“Why do you take up your work when I tell you not to?” asked the new teacher.
“Because I didn’t want to waste all my morning. I wanted to do my sums.”
“You are a remarkably industrious youth, I take it.” The young master looked Riley over, as he said this, from head to foot. The whole school smiled, for there was no lazier boy than this same Riley. “I suppose,” the teacher continued, “that you are the best scholar in school—the bright and shining light of Greenbank.”
Here there was a general titter at Riley.
“I cannot have you sit away down at the other end of the school-room and hide your excellent example from the rest. Stand right up here by me and cipher, that all the school may see how industrious you are.”
Riley grew very red in the face and pretended to “cipher,” holding his book in his hand.
“Now,” said the new teacher, “I have but just one rule for this school, and I will write it on the blackboard that all may see it.”
He took chalk and wrote:
DO RIGHT.