Thus in the depths of the cave, his chin on his hands and his eye glued to the telescope, spake the Philosopher of Esk Water Side.
I could not but admit that in the main he was right. Hugh John follows a truth with a certain slow, patient, tireless, sleuth-hound trot, which never puts him out of breath. But in the end he finishes by getting there. And now without ever moving he extorted from me the promise that, when I could (and as soon as I could) I should take in hand the task of restoring the married happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Donnan—retired from business, and fallen into the practice of idleness as a profession, and unhappiness as the wages thereof.
IX
THE NEW SHOP
Aged about Fifteen. The Cave, in July.
It wasn't a job I liked. Nor would almost anybody. Still people can't say very much to a girl, and I had been at school and so had lost my—what shall I call it?—"sensitiveness."
As Sir Toady says, the golden rule is a first-rate thing—when you leave school. Even with a little addition, it flourishes there too. But you don't want to set up as a Christian martyr at school, I can tell you. It was very noble in the time of St. Francis, and Dr. Livingstone, and these people, and now-a-days there are people to whom we have to send our sixpences—people we never see. Perhaps I shall be one when I am older, but at school—these are Sir Toady's words—you find out what boy has a down on you and down him first! It saves trouble.
Afterwards you can be as sweet and child-like as possible, and go about the world taking people in with blue Madonna eyes all your life. But at school, if you don't want to have the life of a dog, it has got to be different.
Hugh John, of course, says that the principle of school life is for everybody to obey one person. But, you see, that person is Hugh John. If they don't, most likely he will hammer them. And afterwards he will prove how they were wrong. He will do it at length, and at breadth, and at depth, and unto the fourth dimension, till even fellows who can stand up to his fists give in to him so as not to get lectured—or "jawed" as they ignorantly call it. For really what Hugh John says could be taken down and printed right off in a book.