"There'll be such a game directly. Just listen to old Dicksee."
I was very low-spirited, but, as the bright, good-looking lad at my side
nudged me with his elbow, I turned from casting my eyes round the great
bare oak-panelled room, with its long desks, to the kind of pulpit at
the lower end, facing a bigger and more important-looking erection at
the upper end, standing upon a broad dais raised a foot above the rest
of the room. For this had been the banqueting hall of Meade Place, in
the good old times of James the First, when its owner little thought it
would ever be the schoolroom of Dr Browne's "Boarding Establishment for
Gentlemen's Sons." In fact, there was a broad opening now, with a
sliding door, right through the thick wall into the kitchen, so my
companion told me, and that I should see the shoulders of mutton slip
through there at dinner-time.
So I looked at the lower pulpit, in which sat Mr Rebble, one of the
ushers, a lank, pale-faced, haggard man, with a dotting of freckles,
light eyebrows, and pale red hair which stood up straight like that upon
a clothes-brush.
He was resting his elbows on the desk and wiping his hands one over the
other, as if the air was water and he had a piece of soap between his
palms. By him was a boy with a book, reading in a highly-pitched voice
which did not seem to fit him, being, like his clothes, too small for
such a big fellow, with his broad face and forehead all wrinkled up into
puckers with the exertion of reading.
"Tchish! tchish! Silence!" said Mr Rebble, giving three stamps on the
floor. "Now go on, Dicksee."
"I say, do listen," said the boy by my side. "He isn't well, and I gave
him a dose this morning."
"You did?" I said. "You hit him?"
"No, no," said the boy, laughing. "I often do though--a miserable
sneak. I gave him a dose of medicine. He had been eating too many of
Polly Hopley's cakes. My father is a doctor!" he added importantly.
"Oh!" I said.
"I say, do listen. Did you ever hear such a whine?"
As he spoke, I heard the big, stoutly-built boy give a tremendous sniff,
and then go on reading.
"I love Penny Lope--Penny Lope is loved by me."
"Pen-el-o-pe!" cried the usher angrily, as he snatched the book from the
boy's hands, closed it, and boxed his ears with it, right and left, over
and over again. "You _dumkopf_!" he shouted; "you muddy-brained ass!
you'll never learn anything. You're more trouble than all the rest of
the boys put together. There, be off to your seat, and write that piece
out twenty-five times, and then learn it by heart."
"Ow, ow, ow! sniff, sniff, snork!"
"Silence, sir, or I'll make the imposition fifty times!"
The howl subsided into a series of subdued sniffs as the big fellow went
back to his place, amidst the humming noise made by some fifty boys,
who, under the pretence of studying their lessons, kept up
conversations, played at odd or even for marbles, or flicked peas at
each other across the school.
"Old Reb wouldn't dare to hit him like that if the Doctor was here."
"Your father?" I said.
"No, no--old Swish! Doctor Browne."
_Flick-tip_.
A pea struck my companion on the ear, and dropped on the floor.
"All right, Burr," said my neighbour; "did that with a pea-shooter. I
owe you one."
"I didn't do it!" I whispered eagerly.
"Of course you didn't. It was that long, thin boy yonder. His name's
Burr too. He'll be Burr major now, and you'll be Burr junior."
"Oh!" I said, feeling much relieved.
"You'll have to lick him. Regular old bully. Your name's Frank, isn't
it?"
"Yes."
"His name's Eliezer. We call him Eely, because he's such a lanky, thin,
snaky chap. I say, his father's a tailor in Cork Street, he's got such
lots of clothes in his box. He has a bob-tail coat and black kersey
sit-upon-'ems, and a vesky with glass buttons, and all covered with
embroidery. Such a dandy!--What's your father?"