Then the lord and the lady cleared out, and a week later Carlo came. His real name was Westonleigh, and he was a viscount or something, being eldest son of an earl; but we called him Carlo, and he grew jolly waxy when he found his nickname had got to Merivale before him. He fancied himself to a most hideous extent for a kid of nine, and explained he’d only come for a year or so before going to Eton. He went into the Lower Fourth, so Tomlin ceased to be at the bottom of that class.
The likeness between Carlo and my fag was really most peculiar. It must have been for Carlo’s own mother to see it; but when Carlo heard that Tomlin would be a hatter in the course of years he refused to have anything to do with him. And Tomlin loathed Carlo, too, from the start; so instead of being chums according to the wish of the purple-veined lord, they hated one another, and the first licking of any importance which Carlo got he had from Tomlin.
The chap was a failure all round, and it’s no good saying he wasn’t. Everybody saw it but Doctor Dunston, and he wouldn’t. Carlo proved to be a sneak and a liar of the deepest sort--not to masters, but to the chaps; and he was also jolly cruel to animals, and very much liked to torture things that couldn’t hit him back, such as mice and insects. He had a square face and snubby nose, and a voice and eyes exactly similar to Tomlin’s; but there was no likeness in their characters, Tomlin being a very decent kid, as I have said. Fellows barred Carlo all round, and he only had one real chum in the miserable shape of Fowle. Fowle sucked up to him and listened for hours about his ancestors, and buttered him at all times, hoping, of course, that some day he would get asked to Carlo’s father’s castle in the holidays. I may also note Carlo never played games, excepting tossing behind the gymnasium for half-pennies with Fowle and Steggles, Steggles, of course, winning.
Happening one day to go down through the playground, young Tomlin saw Westonleigh near a little fir-tree which grew at the top of the drill-ground. He was alone, and seemed to be doing something queer, so Tomlin stopped and went over.
“What are you up to?” he said.
“Frying ants,” said Carlo, “though it’s no business of yours. You see, there’s turpentine juice come out of this tree where I cut it yesterday, and you can stick the ants in it, then fry them to a cinder with a burning-glass, like this.”
“That’s what you’re doing?”
“It is.”
“Don’t you think you’re rather a little beast?”
“What d’ you mean, hatter?”