The master, to add to my misery, was cross, and began proceedings by ordering Evans to learn twenty lines for laughing in school-time. I glanced at the fellows round me. Some were taking a last peep at their books. Others, with bright and confident faces, waited quietly for the lesson to begin. No one that I could see was as badly off as I. Every one knew something. I knew nothing. Just at the last moment I found the place in the "crib" and in the _Caesar_ at the same time, but scarcely had I done so when the awful voice of the master spoke: "Stand up!" All dictionaries and notes had now to be put away; all except the Latin books. I had contrived _to get_ off the first two lines, and only hoped the master might pitch on me to begin. And he did pitch on me. "Charles Smith," I heard him say, and my heart jumped to my mouth, "stand forward and begin at `_jamque Caesar_.'" "Please, sir, we begin at `_His et aliis_,'" I faltered. "You begin where I tell you, sir," sternly replied he. A dead silence fell over the class, waiting for me to begin. I was in despair. Oh, if only I had not dawdled! I would give all my pocket- money for this term to know a line of that horrid _Caesar_. "Come, sir, be quick," said the master. Then I fetched a sigh very like a sob, and began-- "_Que_, and--" I heard the master's foot scrape ominously on the floor. "_Que_, and--" I repeated. "_And_ what, sir?" thundered the master, rising in his seat and leaning across his desk towards me. It was awful. I was never more miserable in my life. "_Caesar_, Caesar," I stammered. Here at least was a word I could translate, so I repeated it--"_Que_, and--_Caesar_, Caesar." A dead silence, scarcely broken by a titter from the back desks. "_Jam_," I chokingly articulated, and there stuck. "Well, sir, and what does _jam_ mean?" inquired the voice, in a tone of suppressed wrath. "_Jam_"--again I stuck. Another dead silence. "_Que_, and--_Caesar_, Caesar; _jam_"--It was no use; the only jam I knew of I was certain would not do in this case, so I began again in despair; "_Que_, and--_Caesar_, Caesar; _jam_--_jam_--_jam_." The master shut his book, and I knew the storm had burst. "Smith, have you prepared this lesson?" "No, sir," I replied, relieved to be able to answer any questions, however awful. "Why not, sir?" Ah! that I could not answer--not to myself, still less to him. So I was silent. "Come to me after school," he said. "The next boy come forward." After school I went to him, and he escorted me to the doctor. No criminal at the Old Bailey trembled as I did at that interview. I can't remember what was said to me. I know I wildly confessed my sins--my "cribbing," my wasting of time--and promised to abjure them one and all. The doctor was solemn and grave, and said a great deal to me that I was too overawed to understand or remember; after which I was sent back to my class--a punished, disgraced, and marked boy.