That is how Browne put the affair.
“Tomlin again!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Positively that boy’s behavior passes the bounds of endurance.”
“Yes, taking the medlars of one who has always treated him as you have. I couldn’t trust myself to speak to him. He’s a very disappointing boy.”
“He’s a disgraceful, degenerate, disreputable boy! I can forgive much; but the stealing of fruit--and that my fruit! Greediness, immorality, ingratitude in the person of one outrageous lad! I thank you, Browne. Yours was a zealous act, and argued courage of high order. Oblige me by sending Tomlin hither at once. There shall be no delay.”
Browne hurried off to find the wretched Tomlin; and Doctor Dunston, who always had to work up his feelings before flogging a chap, snorted like a horse, and took off his glasses, and went to the corner behind the book-case where canes and things were kept. He seemed to forget Slade and me, so we sat tight in the gloom outside the radius of light thrown by the green-shaded lamp, and waited with regret to see Tomlin catch it. The Doctor talked to himself as he brought out a birch and swished it through the air once or twice.
“Upon my soul,” he said, “Lord Golightly’s son was right. His knowledge of character is remarkable in so young a lad. Tomlin will have to be expelled; Tomlin must go; such consistent, such inherent depravity appears ineradicable. Pruning is of no avail; the branch must be sacrificed. My medlars under cover of darkness! And I would have given them freely had he but asked!”
He evidently wasn’t going to expel Tomlin this time, but he meant doing all he knew with the birch; and as Tomlin was some while coming, the Doctor’s safety-valves were regularly humming before he turned up. When he did come he walked boldly in; and the Doctor, who had been striding up and down like a lion at the Zoo, didn’t wait for any remarks, but just went straight for him, seized him by the nape of the neck, nipped his hand round his back--in a way he did very neatly from long practice--and began to administer about the hottest flogging he’d given to any boy in his life.
“So--you--add--the--eighth--com--mand--ment--to--the--others--you--have--already--shattered--deplorable--boy!” roared the Doctor, giving Tomlin one between each smack. “You--would--purloin--steal--rob--the medlars--of your preceptor. You would lead others--to--share--your--sin. You would bring--tears--of--grief--to--a--good--mother’s--eyes!”
Here the Doctor stopped a moment for breath, but he still held on to Tomlin, who, much to my surprise, wriggled about a good deal. In fact, he shot out his legs over and over again at intervals, like a grasshopper does when it gets into the water; and when he got a chance he yelled back at the Doctor:
“It’s a lie--a filthy lie!” he shrieked out. “Beast--devil! Let me go! Let me go! I never touched your rotten old medlars--oh!--oh!”