“Presently the master, who had been turning over the leaves of the grammar in a way that showed he was not conscious of what he was about, looked up, and said abruptly, ‘What is a proper noun?’
“‘A well-behaved one,’ replied Doddle.
“At this the whole school tittered violently.
“‘Silence, boys,’ cried the master, in a tone that produced the desired effect so thoroughly that you might have heard a pin drop. Then laying his hand on Doddle’s shoulder, he looked him full in the face, and said solemnly, ‘Thompson, I have found you out. Go, sir, to your seat, and remain behind when the other boys go to the playground.’
“We observed that Doddle grew very red in the face as he came back to his seat, and during the rest of the hour he never once looked up.
“During the whole of the play-hour the master and he remained shut up together in the schoolroom. We never discovered what took place there between them, for neither threats nor coaxing could induce Doddle afterwards to speak on the subject; but from that day forward he was a changed boy. He not only learned his lessons, but he learned them well, and in the course of time became one of the best scholars in the school; so that although he never would admit it, we all came to the conclusion he had been shamming stupid—attempting to deceive the master into the belief that he was incurable, and thus manage to get rid of lessons and school altogether.”
“A most remarkable boy,” observed Jack when Peterkin concluded. “Certainly he beat the monkeys hollow.”
“I wonder,” said I, “what the master said or did to him that wrought such a mighty change.”
“Don’t know,” replied Peterkin; “I suppose he told him that now he had found him out, he would flay him alive if he didn’t give in, or something of that sort.”
We had now entered the dark forest that edged the plain over which we had been walking, and further conversation on this subject was stopped, and the subject itself banished utterly from our minds by the loud, startling cry of a gorilla at no great distance from us.