[Illustration: CUFF'S FIGHT WITH "FIGS."]
Cuff's fight with Figs, and the unexpected issue of that contest, will
long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr. Swishtail's
famous school. The latter youth (who used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin,
Gee-ho Dobbin, Figs, and by many other names indicative of puerile
contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest
of all Dr. Swishtail's young gentlemen. His parent was a grocer in the
city: and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into Dr. Swishtails
academy upon what are called "mutual principles"--that is to say, the
expenses of his board and schooling were defrayed by his father in goods,
not money; and he stood there--almost at the bottom of the school--in his
scraggy corduroys and jacket, through the seams of which his great big
bones were bursting, as the representative of so many pounds of tea,
candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild proportion was
supplied for the puddings of the establishment), and other commodities. A
dreadful day it was for young Dobbin when one of the youngsters of the
school, having run into the town upon a poaching excursion for hardbake
and polonies, espied the cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen,
Thames Street, London, at the Doctor's door, discharging a cargo of the
wares in which the firm dealt.
Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were frightful and
merciless against him.
"Hullo, Dobbin," one wag would say, "here's good news in the paper. Sugar
is ris', my boy."
Another would set a sum--"If a pound of mutton-candles cost
sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow
from all the circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly
considered that the selling of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous
practice, meriting the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen.
"Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said in private to the
little boy who had brought down the storm upon him. At which the latter
replied haughtily, "My father's a gentleman, and keeps his carriage;" and
Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote out-house in the playground,
where he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe.
Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the rudiments of the
Latin language, as they are propounded in that wonderful book, the Eton
Latin Grammar, was compelled to remain among the very last of Dr.
Swishtail's scholars, and was "taken down" continually by little fellows
with pink faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form, a
giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied look, his dog's-eared
primer, and his tight corduroys. High and low, all made fun of him. They
sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were. They cut his bed-springs.
They upset buckets and benches, so that he might break his shins over
them, which he never failed to do. They sent him parcels, which, when
opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and candles. There was
no little fellow but had his jeer and joke at Dobbin; and he bore
everything quite patiently, and was entirely dumb and miserable.
Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the Swishtail
Seminary. He smuggled wine in. He fought the town-boys. Ponies used to
come for him to ride home on Saturdays. He had his top-boots in his room
in which he used to hunt in the holidays. He had a gold repeater, and
took snuff like the Doctor. He had been to the Opera, and knew the merits
of the principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble. He could
knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour. He could make French poetry.
What else didn't he know, or couldn't he do? They said even the Doctor
himself was afraid of him.
Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his subjects, and
bullied them, with splendid superiority. This one blacked his shoes, that
toasted his bread, others would fag out, and give him balls at cricket
during whole summer afternoons. Figs was the fellow whom he despised
most, and with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering at him, he
scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communication.
One day in private the two young gentlemen had had a difference. Figs,
alone in the school-room, was blundering over a home letter, when Cuff,
entering, bade him go upon some message, of which tarts were probably
the subject.
"I can't," says Dobbin; "I want to finish my letter."
"You _can't?_" says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document (in which many
words were scratched out, many were misspelt, on which had been spent I
don't know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the poor fellow
was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was a
grocer's wife, and lived in a back parlour in Thames Street). "You
_can't?"_ says Mr. Cuff. "I should like to know why, pray? Can't you
write to old Mother Figs tomorrow?"
"Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench, very nervous.
"Well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school.
"Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman readth letterth."
"Well, _now_ will you go?" says the other.
"No, I won't. Don't strike, or I'll _thmash_ you," roars out Dobbin,
springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked that Mr. Cuff
paused, turned down his coat sleeves again, put his hands into his
pockets, and walked away with a sneer. But he never meddled personally
with the grocer's boy after that; though we must do him the justice to
say he always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his back.
Some time after this interview it happened that Mr. Cuff, on a sunshiny
afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William Dobbin, who was lying
under a tree in the playground, spelling over a favourite copy of the
"Arabian Nights" which he had--apart from the rest of the school, who
were pursuing their various sports--quite lonely, and almost happy.
Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away with
Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed and
the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the Prince found her,
and whither we should all like to make a tour, when shrill cries, as of a
little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie, and, looking up, he
saw Cuff before him, belabouring a little boy.
It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's cart, but he
bore little malice, not at least towards the young and small. "How dare
you, sir, break the bottle?" says Cuff to the little urchin, swinging a
yellow cricket-stump over him.
The boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall (at a
selected spot where the broken glass had been removed from the top, and
niches made convenient in the brick), to run a quarter of a mile, to
purchase a pint of rum-shrub on credit, to brave all the Doctor's
outlying spies, and to clamber back into the playground again; during the
performance of which feat his foot had slipped, and the bottle broken,
and the shrub had been spilt, and his pantaloons had been damaged, and he
appeared before his employer a perfectly guilty and trembling, though
harmless, wretch.
