I now began to perceive that the dismissal of the school, and my own release from torment, depended upon this selfsame rope.

I therefore, in a fit of desperation, pulled it once or twice, and then left off, naturally supposing that I had done quite enough.

The boys who sat next the door no sooner heard the bell, than, rising from their seats, they moved out at the door.

The bell, however, had no sooner ceased to jingle, than they stopped short, and, turning round, stared at the master, as much as to say, 'What are we to do now ?' This was too much for the patience of the man of method, which my previous stupidity had already nearly exhausted.

Dashing forward into the middle of the room, he struck me violently on the shoulders with his ferule, and, snatching the rope out of my hand, exclaimed, with a stentorian voice, and genuine Yorkshire accent, 'Prodigy of ignorance! dost not even know how to ring a bell?
Must I myself instruct thee ?' He then commenced pulling at the bell with such violence that long before half the school was dismissed the rope broke, and the rest of the boys had to depart without their accustomed music.
But I must not linger here, though I could say much about the school and the pedagogue highly amusing and diverting, which, however, I suppress, in order to make way for matters of yet greater interest.