"Who are you?"
Rumi-nation.
"The Master's Report."
A Tail of a Chancery Suit.
FEBRUARY.—Cutting Weather.
I have called this chapter "cutting weather," partly in compliment to the month of February, and partly in respect of my own misfortunes which you are going to read about, for I have often thought that January (which is mostly twelfth cake and holiday time) is like the first four or five years of a little boy's life; then comes dismal February, and the working days with it, when chaps begin to look out for themselves, after the Christmas and the New Year's hey-day and merry-making are over, which our infancy may well be said to be. Well can I recollect that bitter first of February, when I first launched out into the world and appeared at Dr. Swishtail's academy.
I began at school that life of prudence and economy, which I have carried on ever since. My mother gave me eighteen-pence on setting out (poor soul! I thought her heart would break as she kissed me, and bade God bless me); and besides, I had a small capital of my own, which I had amassed for a year previous. I'll tell you what I used to do. Wherever I saw six half-pence I took one. If it was asked for, I said I had taken it, and gave it back;—if it was not missed, I said nothing about it, as why should I?—those who don't miss their money don't lose their money. So I had a little private fortune of three shillings, besides mother's eighteen-pence. At school they called me the copper-merchant, I had such lots of it.
Now, even at a preparatory school, a well-regulated boy may better himself: and I can tell you I did. I never was in any quarrels: I never was very high in the class or very low; but there was no chap so much respected: and why? I'd always money. The other boys spent all their's in the first day or two, and they gave me plenty of cakes and barley-sugar then, I can tell you. I'd no need to spend my own money, for they would insist upon treating me. Well, in a week, when their's was gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the rest of the half-year, what did I do? Why, I am proud to say that three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young gentlemen at Dr. Swishtail's, came into my pocket. Suppose, for instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money? Little Bob Stubbs to be sure. "Hicks," I used to say, "I'll buy you three-halfp'orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next Saturday:" and he agreed, and next Saturday came, and he very often could not pay me more than three-halfpence, then there was the threepence I was to have the next Saturday. I'll tell you what I did for a whole half-year:—I lent a chap by the name of Dick Bunting three-halfpence the first Saturday, for threepence the next; he could not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I'm blest if I did not make him pay me three-halfpence for three and twenty weeks running, making two shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. But he was a sad dishonourable fellow, Dick Bunting; for, after I'd been so kind to him, and let him off for three-and-twenty weeks the money he owed me, holidays came, and threepence he owed me still. Well, according to the common principles of practice, after six weeks' holidays, he ought to have paid me exactly sixteen shillings, which was my due. For the
| First week the 3d. would be | 6d. |
| Second week | 1s. |
| Third week | 2s. |
| Fourth week | 4s. |
| Fifth week | 8s. |
| Sixth week | 16s. |
Nothing could be more just; and yet, will it be believed? when Bunting came back, he offered me three-halfpence! the mean, dishonest scoundrel!