it, is really an amicable meeting, because I didn't want to be compelled to hit you some day in school with my ungloved fist. I want to say to you that I think it is an ungentlemanly thing for a young man like you to fight or propose fighting in the presence of girls and little children. I therefore wanted you to have an entirely satisfactory measurement of your strength against my skill here alone this evening, and if you are not thoroughly convinced that you are a helpless infant as far as your fists are concerned, I shall be glad to renew the contest at once, either with or without gloves. But I warn you that if you try any of your capers with me in school, there will be but one blow struck, and you will get it. Furthermore, you will get it squarely in the face, and you won't be able to leave your bed for a month after. Ever since I came here you have been acting in high and mighty sulkiness, strutting round as if you were really a bully, whereas you are as soft as a feather bed. I am not going to stand it any longer. I am going to teach this school, and you are going to be a mighty civil pupil; do you understand that?"
"I think you are pretty hard on me, master," said Tom, nearly whimpering.
"I am not; but I want a fair and square understanding, and I want to have it now. I'll treat you in school with the greatest respect, and you must treat me in the same way. When I say, 'Thomas, I want you to stay after the rest are gone,' you are not to growl, 'What for?' You are to say, cheerfully, 'Yes, sir.’"
"I'll do it, master," said Tom. "You are a man, you are, and I never went to a man's school before."
"All right," said Copford, holding out his hand, and clasping that of his truculent pupil. "There is no more to be said, and I won't mention this little contest if you don't. So, now, good-night."
Next day the arithmetic class was called, and ranged itself along the front benches before the master's desk. Tom Monro was at the head of the class, for he was a good mathematician; and Priscilla, near the middle, looked with alarm when the master's sonorous voice rang out with the words: "Four men, A, B, C, and D, bought a grindstone four feet in diameter. Each ground off his share. How many inches did A, B, C, and D grind respectively?"
For a few moments the silence was broken only by the scribbling of pencil on slate, and then one by one the slates were piled on the desk in front of the master, When all were in place except the two belonging to the inefficient couple at the foot of the class, who admitted their inability to do the grinding, even when their books showed them how it should be done, the master turned over the slates, and took up the first, which was that of Tom Monro. There was an anxious stillness in the room.
"Thomas," said the teacher, "you have not solved this problem as it is done in your text-book. Do you know how to do it as the text-book gives it?"
"Yes-sir."
"Then take the chalk and go to the blackboard and solve it as the text-book solves it."
Without a word Tom Monro went to the blackboard and worked out the problem at it was done in the book.
"Now," said Copford, "show the class your own way of doing it; then take the pointer and explain, step by step, what you have done."
When this was accomplished, Tom stood patiently before the blackboard, awaiting the next order.
The master rose, and placed his hand on Tom's shoulder.
"Boys and girls," he said to the class, "we have here a born mathematician; and speaking for myself, I like Tom's solution better than the one given in the book. So, Thomas, we will here shake hands on the grindstone question, and tell your father, when you go home, that he has every reason to be proud of you; and, furthermore, that your teacher and the school are proud of you."
Big as he was, the tears came suddenly into Tom's eyes, which even the drubbing of the night before had not brought forth. He tried to speak, gulped, then taking his slate, walked silently to his place at the head of the class.
