Now, I never had any great amount of pluck, which is a steadfast element; while all my elements were light and fleeting, and never would stand up together (as in a fine character they must do) without going up into the air, and turning round. A miserable shiver went through my heart, and turned my bright cheeks to a sad pale blue—so the other fellows said; though it recked me naught what manner of boy I might be, to look at.
"Tommy, keep your pecker up;" Jack Windsor hit me a slap on the back, to impress this counsel, which would have taken all my breath away, if it had not been gone already; "think of your dad, and all the money he is making. Stick well up to them, that's the only ticket. Make them all shake in their shoes, dear Tommy. They will send for me next. If you frighten them well, you will give me pluck to go on with it."
This was all very nice, from his own point of view; but I heartily wished that he had to go first, to show me the right way of doing it.
"Oh, Jack, you are so brave," I said, "if you would only come with me, and make believe you had been sent for too, I should take it so very kind of you!"
"Don't you wish you may catch it?" he replied, turning round, to be ready for the path of retreat.
"Well, at any rate, come to the door," said I; "to know that you are there, will be better than nothing."
"Oh bother, don't be such a funk," Jack answered; "why, Tommy, they won't eat you." And he took good care that they should not eat him, by bolting, as fast as his fat legs would go.
None of this tended to relieve my mind; but I tried to remember Achilles, and Hector, and all the brave men I had been reading of; yet in spite of them all, I took good care, so far as trembling hands allowed, to leave the door behind me open. It was now in my power, after fifteen years of growth, to go at such a pace with the wind behind me—and any wind blowing from a scientific point would surely find itself behind me—that if I could only get one yard's start, all the science yet invented—with the Devil at the tail of it—might break its wind without coming up with me. Dat vires animus. The whole of my animus was up and eager. I thought of all these wise men in our clot-pit; and out of despair I plucked hope, and defiance.
The longest dining-table in our hall, which would take thirty boys, and their plates, on each side, had been proved to be not half long enough for the length of the papers necessary for the lantern jaws of science. Accordingly, three long boards, upon which Dr. Rumbelow's Hermes had cleaned our knives, had been brought from his out-house, and set up, with green baize over them, to carry ink and papers. Our new master sat at the end of this length, with a brace of Professors, on his right hand and his left. To my innermost parts I recalled these four, and was amazed to find that they knew not me. Principal Crankhead waved his hand, for me to stand silent at the bottom of the table; and then they all turned round, and stared at me, with the exception of Herr Chocolous, who stood, with his chair pushed under the table, to assert his upright principles. And he seemed to me to be labouring not to laugh.