NO EXTRAS.
Being older now, by several years, than when I had expected to be cut up
all alive, and having been taught by Professor Megalow, that science is
not of necessity cruel, I managed to sleep pretty well that night, and
resolved to be brave in the morning. And truly there was no great need
for courage; which rather disappointed me, and cast a slur upon my
value, as a boy of exceptional interest. Not one of the four Professors
took the trouble to look twice at me; each had his whole time taken up,
in fighting for his own tongue, and purse. Their payment was to be by
head of pupils--whether they fitted the head, or not--and being four in
number, they put universal knowledge into four departments, each with a
bigger name than the other. And each of our chaps, without ever having
heard what the meaning of these big names was, had to put down his own
(however short it might be) under sixteen columns, out of thirty-two,
headed with the titles of the mysterious studies. Each of the Professors
was to take eight sciences, for the subjects of his lectures; and most
unfairly we were not allowed to know the human names presiding over each
humanity. Every single boy of us wanted to sign to be under Professor
Chocolous; not only because (as a general rule) great fun can be had
with a German, and he is nearly always easy-tempered, familiar, and
kind-hearted; but also because we had heard of his ambition to transmit
a nascent tail to his descendants, and what could be finer than to help
in its establishment? And next to him, we wanted to be under Mullicles,
although about him we knew very little; except that he looked very soft,
and expected to be disintegrated, without notice, into his component
particles. On the other hand, Brachipod was as sharp, and full of
points, as a cupping instrument; and Jargoon as dry, and creaky with
long words, as a slow steam-roller pounding granite.
With heavy dismay I sate down, and gazed at the broad sheet laid before
me. At the top were placed alphabetically the names of the thirty-two
sciences proposed; names which it must have been anguish to conceive,
agony to pronounce, and despair to remember. Under each name was a
column, for the hapless victim to inscribe his own; and at the bottom a
merciful notice--"No pupil need enter for more than sixteen of the above
studies, during the present term. But all will be expected, in the
ensuing term, to proceed to those which they now pretermit. The fee for
each course of lectures is one guinea, payable in advance."
Although I could get on with Homer pretty well, and had read the first
book of Herodotus, and one of "Porson's Four," and some Xenophon, it
took me a long time to make out the name of any one of those sciences. I
turned to my Lexicon, and sought for some, and for others I hunted in my
Latin Dictionary, and seemed to get near some, but not to be sure;
while of others there was no vestige. I was not aware yet, that the
authors of these words are as rash with the Classics, as they are with
logic, and maltreat the dead languages, as freely as the living.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," Jack Windsor said; "I'll go in for all
thirty-two; and let father stump up, if he's got the blunt for it. Here
goes 'John Windsor,' thirty twice over."
What a flood of light those plain words shed on my foggy, and
thickly-fibred brain, unwitting as yet of the Athenian prototypes of all
the Pansophists, pea for pea, in the pods of Aristophanes! The _blunt_
was the point of all points with these hungry professors; and none could
be got out of me. And yet, I should never have thought of that, without
Jack's plain way of putting it. So I squared my elbow, and sprang my
pen, and took care that the ink in it was not too round, and I said,
"Don't jerk my elbow, Jack; it is no time for larks of any sort." And
then I wrote, in fair hand, across all thirty-two columns, these simple
words. "Father don't pay for extras. They tried it on before, but he
would not have it. Signed, Thomas Upmore; witness, John Windsor."
This was a bold stroke of mine; and it succeeded, as a bold stroke often
does, when it has the force of truth behind it. As soon as all these
signatures of zealots for new learning (of whom a great many could not
spell their own names) had been received in "Council," by our new
Principal, and his four "highly-cultured coadjutors"--oh Lord, where is
good English buried?--there came a squeaky call, from their sacred cell
(as different from old Rum's sonorous, "send him hither," as the cry of
a mouse behind the wainscot is from the roar of a lion) and the boy who
had the longest ears made it out to be--"the presence of Thomas Upmore
is required."
Now, I never had any great amount of pluck, which is a steadfast
element; while all my elements were light and fleeting, and never would
stand up together (as in a fine character they must do) without going up
into the air, and turning round. A miserable shiver went through my
heart, and turned my bright cheeks to a sad pale blue--so the other
fellows said; though it recked me naught what manner of boy I might be,
to look at.
"Tommy, keep your pecker up;" Jack Windsor hit me a slap on the back, to
impress this counsel, which would have taken all my breath away, if it
had not been gone already; "think of your dad, and all the money he is
making. Stick well up to them, that's the only ticket. Make them all
shake in their shoes, dear Tommy. They will send for me next. If you
frighten them well, you will give me pluck to go on with it."
This was all very nice, from his own point of view; but I heartily
wished that he had to go first, to show me the right way of doing it.
"Oh, Jack, you are so brave," I said, "if you would only come with me,
and make believe you had been sent for too, I should take it so very
kind of you!"
