THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

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\\ ip = HERE was @ boy in
Wag ee , our school, who

~S yi A RS generally went by the
Tee name of “Laughing
Bill.” His real name was William Scott;
but he was so seldom addressed by that
name, that I doubt if half a dozen among
all that troop of merry school-boys were
aware that such a person as William
Scott was connected with the school. As
you may surmise, this urchin was a laugh-
ing character. In fact, he laughed as if
it was a business he had taken up for life,
and one by which he intended to get his
living. If things went on well with him,
he laughed. He laughed, too, quite as
heartily, if they went ill. I have known
him absolutely convulsed with laughter,
while the village schoolmaster was giving
him a sound drubbing with one of the
seasoned hickory sprouts, which had been
Jaid up for three months in his desk.

V. 21

Laughing Bill.

 
  
 

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etlp-4 hey

So you see William Scott came uy,
pretty honestly by the title which
the boys gave him.

He was a kind, good-natured boy. Few
of our number ever had any quarrels
with him; and if any one did so forget
himself as to commence a battle with
him, just as likely as not Bill would set
his laughing engine in motion, and do
his part of the fighting with that.

He was, on the whole, a pretty good
scholar, though it happened too frequent-
ly, I used to think, that he would come
to school with a very bad lesson. For
that, however, he generally managed to
make up pretty soon, probably as early
as the next day, when he would have a
better lesson, perhaps, than any other boy
in school. |

As William lived in the immediate
neighborhood of my father’s house, we

used to be often together. He had no
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