I ate that dinner very uneasily. For one thing, I had no appetite,
having had enough before I took my place. For another, I was worried by
the furtive grins and whispers of the boys near me, the news of the
fight having run like lightning through the school. Then I was in a
constant state of dread lest my appearance should be noticed by either
Mr Rebble, the Doctor, or the new assistant master, who was dining on
the principal's left, for the Doctor made our dinner his lunch and of
course had his late. I had not had a chance to look in a glass, and, as
my face ached and felt tight, I imagined terrible black eyes, a horribly
swollen nose, and that my top lip was puffed out to a large size. In
fact, I felt that I must be in that state; and as I glanced at Mercer, I
was surprised to see that he hardly showed a mark. Lastly, I could not
get on with my dinner, because my mouth would not open and shut
properly, while every attempt to move my lower jaw sidewise gave me
intense pain.
I was in hopes that this was not noticed, and to get over the difficulty
of being seen with my plate of meat untouched, I furtively slipped two
slices, a potato, and a piece of bread under the table, where I knew
that the two cats would be foraging according to their custom.
I thought the act was not noticed, but the boy on my right had been
keenly watching me.
"Can't you eat your dinner?" he whispered.
There was no other course open save making a paltry excuse, so I said
gruffly,--
"Never mind, old chap," he said, to my surprise. "Lots of us laugh at
you, but--. I say, don't tell 'em I said so."
"I don't sneak and tell tales," I said morosely.
"No, of course you wouldn't. I was going to say lots of us laugh at
you, but lots of us wish you and Senna Tea had given those two bullies
an awful licking."
"Thank-ye," I said, for these words were quite cheering, and I glanced
at Mercer, who was fiddling his dinner about, and cutting the
pink-looking cold boiled beef up in very small squares.
"Can't you get on?" I whispered.
"No. 'Tain't likely; but just you wait."
"What for?"
"Never mind!"
The dinner went on, with the clattering of knives and forks upon plates,
and, the meat being ended, the pudding came along, round, stodgy slices,
with glittering bits of yellow suet in it, and here and there a raisin,
or plum, as we called it, playing at bo-peep with those on the other
side,--"Spotted Dog," we used to call it,--and I got on a little better,
for it was nice and warm and sweet, from the facts that the Doctor never
stinted us boys in our food, and that, while the cook always said she
hated all boys, she contrived to make our dinners tasty and good.
"Try the pudding," I whispered to Mercer.
"Shan't. I should like to shy it bang in old Burr major's face."
"Oh, never mind."
"But I do mind; but just you wait!"
"Well, I am waiting," I said. "Why don't you tell me what you mean?"
Mercer was silent.
"I say!"
"Well?"
"You're not going to give him anything nasty, are you?"
"Yes."
"Oh!"
"You wait and see!"
"But you mustn't; it wouldn't do."
"Wouldn't it? Ah, just you wait. We'll make 'em sorry for this."
"I'm not going to do anything nasty," I said sturdily.
"Yes, you are; you're going to do as I do. We're mates, and you've got
to help me as I helped you."
I thought of the pot marked "poison;" of Dicksee being bad through
taking something Mercer had given him; and a curious sensation of
sickness came over me, and I left half my pudding, just as Mercer took
up his fork, chopped his disk up into eight pieces, and began to bolt
them fiercely.
"Eat your pudding," he said, noticing that I had left off.
"Can't. I've had enough."
"You must. I want you to grow strong. I shall give you some tonic
stuff my father prescribes for people."
I looked at him in horror, but he was glaring at the last piece of
pudding on his fork.
"Just you wait!" he said gloomily.
"I will not help him in anything I think wrong," I said to myself; and a
few minutes after, Mercer leaned towards me.
"Look!" he whispered; "there's Eely Burr and Fathead grinning at us.
Wait a bit! They don't know what a horrible revenge we're going to have
on them."
"But if it's _we_," I said, "you ought to tell me what the revenge is
going to be."
"I'll tell you some time," he whispered. "Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps
to-night.--You wait!"
"Oh, how I do hate being treated like that!" I thought to myself, and I
was about to beg of him to tell me then, and to try to persuade him not
to, do anything foolish, when the Doctor tapped the table with the
handle of his cheese-knife, grace was said, and we all adjourned to the
play-field for the half-hour at our disposal before we resumed our
studies.
I had no further opportunity for speaking to Mercer that afternoon, for,
when we returned to the schoolroom, the Doctor made us a speech, in
which he said he, "regretted deeply to find."--Here he stopped to blow
his nose, and I turned hot, cold, and then wet, as I felt that we two
would be publicly reproved and perhaps punished for fighting.
"That," continued the Doctor, "many of the boys had been going back in
minor subjects."