This was Mr Rastle’s way. He very rarely hauled a boy over the coals before the whole class.
But after the lesson he beckoned Stephen into his study.
“I’m afraid you got the worst of that fight,” he said.
Stephen, who by this time knew Mr Rastle too well to be afraid of him, and too well, also, not to be quite frank with him, answered meekly, “The fellow was bigger than me.”
“I should guess that by the state of your face. Now, I don’t want to know what the fight was about, though I dare say you’d like to tell me (Stephen was boiling to tell him). You small boys have such peculiar reasons for fighting, you know, no one can understand them.”
“But this was because—”
“Hush! Didn’t I tell you I won’t hear what it was about, sir!” said Mr Rastle, sharply. “Did you shake hands afterwards?”
“No, I didn’t, and I won’t!” exclaimed Stephen, forgetting, in his indignation, to whom he was speaking.
“Then,” said Mr Rastle, quietly, “write me out one hundred lines of Caesar, Greenfield; and when you have recollected how to behave yourself, we will talk more about this. You can go.”
Mr Rastle was a queer man; he never took things as one expected. When Stephen expected him to be furious he was as mild as a lamb. There was no making him out.