“Tchish! tchish! Silence!” said Mr Rebble, giving three stamps on the floor. “Now go on, Dicksee.”
“I say, do listen,” said the boy by my side. “He isn’t well, and I gave him a dose this morning.”
“You did?” I said. “You hit him?”
“No, no,” said the boy, laughing. “I often do though—a miserable sneak. I gave him a dose of medicine. He had been eating too many of Polly Hopley’s cakes. My father is a doctor!” he added importantly.
“Oh!” I said.
“I say, do listen. Did you ever hear such a whine?”
As he spoke, I heard the big, stoutly-built boy give a tremendous sniff, and then go on reading.
“I love Penny Lope—Penny Lope is loved by me.”
“Pen-el-o-pe!” cried the usher angrily, as he snatched the book from the boy’s hands, closed it, and boxed his ears with it, right and left, over and over again. “You dumkopf!” he shouted; “you muddy-brained ass! you’ll never learn anything. You’re more trouble than all the rest of the boys put together. There, be off to your seat, and write that piece out twenty-five times, and then learn it by heart.”
“Ow, ow, ow! sniff, sniff, snork!”