One day while returning from a row in the harbor, I treated my boat’s crew to apples and pears from our orchard; just then the superintendent’s whistle sounded, and I was called before the trustees then in session.

“Are you aware,” said he, savagely, “that the rules direct that all fruit shall be gathered by the head gardener, and by him alone?”

“Yes,” was my reply.

“Well, then, you were stealing, just now.”

“I was simply imitating your example, sir; it takes a thief to catch a thief.”  The trustees roared with laughter.  The president of the board then asked if I had seen others stealing the fruit.

“Yes, sir, the chaplain, superintendent, and nearly all the trustees.”

“Well,” said he, “this is a den of thieves.”

“All except the convicts, sir,” I replied.

These incidents did not add to my popularity among the sneaks whose petty slings and arrows were so annoying, and so minimized my power for good that I reluctantly resigned, to accept a more lucrative position as teacher in an aristocratic boarding-school located in the romantic county of Berkshire, much nearer, geographically, to the stars.

Among our responsibilities at the reform school, were many “wharf rats”—­so called, because having had no homes or visible parents, like Topsy, they had simply “growed,” and slept under the wharves of the city, swarming out at intervals to steal or beg for something to assuage the pangs of hunger.  They were vicious to a degree, and at first seemed to prefer a raw shin-bone that they had stolen to an abundant meal obtained honestly.  They would rather fight than eat, and prized a penny obtained by lies more than dollars secured by telling the truth.  Some were stupid as donkeys; but others possessed minds of surprising acuteness.  I once asked one of these why he was sent to the reform school.

“Oh,” was the reply, “I stole a sawmill, and when I went back after the water dam the copper scooped me in.”

Another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was A, he called out:  “How do you know that is A?”

“Why, when I went to school my teacher told me it was A.”

“Well,” said the little imp, “how do ye know but what that feller lied?”

At one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a speaker, a man by the name of Holmes, and wishing to impress the boys favorably, he announced him as Professor Holmes.  The orator was annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be “funny,” commenced by saying:  “I am not Professor Holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass—­” At this point, quick as a flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted:  “Well, if you ain’t Professor Holmes’ ass, whose ass be ye?”

Then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect imitation of Holmes’ affected grandiloquence; then he launched into the coon song:—­