I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn and desolate
place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long room with three long rows of desks, and six of
forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps of old copy-books and
exercises litter the dirty fl oor. Some silkworms’ houses, made of the same materials, are
scattered over the desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind by their owner, are
running up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the
corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage very little bigger than
himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high,
or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome smell
upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, and rotten books.
There could not well be more ink splashed about it, if it had been roofl ess from its fi rst
construction, and the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the varying
seasons of the year