“It may not be allowed, but it has been done,” was the captious reply: “I’ll take my oath some one has been smoking in this carriage; I’m as certain of it as if I’d seen them myself; my nose never deceives me;—what’s your name?”
“My name be Johnson; but I’ll call the station-master to speak to you, sir.”
“By no means; it’s no fault of his,” replied Wilfred, hastily, feeling anything but desirous that a more enlightened intellect should be brought to bear upon the question: “no, I shall write to the directors, to complain, and call you to witness that I mentioned the fact at the first station we stopped at. It’s absurd to pretend to make rules, and then suffer them to be broken in this way. Shut the door. I shall remember your name—Johnson!” and as he uttered the last word, the train started.
His companions exchanged glances: Percy’s expressed disapproval; Hugh’s, mingled surprise and delight; while Ernest was so much amused at the boy’s ready wit and cool impudence, that, for the life of him, he could not reprove him for the deception.
When the recollection of this little incident had, in some degree, worn off, Percy asked his cousin how he liked Doctor Donkiestir’s school; and begged him to tell them a little about the manners and customs of the place to which they were going.
“Put you up to a thing or two, eh? Give you some small insight into the time of day? Well, I suppose, as it’s all in the family, and you’re Tickletonians yourselves, or about to become so, it’s no breach of confidence. You won’t split, sir?” he continued, appealingly, to Ernest. “Honour amongst thieves, eh?”
“You may trust me,” was the concise reply.
“First promise me, upon your honour, that you will not tell any of the masters, then,” stipulated Wilfred.
“Upon my honour I will not tell any of them,” was the slightly Jesuitical reply; “nor will I make an unfair use of any information you may please to communicate to my young friend.”
“That’s all right, then. You look like a brick (I’m a bit of a physiognomist, you see), so I’ll trust you. In the first place, masters: there’s the Doctor, alias old Donkey, alias (his name is John) Jackass, with sundry other derivatives, more caustic than complimentary. Well, he’s not altogether a bad sort of fellow, only he makes a fuss about trifles, and is especially jealous if he fancies that any one appears likely to interfere with what he calls his prerogative; in fact, he would be a stunner if his temper did not stand in his way: but, on the whole the boys like him, and so look over his little failings. Then, there’s a sort of second master, ‘Mat. and Clat.’ we call him, which is short for mathematical and classical; but we are changing horses in that quarter, so, till we have tried the new animal (pretty well tried he will be, too, before we’ve done with him, I expect), it’s impossible to say how he may suit us; only, if he ain’t a tolerably wide-awake cove, I pity him; for, between master and boys, he’ll have a sweet time of it, poor devil! Then there are two ushers—Hexameter and Pentameter (familiarly Hex. and Pen.) so termed because one is six feet high and the other scarcely above five: they are not gentlemen, therefore they don’t act as sich, so of course we ‘chouse’ and bully them as much as we dare. Then there’s old Splitnib, a coach of the most unmitigated slowness, but who writes a wonderful hand; and, finally and lastly, Monsieur Beaugentil, the French master, who is more involuntarily comic than all the rest of his frog-devouring nation put together. These worthies rule, and are ruled by, a floating capital of some two hundred boys, more or less, of whom the eldest may be about seventeen or eighteen, and the youngest on a par with this juvenile shaver here.”