As to Gideon, I licked him rather badly in two rounds and a half. Then he was mopped up and dressed, and screwed in his front tooth again with the greatest ease.
Once it got known about this tooth, and fellows were naturally excited. Steggles said it was on the principle of a tobacco-pipe mouthpiece; and, finding the chaps were keen to see it, Gideon let it be generally known he would freely show it to anybody for threepence a time, and to friends for twopence. But this was a safe reduction to make, because, properly speaking, he hadn’t any friends. Seeing there were nearly 200 boys at Dunston’s, and that certainly half, including several fellows from the Sixth, took a pleasure in seeing the tooth, and didn’t mind the rather high charge, Gideon did jolly well; and in the case of Nubby Tomkins, he made actually one shilling and threepence; because the tooth had a most peculiar fascination for Nubby, and he saw it no less than five times. After that Gideon made a reduction to him, as well he might. But somehow Slade, the head of the school, was very averse to Gideon’s front tooth when he heard about it, and he decided that there must be no more exhibitions of it for money. He told Gideon so himself.
However, a new boy came a week afterwards and heard about the strangeness of the tooth, and offered a shilling, in three instalments, to see it; which was too much temptation for Gideon, and he showed it, contrary to what Slade had said.
Slade, of course, heard, for the new boy happened to be his own cousin, though called Saunders; and then there was a curious scene in the playground, which I fortunately saw. Slade came up to Gideon in the very quiet way he has, and asked him in a perfectly gentlemanly voice for his front tooth. At first Gideon seemed inclined not to give it up, but he saw what an awfully serious thing that would be, and finally unscrewed it, though not willingly.
“Now,” said Slade, “I’ll have no more of this penny peep-show business at Merivale. I told you once, and you have disobeyed me. So there’s an end of your beastly tooth. What’s this?”
He took something out of his pocket.
“It’s a catapult,” said Gideon.
“It is,” said Slade, “and I’m going to use your tooth instead of a bullet, and fire it into space.”
“It cost five guineas,” said Gideon.
“Don’t care if it cost a hundred,” answered Slade, still in a very gentlemanly sort of way. “We can’t have this sort of thing here, you know.”