"And what is pottage?"
"Sheep's head and taters."
Matilda thought she would try them with the Commandments. "Is it right to covet?"
"Yes."
"Why so?"
"Because it makes us comfortable to have things."
As a last experiment, she turned back to the first page of the Bible, and found they could tell that the world was made in six days; upon hearing which Mr. Pim began to rally his spirits.
"What were the two great lights which were made to rule the day and the night?"
"Dungeness and the North Foreland."
Matilda rose, and the schoolmaster put the class to flight in a trice, with a box on the ear to one, a shake to a second, and a kick to a third. Matilda's remonstrances were lost amidst the tumult of shrieks and yells which now arose. At the first moment that Pim could spare from correcting his pupils, he informed the lady that they had got on badly lately from the impossibility of getting the parents to send them regularly. When there was any work in hand, someway up the beach----