“Never mind, old chap! we’ll help one another; and he never asked who we had been fighting with, so we didn’t get extra punishment for being stubborn. Oh dear me, what a rum place school is!”
Poor Mercer, he had yet to learn, as I had, that the school was only the world in miniature, and that we should find our life there almost exactly the same when we grew up to be men.
“I wonder what Mr Hasnip will set us to do,” I thought, as the clock at last told that the morning’s studies were nearly at an end, and I was still wondering when the boys rose, and Eely Burr, Dicksee, and the other big fellow, Hodson, came round behind us, and the first whispered,—
“Lucky for you two that you didn’t tell. My! I shouldn’t have liked to be you, if you had.”
“Go and scent your handkerchief,” said Mercer angrily. “I’d tell if I liked.”
“If they weren’t here, I’d punch your ugly head,” whispered Eely, and they all three went out, leaving us two alone in the great schoolroom, with the ushers at one end, and the Doctor, contrary to his usual custom, still in his desk at the other.
“Stand, Thomas Mercer and Burr junior,” he said. “Or no—Mercer can keep his seat.”
I rose with Mercer, who resumed his place.
“Burr junior,” said the Doctor, rolling out his words slowly, as if they were so precious that they ought to make a proper impression, “I sentenced you to a certain series of punishments, to endure for fourteen days; but you are new, untrained, and have been so unfortunate as to receive such education as you possess by private tuition. Under these circumstances, you are wanting in social knowledge, especially of the kind bearing upon your conduct to your fellow-workers in a school like this. In consequence, I shall make a point of looking over this your first offence, and exonerating you. That will do.”
I murmured my thanks, and remained in my place.