Young Barbarians

isfaction in at once removing the two offensive tails by one vigorous pull, while the rumpling of a collar was a work of missionary zeal. No system of philanthropy is successful with all cases, and we had our failures, which we think about unto this day, and which have only justified our sad predictions. Boys like the two Dowbiggins never improved, and were at last given up in despair even by Speug, their tails being renewed day by day and their faces remaining in all circumstances quite unmoved; but within a month the average boy had laid aside the last remnant of conventionality, and was only outdone by Peter himself in studied negligence of attire.

Peter's own course of discipline was sharp, but it did not last long, for certain practical reasons.

"What business have you here, ye son of a horse-couper?" was the encouraging salutation offered by a solicitor's son to the stumpy little figure bereft of its father and left to fight its battles alone.

"Mair business than you, spindleshanks,