The principal, portly as he was, knew a thing or two. He was a slow thinker, or probably thought but little, as I have not treasured up anything of his, not a saying, a witticism, an anecdote, and a man must be composed of the very essence of stupidity who in four years could not give out something worth saving. A learned professor—as I have read somewhere—claims that “genius is the evidence of a degenerative taint, that is, an epileptical degenerative psychosis.” To be just, I must absolve our chief from any such imputation. But he was business itself, a plodder in his little circle, with as much brilliancy and energy in his thoughts and movements, as in a buffalo going from grass to its wallow. He surely understood “Yellow Whiskers” thoroughly, as he never treated him as an associate, rather as a spy and lackey. How different with the other teachers. We soon fell into the habit of making a note of their bright sayings, their anecdotes and witticisms and frequently after class, one boy would call out “Hallo Jim,” or “Dick” or “Japhet, I have got another,” and out would come the note-book and heads would be bent over it reading something good that he had got from his teacher in the class room. It became quite a competition as to who should get the most of these good things. And now after years have passed I often take out the old note-books and read them with the greatest pleasure, and again see the happy faces of the boys reading the bright things they had secured. But we never remembered anything of the sleek parson spy, except what we were obliged to do by the nature of memory, and what we would willingly have forgotten.