“No; honour! We’ll never say a word to him!” we cried.
“Then you’ll tell all your schoolmates, and that big long hop-pole chap, what’s his name?”
“Burr major,” said Mercer eagerly.
“And that big fat-faced boy?”
“Dicksee?”
“Yes, that’s him, and I’ll give him Dicksee if he chucks stones at my Polly’s hens. We shall be having ’em lay eggs with the shells broke.”
“Oh, nonsense, Bob! We won’t tell.”
“And them two, and all the others coming and wanting leave to go fishing too.”
“No, no, I tell you,” cried Mercer, but the keeper, with a malicious twinkle in his eyes, kept on without heeding him.
“And half of ’em’ll be falling in, and t’other half tumble after ’em to pull ’em out, and the whole school getting drowned, and then, what would the Doctor say?”