"Yes."

"He's an awful dandy about his gloves too. By and by, when he's had his licking,--two lickings, for you shall give him one too,--I'll tell you what we'll always say to him."

"Well?"

"We'll say, 'What sized gloves do you take?'"

"But he will not know anything about the gloves," I said, interrupting a laugh. "We shan't have gloves on then."

"No more we shall. What a pity! That spoils my joke. Never mind.

Let's dress, and go and look at the gardens--perhaps there may be some good b.u.t.terflies out in the sunshine; and as soon as cook's down, I'll beg some hot water to bathe my nose."

But Mercer did not put in a pet.i.tion for the hot water. "It's no good,"

he said, when we were down by the gardens, soon after we were dressed.

"It's like physic; we've got to take it, so we may as well face it all out and get it over."

Very good philosophy, of course, but I did not feel hopeful about what was to come.

It all began at breakfast, where we were no sooner seated, than Mr Rebble came by with the new a.s.sistant master.

"Bless me! Good gracious! Look, Mr Hasnip. Did you ever see such a nose? No, no, Mercer: sit up, sir."

Poor Mercer had ducked down to hide his bulbous organ, but he had to sit up while Mr Hasnip brought his smoke-tinted spectacles to bear upon it.

"Terrible!" he said. "The boy must have been fighting."

"Yes; and here's the other culprit," cried Mr Rebble. "Look at this boy's eye and mouth. Have you two boys been fighting?"

"Yes, sir," I said in a low voice.

"Disgraceful! Well, the Doctor must know of it, and he will punish you both severely."

The two masters moved off to their table, and a buzz of excitement ran through the nearest boys, while, as I looked up, I could see Burr major standing up in his place and looking over toward us.

"I say," whispered Mercer, "here's a game; they think we two have been fighting together like old Lom did. Let 'em think so. Don't you say a word."

"But it will be so dishonest," I expostulated.

"No, it won't. If they ask you who you fought with, you must say nothing."

"Not tell them?"

"No. The Doctor will say you are stubborn and obstinate, and threaten to expel you; but he don't mean it, and you've got to hold your tongue, as I told you before. We never split on each other here."

"Will the Doctor know, do you think?" I asked, as we went on with our breakfast.

"Sure to. Old Reb's safe to go and tell him directly he comes."

I soon heard that this opinion was shared, for one of the bigger boys came over from his seat near Burr major.

"I say," he said, "Reb's sure to tell the Doctor about you two. Shall you say that you had a round with big Burr and old Fatsee?"

"Did Eely tell you to come and ask?" said Mercer, glancing toward where Burr major was anxiously watching in our direction.

"Never you mind. Are you going to tell?"

"What is it to you?"

"A good deal. You tell, and half a dozen of us mean to wallop you two, and you won't like that."

"Oh, I shouldn't mind, and Burr junior wouldn't. I know old Squirmy sent you to ask because--there, look at him--he's all in a fiddle for fear the Doctor should punish him--a great coward!--for knocking smaller boys about."

"Look here," whispered the amba.s.sador, "don't you be quite so saucy."

"Shall if I like. You go and tell old Eely, old slimy Snip, that I'm not like his chosen friend d.i.c.ksee, a miserable, tale-telling sneak. I shan't let out about Burr major being such a coward, and Burr here won't tell about fat-headed d.i.c.ksee, so now you can go."

"And you'd better keep to it," said the boy, looking at me fiercely; but I did not feel afraid, for Mercer's project about the gloves had sent a glow through me, and, as he said, our time would come.

But I felt anything but comfortable an hour later, when I was back in school, after the breakfast had been cleared, for I could see that the boys had their eyes upon us, and were whispering, and I knew it related to the punishment to come.

The worst moments were when the Doctor entered and took his place in his pulpit amidst a suppressed rustle, and I set my teeth as I stood up, and shrank down again at the earliest opportunity, feeling as if the Doctor's eye was fixed upon me, and, as it happened, just as I was wishing he would speak, and, as I felt it, put me out of my misery, he uttered one of his tremendous coughs, which had far more effect in producing silence than Mr Rebble's words.

"Thomas Mercer, Burr junior," he said loudly, "come up here."

"I wish I had run away this morning," was my first thought, but it was gone directly, and I was glad I had not, as I walked as firmly as I could, side by side with my brother offender, right up to the front of the Doctor's desk, where he sat frowning upon us like a judge without his wig and gown.

"Hah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in his most awe-inspiring tones, as he looked at us searchingly. "No doubt about it. Disgraceful marks, like a pair of rough street boys instead of young gentlemen. So you two have been fighting?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir."

"I am glad that you have frankness enough to own to it. You, Mercer, knew better; but you, sir, had to learn that you have broken one of the most rigid rules of my establishment. I object to fighting, as savage, brutal, and cruel, and I will not allow it here. Mr Rebble, give these boys heavy impositions, and you will both of you stop in and study every day for a fortnight under Mr Hasnip's directions. Some princ.i.p.als would have administered the cane or the birch, but I object to those instruments as being, like fighting, savage, brutal, and cruel, only to be used as a last resource, when ordinary punishments suitable for gentlemen fail. I presume that you make no defence?" He continued rolling out his words in a broad volume of sound. "You own that you have both been fighting? Silence is a full answer. Return to your places."

I heard Mercer utter a low sigh, and my breast felt overcharged as we went back to our desks, where we were no sooner seated than Mercer whispered,--

"Never mind, old chap! we'll help one another; and he never asked who we had been fighting with, so we didn't get extra punishment for being stubborn. Oh dear me, what a rum place school is!"

Poor Mercer, he had yet to learn, as I had, that the school was only the world in miniature, and that we should find our life there almost exactly the same when we grew up to be men.

"I wonder what Mr Hasnip will set us to do," I thought, as the clock at last told that the morning's studies were nearly at an end, and I was still wondering when the boys rose, and Eely Burr, d.i.c.ksee, and the other big fellow, Hodson, came round behind us, and the first whispered,--

"Lucky for you two that you didn't tell. My! I shouldn't have liked to be you, if you had."

"Go and scent your handkerchief," said Mercer angrily. "I'd tell if I liked."

"If they weren't here, I'd punch your ugly head," whispered Eely, and they all three went out, leaving us two alone in the great schoolroom, with the ushers at one end, and the Doctor, contrary to his usual custom, still in his desk at the other.

"Stand, Thomas Mercer and Burr junior," he said. "Or no--Mercer can keep his seat."