As Walter Puddock had told me, and, as I have no doubt, the Eton boys will confirm, after a certain quantity of flagellations, the skin becomes so hard as to make the punishment almost a matter of indifference and so I found it. So passed the time until the month of November, when I was fully enabled to pay off my worthy pedagogue for all that I was indebted to him.
Chapter Eight.
The boys had been saving up all their money to purchase fireworks for the celebrated 5th of November—a day on which it was said that certain persons, finding it impossible to reform the Lords and Commons, had determined to get rid of them at once: why they have not been in similar danger every year since the first attempt was made, I know not; certain it is, that it is the only reform measure that can ever be effectual. Guy Fawkes and his confederates, whether Popish or Protestant, from the disregard of human life, certainly proved themselves the founders of a party, still existing, whose motto is, “Measures and not Men.”
But to proceed: Mr O’Gallagher had never before attempted to interfere with the vested rights of urchins on that day; being, however, in a most particular irascible humour, instead of a whole, he made it known that there would only be a half, holiday, and we were consequently all called in for morning lessons instead of carrying about, as we had intended, the effigy of the only true reformer that ever existed in this country.
This made us all very sulky and discontented in the first place, and our anxiety to get out of school was so great, that the lessons were not very perfect in the second. The ferrule and rod were called out and liberally administered; but what was our horror and dismay when Mr O’Gallagher, about an hour before dinner, announced to us that all the squibs and crackers, with which our pockets were crammed, were to be given up immediately; and that, as we had not said our lessons well, there would be no half-holiday, the whole school were in mute despair.
One by one were the boys summoned up to the throne of Mr O’Gallagher, and their pockets searched by Phil Mooney, who emptied them of their pyrotechnical contents, all of which were deposited on the daïs of Mr O’Gallagher’s throne, which, I have before observed, was composed of two empty claret cases turned upside down, surmounted by another, on which Mr O’Gallagher sat, all three covered with old green baize.
By the time that the whole school had been rifled, the heap of fireworks was very considerable, and Mr O’Gallagher, to prevent any of them being recovered by the boys, lifted up the claret case on which he sat, and which was on the top of the other two, and desired Phil Mooney to put them all underneath it. This was done; Mr O’Gallagher resumed his seat, and the lessons continued till the dinner hour arrived, but, alas! not the half-holiday or the fireworks.
The boys went out; some mournful, some angry, some sulky, some frightened; a few, a very few, declaiming against such injustice.