“When the organist turned and caught me.”
The Rector stopped rubbing his hands abruptly. We gazed at one another soberly for a full minute. I don’t know, I think I saw the suspicion of a wink; then:
“I think you said this was a sponge. Go then and tell the organist that you have discovered it is not a ball. Now go.”
I went quickly. Unless my ears deceived me, I heard a chuckle behind the door as it fell to.
Little as he relished the job of thrashing a boy, the Rector hated meanness in him worse. It was the discovery of such a streak in me that brought me the most thorough caning of my school life at his hands. Hans and I, who perennially disputed the seat next to the head of the class—when it stood in a circle—had been engaged in a combat that was undecided when the bell summoned us to our lessons. Flushed with the hope of victory, Hans hit upon the idea of setting the clock ahead, that we might the sooner have it out. The clock was in our class room, and it was easily enough done, but in his eagerness Hans forgot prudence and set it three-quarters of an hour ahead, so that recitations were no sooner begun than they were at an end. Whereupon there was an investigation, and the culprit was found. This was a matter that called for the big stick, as being at once dishonest and foolish, and Hans was commanded to wait after school had gone home.
Now it befell that I was getting a book out of the library in the next room when Hans’ shrieks rose high between the dull thuds of “Master Erik.” I will not attempt to excuse my conduct; I despise it. Probably the defeat I had so narrowly escaped rankled. I crept up to the door and listened. Meanly rejoicing at his plight, I pressed my ear to the key-hole to hear more, and leaned with my whole weight. I hadn’t noticed that the door was not shut tight, and suddenly it swung open, and I fell into the other room with my arm full of books,—fell right at Rector’s feet and lay sprawling there.
He gave me an amazed glance, paused an instant with uplifted stick, and comprehended. A look of stern disgust swept over his face; he let go of Hans and, seizing me, administered to me the worse half of the interrupted thrashing. Hans got square. I can see him yet as he stood in his corner wiping his eyes to keep from grinning. The utterly exasperating thing about it was the look of shocked innocence at the disclosure of such baseness that sat upon his face. As if he—ugh!
The Latin School Teachers.
The good old Rector stands flanked by his staff in the picture, in full dress, as beseems his dignity. My father is on his right, the only one who wears a cap. Herr Kinch, behind the Rector, was an antiquarian of no mean repute, and wrote the history of the Old Town,[18] making a notable contribution to Danish annals thereby. The venerable face that peers out beside him is that of Dr. Helms, whose interest in and writings about the Domkirke, through a long lifetime, finally bore fruit in the thorough restoration that has been just completed. We boys held the candle for him sometimes when he was poking in the dark corners for signs of the long past. Once he found what he was not looking for. It was while he was delving in the foundations of the Maria tower, which had been torn down a century or two before, being unsafe. They had covered up the foundations and shut them out of sight. But there must have been a crack somewhere, for when the good doctor broke into the dark space, thousands of bats broke out. The air was literally filled with the creepy things. The Old Town was at all times full of bats, and this was evidently one of their secret hiding-places. There were dead bats, too, by the cart load.