thoroughly up in his lessons. To-day he was possessed of all these
requisites, but there was also in the perspective along array of skirmishes
with Aunt Rachel, who, he knew, looked on him with an evil eye, and who had
frequently expressed herself regarding him, in his presence, in terms by no
means complimentary or affectionate; and the manner in which she had
intimated her desire, on one or two occasions, to have an opportunity of
reforming his personal habits, were by no means calculated to produce a
happy frame of mind, now that the opportunity was about to be afforded her.

Charlie sauntered on until he came to a lumber-yard, where he stopped and
examined a corner of the fence very attentively. "Not gone by yet. I must
wait for him," said he; and forthwith he commenced climbing the highest
pile of boards, the top of which he reached at the imminent risk of his
neck. Here he sat awaiting the advent of his friend Kinch, the absence of
death's head and cross bones from the corner of the fence being a clear
indication that he had not yet passed on his way to school.

Soon, however, he was espied in the distance, and as he was quite a
character in his way, we must describe him. His most prominent feature was
a capacious hungry-looking mouth, within which glistened a row of perfect
teeth. He had the merriest twinkling black eyes, and a nose so small and
flat that it would have been a prize to any editor living, as it would have
been a physical impossibility to have pulled it, no matter what outrage he
had committed. His complexion was of a ruddy brown, and his hair, entirely
innocent of a comb, was decorated with divers feathery tokens of his last
night's rest. A cap with the front torn off, jauntily set on one side of
his head, gave him a rakish and wide-awake air, his clothes were patched
and torn in several places, and his shoes were already in an advanced stage
of decay. As he approached the fence he took a piece of chalk from his
pocket, and commenced to sketch the accustomed startling illustration which