"Ah, it's all very fine to laugh, but we shall be had up to the Doctor's
desk this morning, and he'll want to know about the fighting."
"Well, we must tell him, I suppose," I said. "They began on us."
"No," said Mercer, shaking his head, and looking as depressed as I did
when I woke; "that wouldn't do here. The fellows never tell on each
other, and we should be sent to Coventry. It's precious hard to be
licked, and then punished after, when you couldn't help it, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "Then you won't tell about Burr major and Dicksee."
"Oh no. Never do. We shall have to take it and grin and bear it,
whether it's the cane or impositions. Worst of it is, it'll mean ever
so much keeping in. I wouldn't care if it had been a month or two ago."
"What difference would that have made?"
"Why, it was all wet weather then. Now it's so fine, I want for us to
go and collect things, and I'm not going to be beaten over that
stuffing. Next time I shall look at a live bird ever so long before I
try to stuff one, and then you'll see. We'll be on the watch next time,
so that old Eely shan't catch us, and--ha, ha, ha! Oh my! oh my! oh
my!" he cried, sitting down on the edge of his bed, rocking himself to
and fro, and kicking up his bare feet and working his toes about in the
air.
"What are you laughing about?" I said, feeling glad to see that he too
was getting rid of the depression.
"Wait a bit," he whispered. "Won't we astonish them! Oh, my nose, how
it does hurt!" he added, covering the swollen organ with his hand, and
speaking in a snuffling tone. "I shall aim straight at old Eely's snub
all the time, so as to make it twice as big as mine is. He will be so
mad, for he's as proud of himself as a peacock, and thinks he's
handsome. What do you think he does?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Puts scent on his handkerchief every morning--musk. Oh, he is a dandy!
But wait a bit! Seventeen shillings! Isn't it a lot for two pairs of
gloves? And, I say!"
"Yes."
"He's an awful dandy about his gloves too. By and by, when he's had his
licking,--two lickings, for you shall give him one too,--I'll tell you
what we'll always say to him."
"Well?"
"We'll say, `What sized gloves do you take?'"
"But he will not know anything about the gloves," I said, interrupting a
laugh. "We shan't have gloves on then."
"No more we shall. What a pity! That spoils my joke. Never mind.
Let's dress, and go and look at the gardens--perhaps there may be some
good butterflies out in the sunshine; and as soon as cook's down, I'll
beg some hot water to bathe my nose."
But Mercer did not put in a petition for the hot water. "It's no good,"
he said, when we were down by the gardens, soon after we were dressed.
"It's like physic; we've got to take it, so we may as well face it all
out and get it over."
Very good philosophy, of course, but I did not feel hopeful about what
was to come.
It all began at breakfast, where we were no sooner seated, than Mr
Rebble came by with the new assistant master.
"Bless me! Good gracious! Look, Mr Hasnip. Did you ever see such a
nose? No, no, Mercer: sit up, sir."
Poor Mercer had ducked down to hide his bulbous organ, but he had to sit
up while Mr Hasnip brought his smoke-tinted spectacles to bear upon it.
"Terrible!" he said. "The boy must have been fighting."
"Yes; and here's the other culprit," cried Mr Rebble. "Look at this
boy's eye and mouth. Have you two boys been fighting?"
"Yes, sir," I said in a low voice.
"Disgraceful! Well, the Doctor must know of it, and he will punish you
both severely."
The two masters moved off to their table, and a buzz of excitement ran
through the nearest boys, while, as I looked up, I could see Burr major
standing up in his place and looking over toward us.
"I say," whispered Mercer, "here's a game; they think we two have been
fighting together like old Lom did. Let 'em think so. Don't you say a
word."
"But it will be so dishonest," I expostulated.
"No, it won't. If they ask you who you fought with, you must say
nothing."
"Not tell them?"
"No. The Doctor will say you are stubborn and obstinate, and threaten
to expel you; but he don't mean it, and you've got to hold your tongue,
as I told you before. We never split on each other here."
"Will the Doctor know, do you think?" I asked, as we went on with our
breakfast.
"Sure to. Old Reb's safe to go and tell him directly he comes."
I soon heard that this opinion was shared, for one of the bigger boys
came over from his seat near Burr major.