"Don't you wish you may catch it?" he replied, turning round, to be
ready for the path of retreat.
"Well, at any rate, come to the door," said I; "to know that you are
there, will be better than nothing."
"Oh bother, don't be such a funk," Jack answered; "why, Tommy, they
won't eat you." And he took good care that they should not eat him, by
bolting, as fast as his fat legs would go.
None of this tended to relieve my mind; but I tried to remember
Achilles, and Hector, and all the brave men I had been reading of; yet
in spite of them all, I took good care, so far as trembling hands
allowed, to leave the door behind me open. It was now in my power, after
fifteen years of growth, to go at such a pace with the wind behind
me--and any wind blowing from a scientific point would surely find
itself behind me--that if I could only get one yard's start, all the
science yet invented--with the Devil at the tail of it--might break its
wind without coming up with me. _Dat vires animus._ The whole of my
_animus_ was up and eager. I thought of all these wise men in our
clot-pit; and out of despair I plucked hope, and defiance.
The longest dining-table in our hall, which would take thirty boys, and
their plates, on each side, had been proved to be not half long enough
for the length of the papers necessary for the lantern jaws of science.
Accordingly, three long boards, upon which Dr. Rumbelow's Hermes had
cleaned our knives, had been brought from his out-house, and set up,
with green baize over them, to carry ink and papers. Our new master sat
at the end of this length, with a brace of Professors, on his right hand
and his left. To my innermost parts I recalled these four, and was
amazed to find that they knew not me. Principal Crankhead waved his
hand, for me to stand silent at the bottom of the table; and then they
all turned round, and stared at me, with the exception of Herr
Chocolous, who stood, with his chair pushed under the table, to assert
his upright principles. And he seemed to me to be labouring not to
laugh.
"The name of this pupil appears to be Thomas Upmore," began Mr.
Crankhead, "the son of Bucephalus Upmore, a gentleman residing in a
place called Maiden Lane. Instead of expressing his preference for
sixteen of the subjects proposed for his study, he has stated very
briefly, that his father declines to pay for what he calls _extras_. He
does not appear to have realized that these are the essential parts of
all true education. Boy, what do you come here for?"
"If you please, sir, to be taught," I said, with a courage which
surprised me, "to learn 'whatever is necessary for a liberal education,'
according to what Dr. Rumbelow says to parents and guardians, in this
paper." I pulled an old circular of the _Partheneion_ from my pocket,
and spread it on the table. "But father gave out, from the first, that
he never would pay a shilling for extras; unless they agreed to take it
out in soap."
"Take out science in soap, indeed!" muttered Professor Brachipod,
forgetting how much he had done in that way; though certainly without
intending it.
"Well, Upmore, tell us, if you can remember," Principal Crankhead went
on, without deigning to notice old Rum's _prospectus_, "what are the
_extras_, as you call them, which your father has refused to pay for?"
"Drilling, and drawing, and dancing, sir, and washing, and French, and
bacon for breakfast, sixpence a time for the delicate boys; and I think
there was something about new-laid eggs."
"Zere is no sooch ting, I vill not allow it pass"--broke in Professor
Chocolous, "vat you call ze new-laid egg have no right to be so called,
because----"
"Because it is generally stale, Professor. Well, Upmore, we seem to have
ascertained what your father considered objectionable. But none of them
belong to the domain of science. Your mind is a little confused,
perhaps, as is only natural, at your age, after giving so much of it to
Greek and Latin. Now take a fresh paper, and put your initials--we shall
understand them--in the sixteen columns of your selection. Sit down, my
lad; we shall teach you something yet."
Certainly my mind was now confused, neither by Latin nor Greek, but by
the proximity of such a mass of learning, and its manner of foreclosing
me. With a fog of big words spreading over my eyes, and pouring in at my
ears, as I tried to sound them, I took up the pen which had been thrown
to me; then I put it in my mouth, and said to myself--"it can't matter
much what I sign; I'll go in for the biggest of the lot, to brag of
them. Father likes something that he can't pronounce."
There was no word of less than five syllables there, and a good many of
them went up to eleven. These I picked out, to learn first, with my
thumbnail, after counting upon all ten fingers; and then I fell back on
the decasyllabic branches of wisdom, and got my sixteen. But, before
putting anything down in ink--which my father would have had to pay
for, unless he went down to the County Court--I found in my mouth a
little bit of the stuff (a twisted, brittle, filmy stuff it is), which
may be the nerve of the quill for aught I know; and it saved me most
happily from knowing what its name is.
For it got very easily into my throat,--so widely was that poor throat
agape, at the prospect of all those tremendous words--and I put the
feather-end in, to try to pull it out; and then I began to chew the
harl; and who ever did that, without improving what he was going to
write at first? Those gentlemen still were as eager as ever, that I
should be shut up and done with; while I became unable to share their
hurry, and desirous to see the case clearly.
