'"Friend, go thy way," commenced a drab-coloured gentleman, rising; "go thy way, and——"
'"The pie's yours, sir!" exclaimed Master Diggle, politely; and placing it before the astounded speaker, hastily made his escape.'
It was very improper, certainly; and we cannot help hoping that the Head Master of Dean Colet's famous school heard of the impertinence, and administered to the 'nether-urchin' of the future military pedagogue the sharp flogging which he undoubtedly deserved. But one cannot help laughing at these schoolboy absurdities; and the naughtiest boys, if looked after by a schoolmaster like Tom Hood's,
'Who never spoilt the child and spared the rod,
But spoilt the rod and never spared the child,'
often turn out the ablest men. There is incipient power in these wayward vivacities of youth.
Musical amateurs of the present day of the strenuous class that elicited Charles Lamb's verses beginning—
'Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites; for my part
I do not care a farthing candle