Tom laughed. "You're likely to stop in the sixth, Jack, while you play such pranks, and make the teacher's life a misery to him. I don't believe Potter would cry his eyes out if he never saw your face in the school again," he said.
"What's the matter with my face?" asked the boy, and he turned to Tom with such a droll expression—rolling his eyes, and twisting his mouth about—that Tom exploded with laughter, as he had frequently done before, over his companion's queer grimaces.
"You'd be a nice help to a class that was swatting, wouldn't you?" said Tom, when he could speak.
"Why shouldn't I help if I like?" said John, with another grimace. Then growing more serious, he said, "They won't ask me to come to this precious class, because I live in Sadler Street."
"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Tom. "Potter's a beast over some things, but he's a just beast, and he wouldn't keep you out of anything if he thought you could get it, because you live in Sadler Street."
"Wouldn't he, though," grumbled Jack. "You'll see not a fellow that lives in our street will be asked."
Tom was silent for a minute or two, for it had suddenly occurred to him that most of the boys that came from Sadler Street were an untidy, unruly lot of lads, giving the teachers far more trouble than other boys. So that it might be true as Bond said, that no Sadler Street boys would be asked to join this class, though not from the cause he stated.
"You'll see we shall all be shut out, every mother's son of us that lives in Sadler Street," said Bond, again referring to his grievance.
"Well, you know, people don't like the street; it hasn't a good name in the school," said Tom, not liking to hurt his friend's feelings by telling him all the thoughts that had occurred to him upon the matter.
"Ah, and 'give a dog a bad name, you may as well hang him at once.' But now, about this precious class. Why do you want to join it, if you don't mean to go to a desk and drive a pen all day?" demanded Jack.