"If you please, sir," I said, from the bottom of the table, after
getting on a stool to be heard all up it; "the meaning of this paper is,
that I am going to learn all this, for nothing."
Mr. Crankhead stared at the men of science, and with one accord they
stared at him; and they would have been amused at my mistake, if it had
not been too serious.
"Upmore, you have a great deal yet to learn;" the Principal spoke
severely; "do you imagine that Science has ever imparted her blessings,
for nothing?"
"I am sure, I did not know, sir," I replied; "but you said that all
these were essential parts of true education; and old Rum says--Dr.
Rumbelow, I mean,--in this paper, that all those are included in the
money for the term."
"But we have changed all that, my boy. Our ideas of what education is
are entirely different from those of the obsolete system, under which
you have been trained hitherto."
"Then if you please, sir, my father ought to have had a new paper sent
him, before he sent me back to school; or how can he tell what he is to
pay? I am sure, that he won't pay a farthing more than he had to pay
last quarter."
"Thomas Upmore, you may go;" the new Principal said, quite loftily,
after whispering, and receiving whispers; "you need not return to the
schoolroom at all, or to any part of these premises, except where your
clothes and books are. You are too benighted, and contumacious, to
deserve any higher education; such as you expect to get for nothing.
Branker, see that this boy does not communicate with the other boys.
Pack all his things up, and put him in a cab."
Thus was I discharged, very rudely as I thought, from the poor old
_Partheneion_, now entitled the _Epistemonicon_; and I could not help
crying at the manner of it, because people would say that I had been
expelled.
But Branker, the new man-of-all-work, who seemed to care little about
his place, at the sight of a shilling in my hand, allowed me to have a
word or two, in the passage, with Jack Windsor.
"Jack, they have given me the sack," I said; "because I wouldn't put my
name down, for father to pay sixteen guineas extra. If I had, I should
have been whacked at both ends, for certain. He would have whacked me
for doing it; and they would have whacked me worse, for not getting the
tin. You have put down your dad for thirty-two guineas. Mind that, and
I wish you luck of it."
"Stop the cab, Tommy; stop the cab," cried Jack; "I'll come away with
you, in five minutes. I must go in and tell them, I did it for a lark.
Why, I should get double the hiding that you would. My governor has got
such a host of kids."
I ran to fetch _Grip_, that he might run behind, and I waited in the
cab, for about two minutes, and then out rushed Jack, without any hat
on, and jumped in, and banged up the glass, and shouted, "Jarvey, off
for Maiden Lane, as hard as you can go!" Then we got out of sight in the
back of the cab, and laughed, through the tears on our cheeks, at going
home.
So it came to pass, that the boiling-interest was not represented any
longer, in those halls of science. When my father heard what I had done,
he shook my hand very heartily, and said that he never could have
thought I had so much pluck; and he would not mind paying half again as
much, but honestly, and on the square, you know, for my education to go
on all right; and he would send them his bills, just to let them see
what a sight of money their establishment had lost.
"And what language, I should like to know, was all that science to be
put in? Elamites, Parthians, Medes, at least"--he said, as he looked at
the paper of the fees--"to be any good value, for sixteen guineas."
"No, father," I answered; "it was all to be told us in English, every
word of it; only very big words of course, such words as you couldn't
make head or tail of."
"None the more honest for that," said father; "why, they make them out
of their own heads! I could do that, if I chose to try. Greek and Latin
is what I pay for; and this new lot don't know nought of it. If it
wasn't for my knowledge of the law, I'd have a defamation action against
them, for sending my only son home in a cab like this, and not have the
manners to pay the fare! They have done the same thing to Jack Windsor,
you say. Every mouth in the Lane will be full of it to-morrow. If John
Windsor would go snacks, I should feel half inclined to consider about
consulting a Solicitor. And I believe it would pay; I do believe it
would. I am a public man now, and under Government I act; and such a man
should not have his son kicked out, by a bunch of those dirty
Professors."
"Bubbly, don't open old wounds," advised mother; "our Tommy is come
home, and I am deeply thankful for it. How could they help getting rid
of him, when they never could have taught him half he knows? They knew
that he had served his time with their master, the great Professor
Megalow; and how could they open their mouths before him? And how could
they hold up their heads before Tommy, when they thought of the pit he
led them into?"
"Aha, I see! That's it," cried father; "well, I musn't be angry with
them after all. One good turn deserves another. And talking of that, we
shall have no pits left, if what I was told to-day is true. The Vestry
are going to send a man and two boys, all up through our valley, in the
course of next month, with sticks and a line, to take measurements, and
all the rest of it, for this drainage scheme. Well, it won't hurt us;
but I doubt very greatly whether the smell they are sure to make will be
wholesome for my workmen. I must try to leave more of my stuff about, to
keep the air fresh and the bad smells away. Sophy, I must be off; you
might give me a nip of Hollands, before I light my pipe. And while I am
at work, you and Tommy can put your heads together, concerning the next
thing to be done with a young scamp, who has been expelled from school."