It was all of no avail, and finally, when I had almost reached the stage of laughing aloud, my mother wit came to my rescue and I sat down.
This was the beginning of a tragedy of errors.

With the ghost of Hector haunting us, none of us, except the Dux, who always kept his head, could do anything.

The doctor's favours were lavishly and impartially distributed.

Watkins, the "baby" of the class, made an ingenious calculation that if all the "lines" which were doled out as the result of that morning's work were to be extended in one unbroken length, they would reach exactly from Plummer's desk to the late Hector's kennel.
Hector again! Every one's thoughts veered round to the unlucky quadruped and the storm that was brewing over his mangled remains.
Morning school passed, however, without any further official announcement on the subject.

When class was dismissed half an hour earlier than usual, it was tacitly understood that this was in consequence of the obsequies of the late lamented, which were attended by the Plummer family and the errand boy, not indeed in crape, but amid every sign of mourning.
We young gentlemen were not invited.