"There sir you may go now," said Mr O'Gallagher, "and mind you don't do it again; or else there'll be a blow-up. And now Master Keene, we come to the third and last, which is the birch for the tail--here it is--have you ever had a taste?" "No, sir," replied I. "Well, then, you have that pleasure to come, and come it will, I don't doubt, if you and I are a few days longer acquainted. Let me see--" Here Mr O'Gallagher looked round the school, as if to find a culprit; but the boys, aware of what was going on, kept their eyes so attentively to their books, that he could not discover one; at last he singled out a fat chubby lad. "Walter Puddock, come here, sir." Walter Puddock came accordingly; evidently he gave himself up for lost. "Walter Puddock, I just have been telling Master Keene that you're the best Latin scholar in the whole school. Now, sir, don't make me out to be a liar--do me credit,--or, by the blood of the O'Gallaghers, I'll flog ye till you're as thin as a herring. What's the Latin for a cocked hat, as the Roman gentlemen wore with their _togeys_?" Walter Puddock hesitated a few seconds, and then, without venturing a word of remonstrance, let down his trousers. "See now the guilty tief, he knows what's coming. Shame upon you, Walter Puddock, to disgrace your preceptor so, and make him tell a lie to young Master Keene. Where's Phil Mooney? Come along, sir, and hoist Walter Puddock: it's no larning that I can drive into you, Phil, but it's sartain sure that by your manes I drive a little into the other boys." Walter Puddock, as soon as he was on the back of Phil Mooney, received a dozen cuts with the rod, well laid on. He bore it without flinching, although the tears rolled down his cheeks. "There, Walter Puddock, I told you it would end in a blow-up; go to your dictionary, you dirty blackguard, and do more credit to your education and superior instruction from a certain person who shall be nameless." Mr O'Gallagher laid the rod on one side, and then continued-- "Now, Master Keene, I've just shown you the three roads to larning, and also the three implements to persuade little boys to larn; if you don't travel very fast by the three first, why you will be followed up very smartly by the three last--a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse, any day; and one thing more, you little spalpeen, mind that there's more mustard to the sandwiches to-morrow, or else it will end in a blow-up. Now you've got the whole theory of the art of tuition, Master Keene; please the pigs, we'll commence with the practice to-morrow." My worthy pedagogue did not address me any more during that day; the school broke up at five, and I made haste home, thinking over all that had passed in the school-room.