Uncle Rutherford stood at the far end of the great schoolroom, awaiting the admission of his two candidates for its privileges and opportunities. It was the opening-day after the conclusion of the Christmas holidays; and half a dozen boys, besides Theodore Yorke and Jim, had presented themselves as new scholars, and they now stood before the principal,—Theodore at one end of the line, and Jim at the other.
"What is your name?" asked the principal of Theodore; to which the boy responded simply, "Theodore Yorke," and then answered in like manner the few more questions put to him relative to age and so forth; and the gentleman passed down the line till he came to Jim.
"What is your name?"
To uncle Rutherford's consternation, Jim, straightening himself up, answered in a loud, confident tone, "Jim,"—he had meant to say "James," but the more familiar appellation escaped him,—"Jim Grant Garfield Rutherford Livingstone Washington;" and then glanced down the line as if to say, "Beat that if you can!"
A titter ran around the room, speedily checked by the stern eye of the principal, and one or two of the new boys giggled outright; but Jim, with head erect, and fearless eyes fixed upon the master, was unmoved, perhaps did not even guess that the merriment was caused by himself.
The principal found it necessary to caress his whiskers a little, then said,—
"Good names, my boy, every one of them. Try to prove worthy to bear them. Your age?"
This and the other needful preliminaries being settled, the new boys were turned over to the examiners, to have their classes and position in the school defined; and uncle Rutherford made his exit, only too thankful that the irrepressible Jim had not added to his list of high-sounding appellations, "President that is to be of these United States."
School discipline, of course, had, for the time, restrained the gibes and sneers, the open laugh, which would have greeted Jim's announcement of his adopted name or names; but the time was only deferred. The joke was, to the schoolboy mind, too good to be lost; and when the recess came, and the boys were for a while at liberty, Jim became the target for many sorry witticisms, and "Jim Grant Garfield Rutherford Livingstone Washington" was called from all sides of the playground in almost as many tones of mockery as there were boys; and Jim speedily found that he had taken too much upon himself for his own comfort. The "Grant Garfield" had been an after-thought, and he had been prompted thereto by hearing another boy give his name—to which he was probably justly entitled—as "George William Winfield Scott Jones." Jim was not going to be outdone, or to be satisfied with four names, when here was a fellow with five; hence the "Grant Garfield" on the spur of the moment.
Milly had feared that even the "Rutherford Livingstone Washington" would excite derisive comment; and when she heard uncle Rutherford's report of Jim's further adoption of great names, she groaned in spirit, and awaited with sundry apprehensions his return from school, fearing that his excitable temper might have been provoked into some manifestation, which would not only affect his creditable entrance into the school, but also his standing with uncle Rutherford.