"How dare you, sir, break it?" says Cuff; "you blundering little thief.
You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have broken the bottle. Hold
out your hand, sir."
Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the child's hand. A moan
followed. Dobbin looked up. The Fairy Peribanou had fled into the inmost
cavern with Prince Ahmed; the Roc had whisked away Sindbad, the Sailor,
out of the Valley of Diamonds, out of sight, far into the clouds; and
there was every-day life before honest William; and a big boy beating a
little one without cause.
"Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little school-fellow,
whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin quivered, and gathered himself
up in his narrow old clothes.
"Take that, you little devil!" cried Mr. Cuff, and down came the wicket
again on the child's hand. Down came the wicket again, and Dobbin
started up.
I can't tell what his motive was. Perhaps his foolish soul revolted
against that exercise of tyranny, or perhaps he had a hankering
feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself against
that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the glory, pride, pomp,
circumstance, banners flying, drums beating, guards saluting, in the
place. Whatever may have been his incentive, however, up he sprang,
and screamed out, "Hold off, Cuff; don't bully that child any more,
or I'll--"
"Or you'll what?" Cuff asked in amazement at this interruption. "Hold out
your hand, you little beast."
"I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life," Dobbin
said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's sentence; and the little
lad, Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and
incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend
him, while Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less. Fancy our late
monarch George III., when he heard of the revolt of the North American
colonies; fancy brazen Goliath when little David stepped forward and
claimed a meeting; and you have the feeling of Mr. Reginald Cuff when
this encounter was proposed to him.
"After school," says he, "of course," after a pause and a look, as much
as to say, "Make your will, and communicate your last wishes to your
friends between this time and that."
"As you please," Dobbin said. "You must be my bottle-holder, Osborne."
"Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for you see his papa kept a
carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion.
Yes, when the hour of battle came he was almost ashamed to say, "Go it,
Figs"; and not a single other boy in the place uttered that cry for the
first two or three rounds of this famous combat; at the commencement of
which the scientific Cuff, with a contemptuous smile on his face, and as
light and as gay as if he was at a ball, planted his blows upon his
adversary, and floored that unlucky champion three times running. At each
fall there was a cheer, and everybody was anxious to have the honour of
offering the conqueror a knee.
"What a licking I shall get when it's over," young Osborne thought,
picking up his man. "You'd best give in," he said to Dobbin; "it's only a
thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used to it." But Figs, all whose limbs
were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his little
bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time.
As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that were aimed at
himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the three preceding occasions
without ever allowing his enemy to strike, Figs now determined that he
would commence the engagement by a charge on his own part; and,
accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and
hit out a couple of times with all his might--once at Mr. Cuff's left
eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.
Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly. "Well hit,
by Jove," says little Osborne, with the air of a connoisseur, clapping
his man on the back. "Give it to him with the left, Figs, my boy."
Figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the combat. Cuff
went down every time. At the sixth round there were almost as many
fellows shouting out, "Go it, Figs," as there were youths exclaiming, "Go
it, Cuff." At the twelfth round the latter champion was all abroad, as
the saying is, and had lost all presence of mind and power of attack or
defence. Figs, on the contrary, was as calm as a Quaker. His face being
quite pale, his eyes shining open, and a great cut on his under lip
bleeding profusely, gave this young fellow a fierce and ghastly air,
which perhaps struck terror into many spectators. Nevertheless, his
intrepid adversary prepared to close for the thirteenth time.
If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should like to describe
this combat properly. It was the last charge of the Guard--(that is, it
_would_ have been, only Waterloo had not yet taken place); it was Ney's
column breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte, bristling with ten thousand
bayonets, and crowned with twenty eagles; it was the shout of the
beef-eating British, as, leaping down the hill, they rushed to hug the
enemy in the savage arms of battle; in other words, Cuff, coming up full
of pluck, but quite reeling and groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his left
as usual on his adversary's nose, and sent him down for the last time.
"I think _that_ will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent dropped as
neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot's ball plump into the pocket
at billiards; and the fact is, when time was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff
was not able, or did not choose, to stand up again.
And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would have made you
think he had been their darling champion through the whole battle; and as
absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study, curious to know the
cause of the uproar. He threatened to flog Figs violently, of course; but
Cuff, who had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds,
stood up and said, "It's my fault, sir--not Figs's--not Dobbin's. I was
bullying a little boy; and he served me right." By which magnanimous
speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his
ascendancy over the boys which his defeat had nearly cost him.
Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the transaction:
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