"Mercy on us, lads! this is awful language to hear in the Seminary! If the Town Council gets word of this, there'll be a fine stramish. For masel'," Speug would conclude piously, "I'm perfectly ashamed." And as that accomplished young gentleman had acquired in the stables a wealth of profanity which was the amazement of the school, his protest had all the more weight. Poor Moossy would apologise for what he had said, and beseech the school neither to say it themselves nor to tell what they had heard; and for days afterwards Speug would be warning Thomas John that if he, Speug--censor of morals--caught him cursing and swearing like Moossy, he would duck him in the lake, and afterwards bring him before the Lord Provost and magistrates. There was no end to the devices of the Seminary for enjoying themselves and tormenting Moossy; and had it not been for Nestie, who had some reserves of taste, the fun would have been much more curious. As it was, Moossy never knew when he might not light upon a frog, till it seemed as if the class-room for modern languages were the chosen home for the reptiles of the district. One morning, when he opened his desk, a lively young Scots terrier puppy sprang up to welcome him, and nearly frightened Moossy out of such wits as he possessed. He had learned to open the door of his class-room cautiously, not knowing whether a German Dictionary might not be ingeniously poised to fall upon his head. His ink-bottle would be curiously attached to his French Grammar, so that when he lifted the book the bottle followed it and sent the spray of ink over his person, adding a new distinction of dirtiness to his coat. Boys going up to write on the blackboard, where they never wrote anything but nonsense, would work symbols with light and rapid touch upon the back of Moossy's coat as they returned; and if one after the other, adding to the work of art, could draw what was supposed to be a human face upon Moossy, the class was satisfied it had not lost the hour. There were times when Moossy felt the hand even on the looseness of that foolish coat, and turned suddenly; but there was no shaking the brazen impudence of Muirtown, and Moossy, looking into the stolid and unintelligent expression of Howieson's face, thought that he had been mistaken. If one boy was set up to do a verb, the form, reading from their books and pronouncing on a principal of their own, would do the verb with him and continue in a loud and sonorous song, till Moossy had to stop them one by one, and then they were full of indignation at being hindered in their studies of the German language.