Ef he'd kem up furder I'd hev up with my slate and swotted him over the snoot--bet your boots!" The master here thought fit to interfere, and gravely point out that the habit of striking bears as large as a horse with a school-slate was equally dangerous to the slate (which was also the property of Tuolumne County) and to the striker; and that the verb "to swot" and the noun substantive "snoot" were likewise indefensible, and not to be tolerated.
Thus admonished Jimmy Snyder, albeit unshaken in his faith in his own courage, sat down.
A slight pause ensued.

The youthful Filgee, taking advantage of it, opened in a higher key, "Tige ith"-- but the master's attention was here diverted by the searching eyes of Octavia Dean, a girl of eleven, who after the fashion of her sex preferred a personal recognition of her presence before she spoke.

Succeeding in catching his eye, she threw back her long hair from her shoulders with an easy habitual gesture, rose, and with a faint accession of color said: "Cressy McKinstry came home from Sacramento.

Mrs.McKinstry told mother she's comin' back here to school." The master looked up with an alacrity perhaps inconsistent with his cynical austerity.

Seeing the young girl curiously watching him with an expectant smile, he regretted it.