Seated upon the outside of an ancient London stage-coach, to which were attached four raw-boned, old horses, just ready to start for Wolverhaven one pleasant afternoon, you may easily imagine, kind reader,--for it is a fact,--a chubby-faced, commonplace little boy, some ten years old, with another like youthful companion,--"two Londoners,"--while comfortably ensconced within, in one corner of the vehicle, is a large, stern-looking old gentleman, in "immense wig and ruffled shirt." [Illustration: THE POLITE QUADRUPED.] The stage-horn is sounded, the driver cracks his whip, the sleepy old nags wake up, the coach rocks from side to side, and in a moment more the team is off for its destination. Why! the reader is readily reminded of the scene of "_Old Squeers_," taking the wretched little boys down to his "Academy," in Yorkshire, "where youth were boarded, clothed, furnished with pocket-money," and taught everything, from "writing to trigonometry," "arithmetic to astronomy," languages of the "_living_ and _dead_" and "diet unparalleled!" Nevertheless it is another case, far before "Old Squeers" time. The elderly gentleman, in top-wig and immense ruffles, was Dr. Robertson, teacher of Wolverhampton Grammar School, and the chubby little boy was Master John Abernethy. Who the "other boy" was is not known, as he never made his mark in after life. Says Dr. Macilwain,-- "We can quite imagine a little boy, careless in his dress, not slovenly, however, with both hands in his trousers pockets, some morning about the year 1774, standing under the sunny side of the wall at Wolverhampton School; his pockets containing, perhaps, a few shillings, some ha'pence, a knife with the point broken, a pencil, together with a tolerably accurate sketch of 'Old Robertson's wig,'--which article, shown in an accredited portrait now before us, was one of those enormous by-gone bushes, which represented a sort of impenetrable fence around the cranium, as if to guard the precious material within; the said boy just finishing a story to his laughing companions, though no sign of mirth appeared in him, save the least curl of the lip, and a smile that would creep out of the corner of his eye in spite of himself." [Illustration: YOUNG ABERNETHY.] "The doctor" was represented as being a passionate man. Squeers again! One day young Abernethy had to do some Greek Testament, when his glib translation aroused the suspicion of the watchful old doctor, who discovered the 'crib' in a Greek-Latin version, partially secreted under the boy's desk. No sooner did the doctor make this discovery than with his doubled fist he felled the culprit with one blow to the earth. Squeers again! "'Why, what an old plagiarist Mr. Dickens must have been!' you exclaim. "But the case in 'Nicholas Nickleby' is worse, far worse, for 'the little boy sitting on the trunk only sneezed.' "'Hallo, sir,' growled the schoolmaster (Squeers), 'what's that?' "'Nothing, sir,' replied the little boy.