All this while the amusement of the listeners had been growing gradually beyond control, and at this point smothered explosions of laughter from one and another fell on Tim's ears, like the dropping of musketry fire. But he did not guess its meaning, and continued turning towards Tidswell, and waiting for the conclusion of the story. "And the last they saw of him," resumed that worthy, his voice quailing with the exertion to keep it grave and composed--"the last they saw of him was, he was spinning away at the rate of twenty knots an hour, with his tail in his mouth, in the direction of the North Pole." "I fancied it was only eighteen knots an hour," put in Tim seriously. Another moment, and the laughter would assuredly burst upon him. "Not in the account I saw. What paper did you see it in, Tim?" "Eh? Why, the same as you," replied Tim hurriedly, beginning to suspect the crimson faces of his comrades meant something more than admiration of his wisdom. "Where did you get the tale from? I forget." "I got the tale out of my head--like the serpent, you humbug!" roared Tidswell; and for the next five minutes Tim sat on his stool of repentance, amid the yells of laughter with which his companions hailed his discomfiture. When silence was restored, of course he tried to explain that "he knew all along it was a joke, and only wanted to see how far he could gammon the fellows, and fancied he succeeded," and presently quitted the room, an injured but by no means humiliated boy. One last word. Timothy and his friends are amusing up to one point, and detestable up to another point; but when they come to you in the hour of your deepest sorrow and distress, and, with bland smile, say to you, "I told you so!" they are beyond all endurance, and you hope for nothing more devoutly than that you may never see their odious faces again. The best cure possible for Tim is a homoeopathic one. Find some other boy equally conceited, equally foolish, equally unscrupulous, and set him at Tim. I will undertake to say that--unless the two devour one another down to the very tips of their tails, like the famous Kilkenny cats--they will bring one another to reason, and perhaps modesty, in double-quick time. The great and wise Newton once said of himself that, so far from knowing all things, he seemed to himself to be but as a boy gathering pebbles on the seashore, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him. Newton was, in his way, almost as fine a fellow as Timothy Told-you-so, and if Timothy would but stoop to have more of Newton's spirit, he might in time come to possess an atom or two of Newton's sense. CHAPTER TWELVE. THE UNTIDY BOY.