were much admired by the school. They commonly consisted of funny
dialogues between various worthies of the place well known to
everybody, which made Weston's audience able to judge of the accuracy
of his imitations. From the head-master to the idiot who blew the
organ bellows in church, every inhabitant of the place who was gifted
with any recognizable peculiarity was personated at one time or
another by the wit of our school. The favourite imitation of all was
supposed to be one of the Dialogues of Plato, "omitted by some strange
over-sight in, the edition which graces the library of our learned and
respected doctor," Weston would say with profound gravity. The
Dialogue was between Dr. Jessop and Silly Billy--the idiot already
referred to--and the apposite Latin quotations of the head-master and
his pompous English, with the inapposite replies of the organ-blower,
given in the local dialect and Billy's own peculiar jabber, were
supposed to form a masterpiece of mimicry.

Little did I think that my family chronicle was to supply Weston with
a new field for his talents!

In the midst of my shame, I could hardly help admiring the clever way
in which he had remembered all the details, and twisted them into a
comic ballad, which he had composed overnight, and which he now
recited with a mock heroic air and voice, which made every point tell,
and kept the boys in convulsions of laughter. Not a smile crossed his
long, lantern-jawed face; but Mr. Thomas Johnson made no effort this
time to hide a severe fit of his peculiar spasms in his spotted
handkerchief.

Sometimes--at night--in the very bottom of my own heart, when the
darkness seemed thick with horrors, and when I could not make up my