He put me with the other boys, next day; and they were very kind to me, knowing the trouble that I was in. Jack Windsor was not there now; because Mr. Cope had plainly told his father, that he found it useless to go on with him, unless there were any downright need of a standard to pass--and it must be a low one--for the Army, or for medicine, or for Holy Orders. For all lower purposes, his tutor said that he was quite up to the average; he could write and spell, quite well enough, and was up to the mark in arithmetic. But of Latin and Greek, if by great pressure, any more were ground into him, there was no chance of it staying longer, than the time his nails (which he was always biting) would take to grow, if he left off. Mr. Windsor answered loftily--for, together with his wife, he had always taken Jack to be a wonder--that he considered his son too good, by a d--d sight, for any of the lines of life Mr. Cope had been kind enough to mention, and he would take away poor Jack that day, and put him into his own office; where he would learn life, instead of burying dead languages. Now, my dear father was in the habit of speaking his mind quite plainly; but he never would have spoken like that, so rudely; and sooner would he have bitten his tongue, very severely, I am sure, than have sworn, in the presence of a parson! However, although Jack was gone, there were several fellows who had heard all, and a great deal more than all, about me, and my inborn affliction; and although they behaved with extraordinary kindness (being all on the way to be gentlemen) whenever they thought that I was not looking, they were looking at me, with desire to form their own opinions silently, and compare them freely, when my back was turned. For the result of any peculiarity, less conspicuous perhaps than mine, is to attract attention; and that becomes a curse far greater, than the blessing of even the noblest gifts. When the Doctor was kind enough to spare my mother all the public pain of an inquest, by certifying "sudden death, from failure of the heart, after violent attack of Cholera," it might have been hoped, that outside strangers would have gone on their way, without meddling. So all right-minded persons did. They had their little talk among themselves, and expressed a very natural surprise, and agreed, or differed, according to the peace, or pugnacity of character. And the matter would have been a nine days' wonder, for the nine or ten beholders, but for the prying self-conceit of a picker-up of news for the _Pratt Street Express_, a penny paper, coming out on Saturdays. I will not speak ill of this gentleman; for I came to know him afterwards, and found him a pleasant, and well-meaning man. He had no intention of inflicting pain; and he freely admitted, that a sense of duty compelled him to write, what he did not believe a word of, lest a rival journal should get the start of his.