I have called this chapter "cutting weather," partly in compliment to
the month of February, and partly in respect of my own misfortunes which
you are going to read about, for I have often thought that January
(which is mostly twelfth cake and holiday time) is like the first four
or five years of a little boy's life; then comes dismal February, and
the working days with it, when chaps begin to look out for themselves,
after the Christmas and the New Year's hey-day and merry-making are
over, which our infancy may well be said to be. Well can I recollect
that bitter first of February, when I first launched out into the world
and appeared at Dr. Swishtail's academy.
I began at school that life of prudence and economy, which I have
carried on ever since. My mother gave me eighteen-pence on setting out
(poor soul! I thought her heart would break as she kissed me, and bade
God bless me); and besides, I had a small capital of my own, which I had
amassed for a year previous. I'll tell you what I used to do. Wherever I
saw six half-pence I took one. If it was asked for, I said I had taken
it, and gave it back;—if it was not missed, I said nothing about it, as
why should I?—those who don't miss their money don't lose their money.
So I had a little private fortune of three shillings, besides mother's
eighteen-pence. At school they called me the copper-merchant, I had such
lots of it.
Now, even at a preparatory school, a well-regulated boy may better
himself: and I can tell you I did. I never was in any quarrels: I never
was very high in the class or very low; but there was no chap so much
respected: and why? _I'd always money._ The other boys spent all their's
in the first day or two, and they gave me plenty of cakes and
barley-sugar then, I can tell you. I'd no need to spend my own money,
for they would insist upon treating me. Well, in a week, when their's
was gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the
rest of the half-year, what did I do? Why, I am proud to say that
three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young
gentlemen at Dr. Swishtail's, came into my pocket. Suppose, for
instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money?
Little Bob Stubbs to be sure. "Hicks," I used to say, "_I'll_ buy you
three-halfp'orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next
Saturday:" and he agreed, and next Saturday came, and he very often
could not pay me more than three-halfpence, then there was the
threepence I was to have _the next_ Saturday. I'll tell you what I did
for a whole half-year:—I lent a chap by the name of Dick Bunting
three-halfpence the first Saturday, for threepence the next; he could
not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I'm blest if I did not
make him pay me three-halfpence _for three and twenty weeks running_,
making two shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. But he was a sad
dishonourable fellow, Dick Bunting; for, after I'd been so kind to him,
and let him off for three-and-twenty weeks the money he owed me,
holidays came, and threepence he owed me still. Well, according to the
common principles of practice, after six weeks' holidays, he ought to
have paid me exactly sixteen shillings, which was my due. For the
First week the 3_d._ would be 6_d._
Second week 1_s._
Third week 2_s._
Fourth week 4_s._
Fifth week 8_s._
Sixth week 16_s._
Nothing could be more just; and yet, will it be believed? when Bunting
came back, he offered me _three-halfpence_! the mean, dishonest
scoundrel!
However, I was even with him, I can tell you.—He spent all his money in
a fortnight, and _then_ I screwed him down! I made him, besides giving
me a penny for a penny, pay me a quarter of his bread and butter at
breakfast, and a quarter of his cheese at supper; and before the
half-year was out, I got from him a silver fruit knife, a box of
compasses, and a very pretty silver-laced waistcoat, in which I went
home as proud as a king: and, what's more, I had no less than three
golden guineas in the pocket of it, besides fifteen shillings, the
knife, and a brass bottle-screw, which I got from another chap. It
wasn't bad interest for twelve shillings, which was all the money I'd
had in the year, was it? Heigh ho! I've often wished that I could get
such a chance again in this wicked world; but men are more avaricious
now than they used to be in those early days.
[Illustration]
Well, I went home in my new waistcoat as fine as a peacock; and when I
gave the bottle-screw to my father, begging him to take it as a token of
my affection for him, my dear mother burst into such a fit of tears as I
never saw, and kissed and hugged me fit to smother me. "Bless him, bless
him," says she, "to think of his old father! And where did you purchase
it, Bob?"—"Why, mother," says I, "I purchased it out of my savings"
(which was as true as the gospel).—When I said this, mother looked round
to father, smiling, although she had tears in her eyes, and she took his
hand, and with her other hand drew me to her. "Is he not a noble boy?"
says she to my father: "and only nine years old!" "Faith!" says my
father, "he _is_ a good lad, Susan. Thank thee, my boy: and here is a
crown piece in return for thy bottle-screw;—it shall open us a bottle of
the very best, too," says my father; and he kept his word. I always was
fond of good wine (though never, from a motive of proper self-denial,
having any in my cellar); and, by Jupiter! on this night I had my little
skin full,—for there was no stinting—so pleased were my dear parents
with the bottle-screw.—The best of it was, it only cost me threepence
originally, which a chap could not pay me.
Seeing this game was such a good one, I became very generous towards my
parents: and a capital way it is to encourage liberality in children. I
gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea
piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself
with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally,
our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given
her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely,
out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat. It
smelt a little of hartshorn, but it was a beautiful needle-book, and
mamma was so delighted with it, that she went into town, and bought me a
gold-laced hat. Then I bought papa a pretty china tobacco-stopper; but I
am sorry to say of my dear father that he was not so generous as my
mamma or myself, for he only burst out laughing, and did not give me so
much as a half-crown piece, which was the least I expected from him "I
shan't give you anything, Bob, this time," says he; "and I wish, my boy,
you would not make any more such presents,—for, really, they are too
expensive." Expensive, indeed! I hate meanness,—even in a father.
I must tell you about the silver-edged waistcoat which Bunting gave me.
Mamma asked me about it, and I told her the truth,—that it was a present
from one of the boys for my kindness to him. Well, what does she do but
writes back to Dr. Swishtail, when I went to school, thanking him for
his attention to her dear son, and sending a shilling to the good and
grateful little boy who had given me the waistcoat!
"What waistcoat is it?" said the Doctor to me, "and who gave it you?"
"Bunting gave it me, sir," says I.
"Call Bunting:" and up the little ungrateful chap came. Would you
believe it? he burst into tears,—told that the waistcoat had been given
him by his mother, and that he had been forced to give it for a debt to
Copper Merchant, as the nasty little blackguard called me. He then said,
how, for three-halfpence, he had been compelled to pay me three
shillings (the sneak! as if he had been _obliged_ to borrow the
three-halfpence!)—how all the other boys had been swindled (swindled!)
by me in like manner,—and how, with only twelve shillings, I had managed
to scrape together four guineas.
* * * * *
My courage almost fails as I describe the shameful scene that followed.
The boys were called in, my own little account-book was dragged out of
my cupboard, to prove how much I had received from each, and every
farthing of my money was paid back to them. The tyrant took the thirty
shillings that my dear parents had given me, and said that he should put
them into the poor-box at church; and, after having made a long
discourse to the boys about meanness and usury, he said, "Take off your
coat, Mr. Stubbs, and restore Bunting his waistcoat." I did, and stood
without coat and waistcoat in the midst of the nasty, grinning boys. I
was going to put on my coat,—
"Stop," says he, "TAKE DOWN HIS BREECHES!"
Ruthless, brutal villain! Sam Hopkins, the biggest boy, took them down—
horsed me—and _I was flogged, sir_; yes, flogged! Oh, revenge! I, Robert
Stubbs, who had done nothing but what was right, was brutally flogged at
ten years of age.—Though February was the shortest month, I remembered
it long.