. A flogging at the hands of Old Bob was ordinarily the consequence of a series of offences or shortcomings. Sometimes a pupil, often within a brief period, had been guilty of a false concord or quantity. Sometimes he had been caught out of bounds, or had in some other way infringed Old Bob’s ordinances. Sometimes he was denounced for misconduct or idleness by one of the masters. A very common case of punishment would occur thus: Old Bob would suddenly call for the ‘Classicus’ of a part which was under a junior master. The ‘Classicus’ was a register of our respective performances in learning. The eye of Old Bob would light on a succession of bad marks standing opposite the name of some unlucky fellow. He then gradually raised his eyebrows, and began to whiff and whistle. Presently he repeated the delinquent’s name aloud, and proceeded, whistling and whiffing still at each word, to read out the adjoined record, ‘Bradshaw!’ he would cry; ‘Bradshaw!—Hi! hi! hi!—_Malè—malè—malè—mediocriter—malè—quam pessimè—quam pessimè—quam pessimè_——I’ll whip thee!’ And he put down the book, and pushed his spectacles up on his forehead. ‘Bring me the rod!—Bradshaw!—Come here to me, my worthy, good Sir. I’ll _whip_ thee. _I_ will! Go into the porch!’ So saying, he gave the culprit a shove at the nape of the neck, which almost sent him sprawling headlong. ‘Rod—boy—the rod! Jones—you—Brown you—go in.’ These boys were to keep the porch doors. ‘Robinson—go too.’ The fourth boy was wanted to sustain the drapery of the victim. ‘And here—you, Sir—Smith!—you—go in as well.’ This last was some youth who had been misbehaving himself lately, and whom Old Bob compelled to witness the infliction, that he might profit by it in the way of example. They all went into the porch, and Old Bob, hitching up his smallclothes, followed. ‘My poor boy,’ Old Bob would say, when he had got the criminal ‘hoisted,’ ‘I am sorry for thee. I told thee how it would be. I said I would whip thee if thou didst not behave better, and—_I will_.’ Swish!