“Please, sir,” squeaked the lordly Bramble, “Greenfield junior is trying to knock me over.”
“I was not,” shouted Stephen; “he was squashing me with his foot, and I moved it away.”
“Really, Bramble,” said Mr Rastle, “you are either very unfortunate or very badly behaved. Come and stand on this empty form beside my desk. There will be no danger here of ‘squashing’ any one’s leg or of being knocked over. Come at once.”
So Mr Bramble took no advantage by his last motion, and served the rest of his term of penal servitude, in the face of the entire class, under the immediate eye of Mr Rastle.
Directly class was over, Stephen had to go and wait upon Loman for a particular purpose, which the reader must hear of in due time.
Chapter Six.
Mr Cripps the younger.
Loman was a comparatively new boy at Saint Dominic’s. He had entered eighteen months ago, in the Fifth Form, having come direct from another school. He was what many persons would call an agreeable boy, although for some reason or other he was never very popular. What that something was, no one could exactly define. He was clever, and good-tempered, and inoffensive. He rarely quarrelled or interfered with any one, and he had been known to do more than one good-natured act. But whether it was that he was conceited, or selfish, or not quite straight, or a little bit of all three, he never made any very great friends at Saint Dominic’s, and since he had got into the Sixth and been made a monitor, he had quite lost the favour of his old comrades in the Fifth.