“So they have,” exclaimed Paul; “oh, I say, that’s too much; I’ll let them know I’m not a thing.”
“Yes, you are a thing, isn’t he, Padger? A regular it,” exclaimed the vindictive Bramble. “Yah, boo, old ‘its,’ both of you.”
“Hold hard,” said some one, just as the usual hostilities were about to commence. “Listen to this.” And he read the next “regulation”:—
“Immediate steps are to be taken to pickle a Tadpole as a specimen for the school museum. The following is a recipe for this. Take the ugliest, dirtiest, noisiest, and most ignorant specimen that can be found. Lift it carefully with a pair of tongs into a bath full of vinegar. Close the lid and let it remain there to soak for a week. At the end of that time lift it out and scrape it well all over with a sharp substance, to get off the first coating of grime. Soak again for another week and scrape again, and so on till the ninth or tenth coating is removed. After that the creature will appear thinner than when it began. Hang it up to dry in a clean place, and be sure no other Guinea-pigs or Tadpoles come near it. Then put it in a clean gown, and quickly, before it can get at the ink, put it in a large glass bottle and fasten down the stopper. Label it, ‘Specimen of a curious reptile formerly found at Saint Dominic’s. Now happily extinct.’”
“There you are,” said Paul, when, after much blundering and sticking at words, this remarkable paragraph had been read through. “There you are, Bramble, my boy; what do you think of that?” Bramble had no difficulty in intimating what he thought of it in pretty strong language, and for some little time the further reading of the Dominican was suspended.
When, however, the row was over, the group had been joined by several of the elder boys, who appeared to appreciate Simon’s poem, “An Adventure outside the Dormitory Door.” It was called an “epick,” and began thus. The reader must be contented with quite a short extract:—
“Outside the Dormitory door
I walked me slow upon the floor
And just outside the Doctor’s study
A youth I met all in a hurry;
His name perhaps I had better not tell
But like a snail retire into my shell.”
This last simile had evidently particularly delighted the poet. So much so, that he brought it in at the close of every succeeding verse. The “epick” went on, of course, to unravel the threads of the “adventure,” and to intimate pretty plainly who “the youth” referred to was. To any one not interested in the poet or his epic the production was a dull one, and the moral at the end was not quite clear even to the most intellectual.
“Now I must say farewell; yet stay, methinks
How many many youths do sit on brinks.
Oh joy to feel the soft breeze sigh
And in the shady grove to wipe the eye,
It makes me feel a man I know full well,
But like a snail I’ll now retire within my shell.”
These were the only articles in the Dominican that afforded any amusement. The remainder of the paper, made up of the usual articles sneering at the Sixth and crowing over the school generally, were very tame. The result of the Nightingale Scholarship was announced as follows:—