TAKING IT LITERALLY.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1223, 27 October 1874, Page 4

TAKING IT LITERALLY.

Among the scholars when Lamb and Coleridge attended school was a poor clergyman's son of the name of Virion Jennings. On acconnt of his dismal and gloomy nature, his playmates had nicknamed him Pontius Pilate. One mmiing lie went up to the master, Doctor Boyer, and said, in his usual whimpering manner, " Please, Doctor, the boys call me Pontius Pilate." If there was one thing which Doctor Boyer hated more than a false quantity in Greek and Latin, it was the practice of nicknaming. Ejishing clown among the scholars from his pedestal of state, with cane in hand, he cried, with his usual voice of thunder, " Listen, boys ; the next timo I hear any of you say 'Pontius Pilato' I'll cane you as long as this cauo will last! You are to say

'Simon Jennings,' and not 'Pontius Pilate.' Ilemember that if you value your hides." Next day, when the same class were reciting the Catechism, a boy of a remarkably dull and literal turn of mind had to repeat the Creed. He had got as far as " suffered under," and was about popping out the next word, when the doctor's prohibition unluckily flashed upon his obtuse mind. After a moment's hesitation he blurted out, "suffered under Simon Jennings, was never uttered, for Doctor Boyer Had already sprung like a tiger upon him and the cane was descending uprm his unfortunate shoulders. When the irate doctor had discharged his canestorm upon him, he said, " What do you mean, you booby, by such blasphemy ? " ", I only did as you told me replied the simple-minded youth. " Did as I told you! " roared the docter, now wound up to something above the boiling point. " What do you mean p" As he said this, ho instinctively grasped his cane more furiously. " Yes, doctor ; you said we were always to call Pontius Pilate Simon Jennings. Didn't he, Sam! " appealed the unfortunate culprit to Coleridge, who was next to him. Sara said naught; but the doctor, who saw what a dunce he had to deal with, cried, " Boy you are a fool! Where are your brains!" Poor Doctor Boyer for a second time was " floored;" for the scholar said, with an earnestness which proved its truth, but to the intense horror of the learned potentate, "In my stomach, sir." The doctor respected that boy's stupidity ever after, as though half afraid that a stray blow might be unpleasant.