"I say," he said, "Reb's sure to tell the Doctor about you two. Shall
you say that you had a round with big Burr and old Fatsee?"
"Did Eely tell you to come and ask?" said Mercer, glancing toward where
Burr major was anxiously watching in our direction.
"Never you mind. Are you going to tell?"
"What is it to you?"
"A good deal. You tell, and half a dozen of us mean to wallop you two,
and you won't like that."
"Oh, I shouldn't mind, and Burr junior wouldn't. I know old Squirmy
sent you to ask because--there, look at him--he's all in a fiddle for
fear the Doctor should punish him--a great coward!--for knocking smaller
boys about."
"Look here," whispered the ambassador, "don't you be quite so saucy."
"Shall if I like. You go and tell old Eely, old slimy Snip, that I'm
not like his chosen friend Dicksee, a miserable, tale-telling sneak. I
shan't let out about Burr major being such a coward, and Burr here won't
tell about fat-headed Dicksee, so now you can go."
"And you'd better keep to it," said the boy, looking at me fiercely; but
I did not feel afraid, for Mercer's project about the gloves had sent a
glow through me, and, as he said, our time would come.
But I felt anything but comfortable an hour later, when I was back in
school, after the breakfast had been cleared, for I could see that the
boys had their eyes upon us, and were whispering, and I knew it related
to the punishment to come.
The worst moments were when the Doctor entered and took his place in his
pulpit amidst a suppressed rustle, and I set my teeth as I stood up, and
shrank down again at the earliest opportunity, feeling as if the
Doctor's eye was fixed upon me, and, as it happened, just as I was
wishing he would speak, and, as I felt it, put me out of my misery, he
uttered one of his tremendous coughs, which had far more effect in
producing silence than Mr Rebble's words.
"Thomas Mercer, Burr junior," he said loudly, "come up here."
"I wish I had run away this morning," was my first thought, but it was
gone directly, and I was glad I had not, as I walked as firmly as I
could, side by side with my brother offender, right up to the front of
the Doctor's desk, where he sat frowning upon us like a judge without
his wig and gown.
"Hah!" he ejaculated in his most awe-inspiring tones, as he looked at us
searchingly. "No doubt about it. Disgraceful marks, like a pair of
rough street boys instead of young gentlemen. So you two have been
fighting?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
"I am glad that you have frankness enough to own to it. You, Mercer,
knew better; but you, sir, had to learn that you have broken one of the
most rigid rules of my establishment. I object to fighting, as savage,
brutal, and cruel, and I will not allow it here. Mr Rebble, give these
boys heavy impositions, and you will both of you stop in and study every
day for a fortnight under Mr Hasnip's directions. Some principals
would have administered the cane or the birch, but I object to those
instruments as being, like fighting, savage, brutal, and cruel, only to
be used as a last resource, when ordinary punishments suitable for
gentlemen fail. I presume that you make no defence?" He continued
rolling out his words in a broad volume of sound. "You own that you
have both been fighting? Silence is a full answer. Return to your
places."
I heard Mercer utter a low sigh, and my breast felt overcharged as we
went back to our desks, where we were no sooner seated than Mercer
whispered,--
"Never mind, old chap! we'll help one another; and he never asked who we
had been fighting with, so we didn't get extra punishment for being
stubborn. Oh dear me, what a rum place school is!"
Poor Mercer, he had yet to learn, as I had, that the school was only the
world in miniature, and that we should find our life there almost
exactly the same when we grew up to be men.
"I wonder what Mr Hasnip will set us to do," I thought, as the clock at
last told that the morning's studies were nearly at an end, and I was
still wondering when the boys rose, and Eely Burr, Dicksee, and the
other big fellow, Hodson, came round behind us, and the first
whispered,--
"Lucky for you two that you didn't tell. My! I shouldn't have liked to
be you, if you had."
"Go and scent your handkerchief," said Mercer angrily. "I'd tell if I
liked."
"If they weren't here, I'd punch your ugly head," whispered Eely, and
they all three went out, leaving us two alone in the great schoolroom,
with the ushers at one end, and the Doctor, contrary to his usual
custom, still in his desk at the other.
"Stand, Thomas Mercer and Burr junior," he said. "Or no--Mercer can
keep his seat."