"I say, Tom," I cried, as he looked up at me innocently, in surprise at
my mirth, and I went and sat at the other end of the bin; "had one
better kill poor people out of their misery than preserve them to look
like that?" and I pointed down at the half-stuffed rabbit.
"Go on," he said quietly. "Scientific people always get laughed at. I
don't mind."
"More do I."
"I've had lots of fun out of all these things, and it's better than
racing all over a field, kicking a bag of wind about, and knocking one
another down in a charge, and then playing more sacks on the mill, till
a fellow's most squeezed flat. I hate football, and so do you."
"No, you don't," I said; "you love a game sometimes as much as I do.
What I don't like in it is, that when I'm hurt, I always want to hit
somebody."
"Yes, that is the worst of it," he said quietly; "and since I've found
out that I can fight, I'm ever so much readier to punch anybody's head."
"But you don't."
"No; I don't, because it don't seem fair. I don't care, though, how you
laugh. I shall go on with my natural history even when I grow a man,
and have to drive round like father does, giving people stuff. It gives
you something to think about."
"Yes, it gives you something to think about," I said merrily. "I always
get thinking about these."
"I say: don't," cried Mercer; "you've upset my owl on to that blackbird.
I wish you wouldn't be so fond of larking."
"All right, Tom; I won't tease you," I said. "It's all right, and I'll
always go with you collecting. I never knew there were half so many
things to see out of doors, till I went out with you. When shall we
have a regular good walk through the General's woods?"
"Any time we can get away," he cried, brightening up. "I'm ready."
"All right," I said; "then we will go first chance."
"We must tell Bob Hopley we're going, or he may hear us in the wood, and
pepper us, thinking it's old Magglin."
"What?"
"He said he would, if ever he caught him there."
"Seen him lately?" I said.
"No; have you?"
"Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley's."
"One of the boys said he saw him hanging about, twice over, and I
suppose he was trying to see me, and get a shilling out of me. I'm sure
he's had nearly a pound out of me, that I didn't owe him. I wish I
wasn't so soft."
"So do I."
"Ah, now you're laughing at me. Never mind, I've done with him now.
Never a penny does he ever get out of me again."
"Till next time, Tom," I said.
"No, nor next time neither. I don't suppose we shall see much more of
him here, for Bob Hopley says that so sure as he catches him poaching,
he shall speak out pretty plainly, so as to get him sent away. He says
that many a time he has let him off with a good licking, sooner than get
him sent to prison, for he don't think prison's good for young men like
him."
"I suppose it isn't," I said thoughtfully, as I watched my companion,
and saw how lovingly he arranged and rearranged his grotesque-looking
creatures at the bottom and on the rough shelves of the bin that he had
put up from time to time.
And as I watched him, an idea entered my brain which tickled me so, that
I had hard work to keep from laughing aloud, and being noticed.
The idea came as he glanced at me, and moved the rabbit to the corner
nearest to him--the absurd-looking object being carefully covered over,
as if he was afraid I should begin joking him again about its unfinished
state.
All at once, moved by the impulse which had set me laughing, I leaned
over and stretched out my hand toward the corner where he had placed the
rabbit.
"What are you going to do?" he cried excitedly, and he caught my wrist.
"Only going to take out bunny, and see how he's getting on."
"No, no, don't."
"Why not?" I cried merrily.
"Because--because I don't want it touched."
"But I can improve it so."
"No, no: be quiet. Oh, I say, Frank, pray don't touch it."
"Oh, all right," I said, after a good-humoured struggle with him, in
which I did not use much force, and I let him shut the bin, and sit on
the lid.
Dinner!
For the bell began to ring, and I dashed down, to run out of the stable
and across the yard, expecting that he would follow me, and running so
blindly that I came right upon Dicksee, just leaving the stable door,
and sent him down upon his hands and knees.
"Hallo!" I shouted; "what were you doing there?--listening?"
"What's that to you?" grumbled the boy, as he rose slowly and carefully,
examining his hands to see if the skin was off. "You did that on
purpose."
"No, I didn't," I replied; "but I would have done it, if I had known you
were sneaking and eavesdropping there."
"Who was sneaking and eavesdropping? What was there to listen to?" he
retorted. "'Tain't your stable. I've as good a right there as you
have. Tom Mercer and you ain't going to have it all to yourselves for
your old slugs and snails and dead cats."
"You mind Tom Mercer doesn't catch you," I said. "You don't want him to
lick you again, I know."
"Yah!" he shouted, and he ran off just as my companion came down.
"Who was that?" he said.
"Fatty Dicksee. I told him you'd give him another dressing down if he
came sneaking about here."
"And so I will," cried Tom. "He has never forgiven me, though, for the
last. I know he hates me. So does Eely hate you."
"Let 'em," I said, as we went on.
"But they'll serve us out some day if they can."
"Dinner--dinner!" I cried. "Come on!" and we set off at a trot, for
the prospect of hot roast mutton and potatoes just then was of far more
consequence to me than my school-fellow's prophecies of evil.