"This is the third or fourth time you have been late, my boy. One of the worst of faults is to be habitually late. Suppose we apply a little birch, to strengthen your memory of this fact?"
So Herr Schuler went to a little closet in one corner of the room, and took down a long, smooth birch switch, from a nail upon which it was hanging.
Rick's eyes glistened with anticipation, and he began to pull off his jacket.
"Oh! you needn't take off your jacket," said Herr Schuler.
"Yes," answered Rick: "that's the way Peter makes his boy do, when he whips him."
Herr Schuler whizzed the rod through the air with a great flourish and noise, but brought it down as lightly as possible upon Rick's back.
"You are only making believe!" exclaimed Rick, with a sort of indignation at the sham. "Such a whipping as that will never make a man of me."
Upon this, Herr Schuler laid on with a will, determined to give Rick so much of the stick that he would never again plead for a whipping. But the little hero never winced.
"Will that do?" asked the master at last, in almost a tone of entreaty.
"Perhaps it will do for this time," replied Rick; "but it's no more than a respectable whipping. Now I'm ready for my lessons, and I'll try never to be late again."