"'But what makes the neap tides?'
"'Oh, that's when the sun stops to spit on his hands.'"
It will hardly surprise the reader to be told that Master Henry remained with his sister only six months, and was returned at the end of that time to his father as an indifferent scholar and a most inveterate joker.
A change now occurred in his life. When he was twelve years old his father removed to Boston to assume the charge of the Hanover-Street Church. Here the boy had a chance to see something more than nature, and to employ his powers of observation in receiving impressions from the daily life and aspect of a large and crowded city. His father entered him at the Boston Latin School, and appealed to him not to disgrace his name any longer by his stupidity. The appeal roused the little fellow's pride, and he set to work to show to his family that he was not the dunce they had thought him. He went at his studies manfully, mastering the tedious puzzle of the Latin verbs and nouns, and acquiring a respectable acquaintance with the grammar of that language. It was a terrible task to him, for he had no liking for the language, and did his work merely to please his father and escape disgrace. His success cost