Vallington left the chair, and walked out of the school-room, followed in good order by all the students who had taken part in these irregular proceedings. I was going out with the rest, when Mr. Parasyte intimated that he had something to say to me, and I remained. When the boys had all gone, he invited me to accompany him to his private office—a small apartment, opening from the main hall, near the front door, in which he received callers, and sat in state when not employed in the school-room.
There is an old saying that "you must summer and winter" a man before you know him. Mr. Parasyte was considered a tyrant; not a coarse and brutal tyrant, but a refined and gentlemanly one, who cows you by his polite impertinence. He seldom indulged in harsh speech, never in personal violence—at least no instance of it was known to the students. He indulged in sneers and polished browbeating. A boy was never stupid—he lacked common intelligence; never a blockhead—his perceptions were very dull. His polite epithets were more cutting than good round invectives would have been.
He had a will of his own; and he was obstinate, mulish, pig-headed. If he had been surprised into declaring that black was white, then black would continue to be white, in spite of positive demonstration to the contrary. He was dogmatic to the last degree; and this is a fault to which the schoolmaster is peculiarly liable. It required the event of the day whereof I speak to enable us fully to comprehend Mr. Parasyte. We had summered him before; now we were to winter him.
What he had said in the school-room indicated that he intended to regard the confessions of Poodles and Pearl as extorted from them by intimidation, and that he purposed to persist in persecuting me. I had no desire to be a martyr; but I did not see how I could help myself.
"Thornton, I see you intend, if possible, to break up the Parkville Liberal Institute," said he.
"No, sir, I do not. I hadn't anything to do with what took place in the school-room," I replied.
"You did not seem to be a martyr there," sneered he. "The boys have made a mistake; so have you. They don't know me; you don't. You got up a quarrel this afternoon."
"No, sir, I did not."
"Don't contradict me," said he, sharply. "I say you got up a quarrel this afternoon."
"And I say I did not."