He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant: morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence and authority of the beadle.
Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official.

He has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune seems to have set her mark; nothing he ever did, or was concerned in, appears to have prospered.

A rich old relation who had brought him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him 10,000_l._ in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil.

Thus unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself, he procured a situation in a public office.

The young clerks below him, died off as if there were a plague among them; but the old fellows over his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting, lived on and on, as if they were immortal.