Charles turned crimson. Cribs were particularly objectionable to Mr. Channing, who had forbidden their use, so far as his sons were concerned. “I could not help it, Hamish. I used the cribs for about a week. The desk made me.”
“Made you!”
“Well,” confessed Charley, “there has been a row about the cribbing. The rest had cribbed, and I had not, and somehow, through that, it came out to the second master. He asked me a lot of questions, and I was obliged to tell. It made the desk savage, and they said I must do as they did.”
“Which you complied with! Nice young gentlemen, all of you!”
“Only for five or six days, Hamish. You may see that, if you look. I am doing my lessons on the square, now, as I did before.”
“And don’t go off the square again, if you please, sir,” repeated Hamish, “or you and I may quarrel. If Mr. Channing is not here, I am.”
“You don’t know how tyrannical the college boys are.”
“Don’t I!” said Hamish. “I was a college boy rather longer than you have yet been, Master Charley.”
He sat down to the table and so cleared Charley’s difficulties that the boy soon went on swimmingly, and Hamish left him. “How do you get on, Tom?” Hamish asked.
“Better than I need,” was Tom’s answer, delivered somewhat roughly. “After the injustice done me yesterday, it does not much matter how I get on.”