"I said I was just carving my name.
"'I see you have just finished it,' he said.
"I didn't quite tumble to his meaning at first, because I had only got as far as G. RUB,—and then I saw that the whole thing as it stood spelled 'GRUB.' Lord, how the swine laughed! He told the form all about it, and of course they all laughed too, the sniggering, grovelling sweeps!
"Then Stinker said: 'A happy thought has just occurred to me. I shall not have your name obliterated in the usual manner'—they cut it out and put in a fresh bit of wood, and charge you a bob—' this time. I have thought of a more excellent way.' (He always talks like that, in a sort of slow drawl.) 'We will leave your name exactly as you have carved it. But remember, young man, not another letter do you add to that name so long as you are a member of this school. A Grub you are,—a nasty little destructive Grub,—and a Grub you shall remain, so far as that desk is concerned, for all time. And if ever in future years you come down here as a distinguished Old Boy—say a K.C.B. or an Alderman,—remember to bring your numerous progeny'—oh, he's a sarcastic devil!—'to this room, and show them what their papa once was!'
"Of course all the chaps roared again, at the idea of me with a lot of kids. But that wasn't all. He switched off that tap quite suddenly, and said—
"'Seriously, though, I am not pleased about this. Carving your name on a desk is not one of the seven deadly sins, but doing so when I have told you not to is. This silly street-boy business has been getting too prevalent lately: we shall have you chalking things up on the walls next. I particularly gave out last week, when this new desk was put in, that no one was to touch it. Come to me at twelve, and I will cane you.' And he did," concluded Gerald, with feeling.
"What a shame!" said Dilly, who was sitting by. "All for carving a silly old desk."
"He was perfectly right," said Gerald, his innate sense of justice rising to the surface at once. "I wasn't lammed for cutting the desk at all: it was for doing it after I had been told not to."
"It's the same thing," said Dilly, with feminine disregard for legal niceties.
"Same thing? Rot! Fat lot you know about it, Dilly. It's a rum thing," he added to me in a reflective bawl, "but women never can understand the rules of any game. Stinker is a bargee, but he was quite right to lam me. It was for disobedience; and disobedience is cheek; and no master worth his salt will stand cheek. So Stinker says, and he is right for once."