“I don’t remember any thing about that,” replied Holloway; “I don’t know who was so good as to teach me, but I know I was so good as to learn fast enough, which is a goodness, I’ve a notion, some folks will never have to boast of—so trot, and fetch the bowl for me, do you hear, and set up the nine-pins. You’ve sense enough to do that, have not you? and as for your lesson, I’ll drive that into your head by and by, if I can,” added he, rapping with his knuckles upon the little boy’s head.
“As to my lesson,” said the boy, putting aside his head from the insulting knuckles, “I had rather try and make it out by myself, if I can.”
“If you can!” repeated Holloway, sneering; “but we all know you can’t.”
“Why can’t he, Holloway?” exclaimed Howard, with a raised voice, for he was no longer master of his indignation.
“Why can’t he?” repeated Holloway, looking round upon Howard, with a mixture of surprise and insolence. “You must answer that question yourself, Howard: I say he can’t.”
“And I say he can, and he shall,” replied Howard; “and he shall have time to learn: he’s willing, and, I’ll answer for it, able to learn; and he shall not be called a dunce; and he shall have time; and he shall have justice.”
“Shall! shall! shall!” retorted Holloway, vociferating with a passion of a different sort from Howard’s. “Pray, sir, who allowed you to say shall to me? and how dare you to talk in this here style to me about justice?—and what business have you, I should be glad to know, to interfere between me and my fag? What right have you to him, or his time either? And if I choose to call him a dunce forty times a day, what then? he is a dunce, and he will be a dunce to the end of his days, I say, and who is there thinks proper to contradict me?”
“I,” said Howard, firmly; “and I’ll do more than contradict you—I’ll prove that you are mistaken. Oliver, bring your book to me.”
“Oliver, stir at your peril!” cried Holloway, clinching his fist with a menacing gesture: “nobody shall give any help to my fag but myself, sir,” added he to Howard.
“I am not going to help him, I am only going to prove to him that he may do it without your help,” said Howard.