"The dinner was set out in the room used for a schoolroom; an ill-shaped room, with walls that had been washed with salmon colour, but which were all scratched and inked. Each boy had a stool to sit upon; the cloth was coarse, though clean, and all the things set upon the table were coarse also.
"When called to dinner by a rough maidservant, Miss Evans led Bernard in by the hand, and set him by herself on a chair at the head of the table.
"'Sister,' said Mr. Evans, in a low voice, 'last come, last served—Master Low should sit below Price.'
"'Leave me to judge for myself, brother,' answered Miss Evans; 'you may depend on my judgment.'
"And Bernard kept his seat, and had the nicest bits placed on his plate.
"Bernard would have been quite as well contented, or, perhaps we may say, not in the least more discontented, had he been set down at once in his proper place, and served after the other boys.
"Then the other boys were not quite pleased; but
Stephen was told to tell them that Master Low was a parlour-boarder; and though they did not quite understand what a parlour-boarder meant, they thought it meant something, and that Bernard was to have some indulgences which they were not to have.
"Many a trick would they have played him, no doubt, if Stephen had not watched them. But as Stephen hated the spoiled child as much as they did, he never hindered their speaking ill of him, and quizzing him, when he did not hear or understand.
"Griffith soon gave him a nickname—this name was Noddy; there was no wit in it, but the boys found great amusement in talking of this Noddy, and of all his faults and follies, before the face of Bernard himself. When he asked who this Noddy was, they told him that they were sure he must have seen him very often, for his family lived at Rookdale.