"Do you know what it is?"
"No sir."
"Very well, I only wanted to call your attention to it. I may perhaps speak of it again, by and by."
He then resumed his exercise as if nothing had happened. The guilty boy was agitated and confused, and was utterly at a loss to know what to do. What could the teacher mean? Had he discovered the trick?—and if so what was he going to do?
He grew more and more uneasy, and resolved that, at all events, it was best for him to retreat. Accordingly, at the next recess, as the teacher had anticipated, he went slyly to the lath, cut the string, then returned to his seat, and drew the line in, rolled it up, and put it in his pocket. The teacher, who was secretly watching him, observed the whole manœuvre.
At the close of the school, when the books were laid aside, and all was silence, he treated the affair thus.
"Do you remember the noise to which I called your attention early this afternoon?
"Yes, sir."
"I will explain it to you now. One of the boys tied a string to a loose lath in the side of the room, and then having the end of it at his seat, he was pulling it, to make a noise to disturb us."
The scholars all looked astonished, and then began to turn round towards one another to see who the offender could be. The culprit began to tremble.