Johnny looked at Mr. Bonnycastle and the cane.

With every intention to refuse, Johnny picked up the book and laid it on the table.

“That’s a good boy; now we will find the letter B. Here it is: now, Johnny, tell me what that letter is.”

Johnny made no answer.

“Tell me directly, sir,” said Mr. Bonnycastle, raising his cane up in the air. The appeal was too powerful. Johnny eyed the cane; it moved, it was coming. Breathlessly he shrieked out, “B!”

“Very well indeed, Johnny—very well. Now your first lesson is over, and you shall go to bed. You have learnt more than you think for. To-morrow we will begin again. Now we’ll put the cane by.”

Mr. Bonnycastle rang the bell, and desired Master Johnny to be put to bed, in a room by himself, and not to give him any supper, as hunger would, the next morning, much facilitate his studies. Pain and hunger alone will tame brutes, and the same remedy must be applied to conquer those passions in man which assimilate him with brutes. Johnny was conducted to bed, although it was but six o’clock. He was not only in pain, but his ideas were confused; and no wonder, after all his life having been humoured and indulged—never punished until the day before. After all the caresses of his mother and Sarah, which he never knew the value of—after stuffing himself all day long, and being tempted to eat till he turned away in satiety, to find himself without his mother, without Sarah, without supper—covered with wheals, and, what was worse than all, without his own way. No wonder Johnny was confused; at the same time that he was subdued; and, as Mr. Bonnycastle had truly told him, he had learnt more than he had any idea of. And what would Mrs. Easy have said, had she known all this—and Sarah too? And Mr. Easy, with his rights of man? At the very time that Johnny was having the devil driven out of him, they were consoling themselves with the idea that, at all events, there was no birch used at Mr. Bonnycastle’s, quite losing sight of the fact, that as there are more ways of killing a dog besides hanging him, so are there more ways of teaching than à posteriori. Happy in their ignorance, they all went fast asleep, little dreaming that Johnny was already so far advanced in knowledge, as to have a tolerable comprehension of the mystery of cane. As for Johnny, he had cried himself to sleep, at least six hours before them.