Stephen, feeling himself called upon, stood up.
“It was me,” he said.
“It was I, would be better grammar,” said Mr Rastle, quietly.
Mr Rastle was a ruddy young man, with a very good-humoured face, and a sly smile constantly playing at the corners of his mouth. He no doubt guessed the cause of the disturbance, for he asked, “Was any one pinching you?”
“Go it,” growled Bramble, in a savage whisper. “Say it was me, you sneak.”
Stephen said, No, no one had pinched him; but finished up his sentence with another “Oh!” as the gentle Bramble gave him a sharp side-kick on the ankle as he stood.
Mr Rastle’s face darkened as he perceived this last piece of by-play.
“Bramble,” said he, “oblige me by standing on the form for half an hour. I should be sorry to think you were as objectionable as your name implies. Sit down, Greenfield.”
And then the class resumed, with Master Bramble perched like a statue of the sulky deity on his form, muttering threats against Greenfield all the while, and the most scathing denunciations against all who might be even remotely connected with big brothers, and mammies, and blub-babies.
Stephen, who was beginning to feel himself much more at home at Saint Dominic’s, betrayed no visible terror at these menaces, and only once took any notice of his exalted enemy, when the latter attempted not only to stand on the form, but upon a tail of Stephen’s jacket, and a bit of the flesh of his leg at the same time. Then he gave the offending foot a knock with his fist and an admonitory push.