And Tim muttered, "All right, keep your hair on, Ben!"
"H'm;" said the Head, overhearing Tim. "Write it out two hundred times for your insolent conduct."
That was the start of his demoralisation. According to the laws of the Medes and Persians, and the laws of Victor the Valiant, disaster and dishonour would be the end of this! It was not at all the way Victor would have behaved. As a matter of fact on one occasion when a master had been idiotic enough to give Victor a hundred lines, the valiant one had replied: "Pardon me, sir, but if I may be so presumptuous I think I can call your attention to the fact that you—unintentionally, of course—are treating me too severely." And the master had at once seen the error of his ways and relieved Victor of the imposition.
Tim failed to get the verse written out in the stipulated time and the imposition was trebled. Also he gathered up another hundred lines for "failure to attend prayers" and this placed him in a state of hopeless bankruptcy.
When he wrote home to his mother. Here is what he said:
"Dearest Mother:
"I got two hundred lines for breaking the Head's bicycle yesterday. Give my love to Dad. I got another hundred lines to-day for not being present at prayers. But don't you worry—I am not really bad—God has forgotten me, that is all.
"Your loving Son,
Tim."
And Tim—such was his natural depravity—did not much care. So callous and indifferent did he become that he ceased to be hurt when the boys called him "Carrots." In fact he laughed. And as he no longer objected when he was called "Carrots" the boys dropped that name, and the shortest one survived. The boys started to call him "Tims" and in a few months he had won their affection from the lowest fag to the highest lad in the school.
Two years afterwards, by dint of practice and pluck he had so far advanced that he ran second in the quarter-mile at the Sports. Of course this was not very heroic. He was rewarded for this feat of strength with a patent egg-boiler, which was of no sort of use to him, and, as he discovered afterwards, of no use to anybody else. But he was exceedingly proud of the thing and also exceedingly careful to conceal this fact from the other boys.