Dick and Billy hung back, apparently fearful of approaching too near to the kennel.
"Don't be afraid, my lads," continued the master, in an encouraging way. "He's all safe at the end of a chain. See: I'll pull him out for you. Ya! hoop! Out you come, my fine fellow."
And the schoolmaster lugged at the chain; and clinkety-clink-clank came the iron kettle on to the cobble stones.
No respect for either age or authority could restrain the boys from going off into a fit of laughter. Their teacher's face was a study; its look of blank amazement would have made a wooden totem-pole hilarious. But they were relieved in mind, all the same, when a smile, even though a grim one, stole over the stern, pallid features of the man who had it in his power to make the lives of wayward boys utterly miserable.
"It's lucky for you young rascals that this is holiday time," remarked the schoolmaster, drily. "I've got a tawse in my desk that can bite a good deal sharper than this badger." Then, in spite of a momentary feeling of resentment, he joined in the laugh against himself.
"Please, sir," explained Dick, partly in a spirit of penitence, but mainly with a view to mitigate the offence, "the live badger that Grizzly Jim brought father is in the stable right enough. It was you yourself that went straight for the kennel."
"That's so," replied the schoolmaster, stroking his beard meditatively. "I should have remembered the maxim of the copybooks, 'Think before you leap.' Well, we're all liable to make mistakes, I suppose—even parsons," he added, after a pause, and sinking his voice almost to a whisper. He was gazing now down the street, with a far-away look in his countenance.
The boys shot a quick glance in the same direction. A stout, pompous-looking little man, with black coat and white collar, was in sight.
"The parson's an erudite Doctor of Divinity," continued the schoolmaster, speaking low, and in an absent-minded fashion. "He's had all the advantages of a college education—a fact which he knows, and takes care to let other people know. A man of learning is the parson, and a great authority on natural history."
The boys did not hear, nor exactly understand, every word spoken; but the last sentence fell clearly on their ears, and the looks they exchanged indicated the dawning of intelligence.