He Was A Capital Scholar, But His Ingenuous Learning Had NOT "Softened His Manners" And HAD "Permitted Them To Be Fierce" - Tremendously Fierce; He Had The Most Complete Command Over His Temper - I Mean Over His GOOD Temper, Which He Scarcely Ever Allowed To Appear:

You could not put him out of humour - that is, out of the ILL-humour which he thought to

Be fitting for a head-master. His red shaggy eyebrows were so prominent, that he habitually used them as arms and hands for the purpose of pointing out any object towards which he wished to direct attention; the rest of his features were equally striking in their way, and were all and all his own; he wore a fancy dress partly resembling the costume of Napoleon, and partly that of a widow-woman. I could not by any possibility have named anybody more decidedly differing in appearance from the rest of the human race.

"Whom do you name?" - "I name John Keate." - "Now, what do you see?" said the wizard to the boy. - "I see," answered the boy, "I see a fair girl with golden hair, blue eyes, pallid face, rosy lips." THERE was a shot! I shouted out my laughter to the horror of the wizard, who perceiving the grossness of his failure, declared that the boy must have known sin (for none but the innocent can see truth), and accordingly kicked him downstairs.

One or two other boys were tried, but none could "see truth"; they all made sadly "bad shots."

Notwithstanding the failure of these experiments, I wished to see what sort of mummery my magician would practise if I called upon him to show me some performances of a higher order than those which had been attempted.

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