"Stop the cab, Tommy; stop the cab," cried Jack; "I'll come away with you, in five minutes. I must go in and tell them, I did it for a lark. Why, I should get double the hiding that you would. My governor has got such a host of kids."
I ran to fetch Grip, that he might run behind, and I waited in the cab, for about two minutes, and then out rushed Jack, without any hat on, and jumped in, and banged up the glass, and shouted, "Jarvey, off for Maiden Lane, as hard as you can go!" Then we got out of sight in the back of the cab, and laughed, through the tears on our cheeks, at going home.
So it came to pass, that the boiling-interest was not represented any longer, in those halls of science. When my father heard what I had done, he shook my hand very heartily, and said that he never could have thought I had so much pluck; and he would not mind paying half again as much, but honestly, and on the square, you know, for my education to go on all right; and he would send them his bills, just to let them see what a sight of money their establishment had lost.
"And what language, I should like to know, was all that science to be put in? Elamites, Parthians, Medes, at least"—he said, as he looked at the paper of the fees—"to be any good value, for sixteen guineas."
"No, father," I answered; "it was all to be told us in English, every word of it; only very big words of course, such words as you couldn't make head or tail of."
"None the more honest for that," said father; "why, they make them out of their own heads! I could do that, if I chose to try. Greek and Latin is what I pay for; and this new lot don't know nought of it. If it wasn't for my knowledge of the law, I'd have a defamation action against them, for sending my only son home in a cab like this, and not have the manners to pay the fare! They have done the same thing to Jack Windsor, you say. Every mouth in the Lane will be full of it to-morrow. If John Windsor would go snacks, I should feel half inclined to consider about consulting a Solicitor. And I believe it would pay; I do believe it would. I am a public man now, and under Government I act; and such a man should not have his son kicked out, by a bunch of those dirty Professors."
"Bubbly, don't open old wounds," advised mother; "our Tommy is come home, and I am deeply thankful for it. How could they help getting rid of him, when they never could have taught him half he knows? They knew that he had served his time with their master, the great Professor Megalow; and how could they open their mouths before him? And how could they hold up their heads before Tommy, when they thought of the pit he led them into?"
"Aha, I see! That's it," cried father; "well, I musn't be angry with them after all. One good turn deserves another. And talking of that, we shall have no pits left, if what I was told to-day is true. The Vestry are going to send a man and two boys, all up through our valley, in the course of next month, with sticks and a line, to take measurements, and all the rest of it, for this drainage scheme. Well, it won't hurt us; but I doubt very greatly whether the smell they are sure to make will be wholesome for my workmen. I must try to leave more of my stuff about, to keep the air fresh and the bad smells away. Sophy, I must be off; you might give me a nip of Hollands, before I light my pipe. And while I am at work, you and Tommy can put your heads together, concerning the next thing to be done with a young scamp, who has been expelled from school."