My stomach yet complained of salt water, and my head and books were at rapiers’ points. The teacher, SHAW, vainly chides me for my indolence, and summons me before him, and demands my spelling-book, and gives me _genuine_, which I spell “_gen-ner-wine_.” The school is convulsed in the wildest screams. Shaw seizes his lignumvitae ruler, darts through the aisles, rolls his big gray eyes, and bangs the desks until the dust rises into clouds, when the mirthful tumult is hushed into the silence of a tomb, and he bids me take my seat, with furious cuffs of both ears. My brother Bill had been snickering in his hat, and sleeve, and handkerchief, until he had saturated them all with his hilarious tears, and, as I passed him on my way to my seat, he burst into a _genuine_ Branch laugh, and all again was chaos. The scholars were more uproarious than before, and Shaw rages furiously, and calls up Bill, when all is silent terror, and every eye is riveted on its book. Shaw demands Bill to extend his right hand, which he declines to do, because he has a felon, and tender warts all over his knuckles. Shaw then commands him to hold up his left hand, and Bill obeys, when Shaw’s eyes flash sparks of fire, his cheeks are deathly pale, and his ferule descends with tremendous violence On the vacant air, As Bill’s hand wan’t there! The scholars roar again, and clap their little hands, and stamp their feet in the wildest ecstacy, when Shaw bellows like a rabid bull, and gesticulates fatality to the rebellious scholars, whose eyes fall quickly on their books, and all violently move their pallid lips, with pretense of study, while a terrible revenge rankles in their hearts, for Shaw’s cruel treatment of Bill, who has so many warts and a felon, with salt water still gurgling in his ocean belly. At Shaw’s wrathful behest, Bill again raises his trembling hand, and keeps his eye fastened on Shaw’s; and as the ruler nears his palm, he dodges, when Shaw flies to his scholastic throne for his cow-skin, and descends his ramparts with the pomposity of a king, calmly surveying his juvenile and affrighted subjects, and directs Bill to remove his jacket, who firmly declines. Shaw seizes him, and Bill cries murder; the girls weep and faint, and water is sprinkled on their cheeks and foreheads; the boys shake their fists, and dare each other to rush to Bill’s rescue, but Shaw threatens them with utter annihilation if they interfere, and the belligerent and affrighted boys leave poor Bill to his unhappy fate.—Fortunately for Bill, Shaw is short, and of very slender mould. Bill is stout, knows well the physical weakness of his adversary, and proves himself fully equal to the awful crisis before him. For, while Shaw strives to get Bill across his knees to switch and spank him, Bill, by a sudden and very elastic movement, gets between, and coils himself, like a snake, around Shaw’s legs, and pinches, and bites, and tears his pants, and