“Poor little Tip!” said Steve remorsefully, as he observed that his dog was reeking with dust, froth, wounds, and blood.
In a moment, however, Tip was up again and in hot pursuit of the persecuted feline, but, not wishing to risk another engagement, that redoubtable warrior found refuge somewhere about the school. Not so Tip. He dashed straight ahead, and made his way into the very room in which were all the school-children, together with Professor Rhadamanthus and Teacher Meadows.
Steve was close on the dogs heels; but on seeing this, he turned back and shot off in despair.
“Oh!” he groaned, “this is worse than I meant it to be! Every one’ll think that Tip is stark staring mad! O dear me! What shall I do! what shall I do!”
Tips arrival was most opportune. Thanks to the professor’s vivid imagery, all the scholars were perspiring with racking excitement, and so blood-stained an apparition as Tip could not fail to create a commotion. Tip still retained sufficient strength and agility to burst impetuously into the room, and the sudden appearance of an animated mass of slaver, wounds, and blood, was enough to unhinge the mind of any school boy in the Union.
There were more than one hundred boys in the school; more than forty had a stout jack-knife in their left-hand trowsers pocket; more than thirty had one in their right hand trowsers pocket; some five had both a penknife and a jack-knife about their person; about twenty phlegmatic and chuckle-headed cubs—who took only a languid interest in anything but peppermint candy, circus serpent-charmers, and noisy fireworks—had their jack-knives out, and were trying to while away the time by rounding off the sharp angles of their brand-new lesson-books. As for the others, they had lost their jack-knives on their way to school, and consequently had none. Alas, professor! your golden precept was lost on those youths! Not one, not one, drew his knife to “stab the beast to its heart.”
An awful yell of consternation smote upon the air, as the demoralized and panic-stricken boys and girls struggled to escape. The young ladies were too prudent to faint, but they screamed with a voice as shrill and discordant as their brothers’. It fared worst with the little girls, who were jostled about and shoved aside without ceremony. Not a spark of gallantry animated the bosom of those youths; each one strove to save himself, himself only, and took no thought for the weaker and less active girls. Rough and lubberly boys, in their struggle to escape, brutally trod hats and bonnets, books and slates, foot-stools and benches, and school-mates’ toes, under foot. Such commotion had never been known in that school. Suddenly a boy stepped heavily on the dog, and poor Tip howled so lustily that he was heard above all the tumult. This, of course, added to the panic, and a perfect Babel ensued.
Then, with a roar of horror and agony, a bouncing boy cried out that he was bitten!
What wonder that poor Tip should bite, when he was bedewed with grimy tears of honor, yanked this way and that way, stumbled over, jammed against desks, pelted now and then with a stone ink-bottle, and trampled nearly to death?
At length the apartment was cleared of all save a few. As it has been emphatically stated that most of the six were brimming with noble heroism, perhaps it would be better to say nothing about how they behaved. Let the reader imagine how he would behave under similar circumstances.