the usefulness of the discipline of the corset and of high heels in breaking the unruly tem pers of children and giving them that dignity of bearing of which later they would be so gladly proud.
Mrs. Stuart discoursed at great length upon this favourite subject of which our ears grew weary in this dread college. The angular mistress's speeches were tiresome. She loved repetition and was an orator whose great power consisted in the ability to weary her hearers.
Miss Virginia had listened at first, but she soon took up a book and became absorbed in its pages, but not for long. She yawned nervously and, through making a sudden move ment, let drop the paper-knife she was holding. It fell near my owen desk.
Either because she thought it beneath her dignity to cross the gangway and pick up the object herself, or because she regarded me as an inferior; altough I do not think she suspected my sex, or for some other reason which I do not know, she looked at me and made the sound:
'Pst! Pst!'
I only paid more complete attention to the lecture of Mrs. Stuart, having no notion whatever of risking punishment in order to oblige the newcomer whose grand air I found insup portable.
She continued:
'Pst! Pst!'
With instinctive impatience, I shrugged my shoulders. Then without dropping her voice appreciably, she said to me:
'Here! You! Little girl! Pickup my paper knife.'
I imprudently replied:
'Pick it up yourself! I am not your valet!'
'Valet?' said she in a tone of surprise. 'You mean lady's maid?'
'I said what I meant to say. Leave me alone!'
And I tossed my head as I had had the habit of doing when still a boy and anxious to show my resolution in anything I decided to do.
Mrs. Stuart listened to this dialogue in a kind of stupor, for it was conducted almost in ordinary tones, forming an extraordinary inter112
ruption to the usual studious tranquillity of the class. Evidently she had heard every word, for Miss Virginia's tones were even more raised than my onw, and she was aware that it was the newcomer who had first broken the silence by her 'Pst! Pst!' so annoying to listen to, but replied to by me first of all by a mere shrug of the shoulders, as I had only given a direct reply after being addressed directly and in a most insulting manner.
Mrs. Stuart was well aware of the circumstances, nor for the moment was she otherwise than impartial, for she merely turned to Mrs. Eagle who was standing by the wall keeping watch over our behaviour in a majestic manner,
'Kindly inform our gracious Lady Flayskin that her presence is requisite here,' said Mrs. Stuart.
The directress entered the room a moment later.
I was confident of the juctice of my cause although greatly excited. My distress may therefore be imagined when I heard that 113
horrid old fishwife Mrs. Stuart, give the affair quite a different colouring.
From her maliciously concocted version it appeared that I was the chief culprit, and the directress was obliged even to gather from this fallacious account that I was the only guilty party
I was a young, loyal-hearted boy and at a complete loss to understand this feminine perfidy. It was clear that a victim was required. Unkind fate had designed me for the part. The unfortunate sitting part of my body was to pay the cost of Miss Virginia's first lesson.
As to the second lesson… But I will not anticipate.
'Alice!' said the directress. ' Come here!'
My feeling of the injustice of this treatment was for me the strongest and uppermost feeling of my mind at that moment. Two months of discipline by means of chastisement and all these instruments of feminine toilet had not yet entirely extinguished my old instincts of rebellion. I was not yet sufficiently cowed. My fiery temperament gained the better of me and I cried out:
'In the first place my name is not Alice It is ridiculous so to call me. I am a boy, my name is Jimmy. As for that girl there… '
I pointed with a finger over my shoulder, indicating the newcomer without deigning to look at her.
'She need not show off her grand airs with me, for they lose their effect. I told her that I was not her valet and that was what I meant to tell her. Why do you say nothing to her? It is she who began.'
Little stifled laughs in the class-room proved to me that I had won a triumph, of which, in point of fact, I had no great reason to be proud. None the less, I had my moment of pride. I was not wearing the leather collar, so I bent my head, thrusting forward my chin in the attitude dear to boxers. I think, (may heaven forgive me if I am mistaken!) that I even struck an attitude of pugilistic defence, or almost did so, for my courage did not permit me to complete the gesture. What I did was to clench my fists as much as my gloves permitted and to hold 115
out my bent elbow and forearm in front of any chest.
'Alice,' repeated Lady Flayskin, 'come here!'
My courage gave way on perceiving the con traction of her brows. I went forward in a state of pitiful fear, my hands up to my face, weeping hot tears, crying with anger in spite of my fear. I think I stumbled slightly by reason of my high heels.
'Go and find me the whip, Stella! The strongest of all! You know which I mean! That African whip ending in a piece of solid hippopotamus leather.
'You will find it in the second of the lowest drawers of my secretary. Here is the key!'
Pretty Stella, with a hateful smile, went swiftly to obey.
The directress then turned to me.
'Undress yourself!'
I cried and wept but took everything off, laying each garment upon my chair, until I only had on the hideous glazed kid combin ation which gave me the appearance of having a 116
negro's body and legs, so black and shiny looking was I.
Still bemoaning my fate, I went on my knees at the feet of the pitiless directress and with clasped hands entreated her to pardon me. She let me speak without showing the least sign either of pity or impatience. No hope could live in the face of this impassibility and I had a fit of sobbing, my grief knowing no bounds when I saw Stella appear bringing the hideous lash.
It was formed of one single piece of leather and was perfectly round. The handle end was twice as thick as the thumb, but the whip tapered gradually to the extreme end where it became a thin quivering cat's tail, or, to des cribe it better, the tail of a venomous serpent. The wooden handle however, was always rigid. At the idea that my wretched rump was about to be beaten with this implement, I became mad with terror and finding no words having power to excite Lady Flayskin's pity, I clasped my hands in despairing entreaty. The ogress could only furnish me with the following consoling words:
'Take off your drawers immediately!'
I was stupefied. Apart from the consider ation that it was no small affair to remove my drawers which stuck to my skin, my hands were in such a state of trembling that I found the task of even added difficulty. Besides, it was impossible to remove the drawers without taking off the whole combination, the two parts of this garment being joined together.
I was thus asked to strip myself entirely naked before the assembled scholars and this terrible instrument was about to be used upon me behind. I was, I meditated, going to be beaten to death.
I cried, struggled, thought of trying to escape. But I was already in the grip of angular Mrs. Stuart and rotund Mrs. Eagle. The thin woman quickly unbuttoned the vest with her wiry fingers, not omitting to cruelly pinch my flesh, and the fat one inflicted upon me an equal martyrdom as she made the drawers, far too tight, descend my thighs.
I quickly found myself entirely naked and exposed to the looks of curiosity or amusement of the whole school.
No one, however, ventured to make a remark, save Miss Virginia, who, at a moment when my hysterical sobs were becoming more con trolled, cried out disdainfully:
