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444 mathematics, yet, as these trifles brought him in money, and so enabled him to buy paper and ink, and books on geometry and algebra, he continued to compose verses. But a storm was gathering. There is a delightful picture by in David Copperfield, where Mr. Creakle, the schoolmaster, enters the schoolroom leaning on the arm of his factotum Tungay, just as a boy has drawn a caricature of both on the blackboard. Inevitably some of the keen shafts of Gilford's ridicule had been levelled at his master, the cobbler. This man laid himself open to being satirized. He possessed a dictionary of synonyms; and it was his practice never, when he could avoid it, to employ a direct word when he could find a roundabout mode of expressing himself; a weeding with him would be a runcation, and to ride would be to equitate. It was not in human nature that William Gifford should withhold his hand from turning out some neat lines taking off the sanctimonious and pretentious cobbler, and so revenging himself for slights and insults many. It is not in human nature that he should refrain from showing this product to his fellow apprentices. It is not in human nature that some sneak among them should not apprise the master or that master's son of what the sullen, discontented lad had done.

Whether it was this, or whether it was that the shoemaker as a strict Puritan looked on laughter and jest and poetry as ungodliness, the master's anger was raised to fury. He searched Gifford's garret, took away all his books and papers, and dared him to touch paper with pen or read any other books in future than the Bible. This was a severe blow, and was followed soon after by another that was as great. Mr. Hugh Smerdon, whom he had hoped to succeed, died, and