I have not time to expatiate on several droll mishaps that occurred to Mr Root; how he was once bumped in all the glowing panoply of equine war; how, when one night, with his head well powdered, he crept upon all-fours, as was his wont, into one of the boys' bedrooms, to listen to their nightly conversations; and how such visit being expected, as his head lay on the side of the bedstead, it was there immovably fixed, by the application of a half-pound of warm cobbler's wax, and release could only be obtained by the Jason-like operation of shearing the fleecy locks. We must rapidly pass on. I was eager to get away from this school, and my desire was accomplished in the following very singular manner:-- One fine sunshiny Sunday morning, as we were all arranged in goodly fashion, two by two, round the play-ground, preparatory to issuing through the house to go to church, the unusual cry was heard of "Master Rattlin wanted," which was always understood to be the joyful signal that some parent or friend had arrived as a visitor. I was immediately hurried into the house, a whispering took place between Mr and Mrs Root, and the consequence was, that I was bustled up into the bedroom, and my second-best clothes, which I then had on, were changed for the best, and, with a supererogatory dab with a wet towel over my face, I was brought down, and, my little heart playing like a pair of castanets against my ribs, I was delivered into the tender keeping of the pedagogue. Having taken me by the hand, whilst he was practising all the amenities with his countenance, he opened the parlour-door, where the supposititious visitor was expected to be found, and lo! the room was empty. Mrs Root and the servants were summoned, and they all positively declared, and were willing to swear to the fact, that a gentleman had gone into the room, who had never gone out. It was a front parlour, on the ground-floor, and from the window he could not have emerged, as the area intervened between that and the foot pavement; and to see a gentleman scrambling through by that orifice into the principal street of, and from one of the principal houses of the town, whilst all the people were going to church, was a little too preposterous even for Mr Root's matter-of-fact imagination. However, they all peeped up the chimney one after the other, as if an elderly, military-looking gentleman, encumbered with a surtout, for thus he was described, would have been so generous as to save my schoolmaster a shilling, by bustling up his chimney, and bringing down the soot. The person was not to be found; Root began to grow alarmed--a constable was sent for, and the house was searched from the attics to the cellar. The dwelling was not, however, robbed, nor any of its inmates murdered, notwithstanding the absconder could not be found.