At the sound of their names, these gentlemen appeared. Conscience, and prudence, alike induced me to push Jack Windsor in front of me, because he was both broad and thick.
CHAPTER XVI. NO EXTRAS.
Being older now, by several years, than when I had expected to be cut up all alive, and having been taught by Professor Megalow, that science is not of necessity cruel, I managed to sleep pretty well that night, and resolved to be brave in the morning. And truly there was no great need for courage; which rather disappointed me, and cast a slur upon my value, as a boy of exceptional interest. Not one of the four Professors took the trouble to look twice at me; each had his whole time taken up, in fighting for his own tongue, and purse. Their payment was to be by head of pupils—whether they fitted the head, or not—and being four in number, they put universal knowledge into four departments, each with a bigger name than the other. And each of our chaps, without ever having heard what the meaning of these big names was, had to put down his own (however short it might be) under sixteen columns, out of thirty-two, headed with the titles of the mysterious studies. Each of the Professors was to take eight sciences, for the subjects of his lectures; and most unfairly we were not allowed to know the human names presiding over each humanity. Every single boy of us wanted to sign to be under Professor Chocolous; not only because (as a general rule) great fun can be had with a German, and he is nearly always easy-tempered, familiar, and kind-hearted; but also because we had heard of his ambition to transmit a nascent tail to his descendants, and what could be finer than to help in its establishment? And next to him, we wanted to be under Mullicles, although about him we knew very little; except that he looked very soft, and expected to be disintegrated, without notice, into his component particles. On the other hand, Brachipod was as sharp, and full of points, as a cupping instrument; and Jargoon as dry, and creaky with long words, as a slow steam-roller pounding granite.
With heavy dismay I sate down, and gazed at the broad sheet laid before me. At the top were placed alphabetically the names of the thirty-two sciences proposed; names which it must have been anguish to conceive, agony to pronounce, and despair to remember. Under each name was a column, for the hapless victim to inscribe his own; and at the bottom a merciful notice—"No pupil need enter for more than sixteen of the above studies, during the present term. But all will be expected, in the ensuing term, to proceed to those which they now pretermit. The fee for each course of lectures is one guinea, payable in advance."
Although I could get on with Homer pretty well, and had read the first book of Herodotus, and one of "Porson's Four," and some Xenophon, it took me a long time to make out the name of any one of those sciences. I turned to my Lexicon, and sought for some, and for others I hunted in my Latin Dictionary, and seemed to get near some, but not to be sure; while of others there was no vestige. I was not aware yet, that the authors of these words are as rash with the Classics, as they are with logic, and maltreat the dead languages, as freely as the living.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," Jack Windsor said; "I'll go in for all thirty-two; and let father stump up, if he's got the blunt for it. Here goes 'John Windsor,' thirty twice over."
What a flood of light those plain words shed on my foggy, and thickly-fibred brain, unwitting as yet of the Athenian prototypes of all the Pansophists, pea for pea, in the pods of Aristophanes! The blunt was the point of all points with these hungry professors; and none could be got out of me. And yet, I should never have thought of that, without Jack's plain way of putting it. So I squared my elbow, and sprang my pen, and took care that the ink in it was not too round, and I said, "Don't jerk my elbow, Jack; it is no time for larks of any sort." And then I wrote, in fair hand, across all thirty-two columns, these simple words. "Father don't pay for extras. They tried it on before, but he would not have it. Signed, Thomas Upmore; witness, John Windsor."
This was a bold stroke of mine; and it succeeded, as a bold stroke often does, when it has the force of truth behind it. As soon as all these signatures of zealots for new learning (of whom a great many could not spell their own names) had been received in "Council," by our new Principal, and his four "highly-cultured coadjutors"—oh Lord, where is good English buried?—there came a squeaky call, from their sacred cell (as different from old Rum's sonorous, "send him hither," as the cry of a mouse behind the wainscot is from the roar of a lion) and the boy who had the longest ears made it out to be—"the presence of Thomas Upmore is required."