nine o'clock
But the braver souls of our commonwealth considered that this back way , affording opportunities for ambushes , sallies , subtle tactics , and endless vicissitudes , lent a peculiar flavour to the war we waged the whole winter through and most of the summer , and brought it nearer to the condition of Red Indian fighting , which was our favourite reading and our example of heroism . Again and again we studied the adventures of Bill Biddon , the Indian spy , not only on account of his hairbreadth escapes when he eluded the Indians after a miraculous fashion and detected the presence of the red varmint by the turning of a leaf on the ground , but also in order to find out new methods of deceit by which we could allure our Indians into narrow places , or daring methods of attack by which we could successfully outflank them on the broader street and drive them into their own retreats with public ignominy . Within the building the glory of the Seminary was a massive stone stair , circular in shape , and having a `` well '' surrounded on the ground floor by a wall some three feet high . Down this stair the masters descended at nine o'clock for the opening of the school , with Bulldog , who was the mathematical master and the awful pride of the school , at their head , and it was strictly forbidden that any boy , should be found within the `` well . '' As it was the most tempting of places for the deposit of anything in the shape of rubbish , from Highland bonnets to little boys , and especially as any boy found in the well was sure to be caned , there was an obvious and irresistible opportunity for enterprise . Peter McGuffie , commonly called the Sparrow , or in Scotch tongue `` Speug , '' and one of the two heads of our commonwealth , used to wait with an expression of such demureness that it ought to have been a danger signal till Bulldog was halfway down the stair , and a row of boys were standing in expectation with their backs to the forbidden place . Then , passing swiftly along , he swept off half a dozen caps and threw them over , and suddenly seizing a tempting urchin landed him on the bed of caps which had been duly prepared .