quence was of advantage to a nation; but actually, and in very truth, to get a cup of Sleath’s chocolate. I believe the old gentleman was what is called a bon-vivant, and now that the shadow of his power no longer darkens my mind, I can’t help thinking that some of the numerous half-holidays which he gave us, ostensibly because the monitors, or some amongst them, had done Latin verses of a very remarkable and entrancing character, in reality fell to our lot because the Doctor wanted a half-holiday for himself. As it was we had three half-holdays a-week, which was a fair enough allowance in all conscience; but Sleath generally threw in two or three more in the course of a month. The ceremony of allowing this additional recreation was performed in the following way. Just before prayers and dismissal the Doctor would ascend the bad eminence from which he used in his sterner moods to cane the little boys, with a magnificently bound volume under his arm, which contained fair copies of the Sapphics, or Alcaics, which had procured for the school the comfort of a little additional recreation, and announce the gratifying intelligence in this manner: “There will be a play to-day for the compositions of South Major, South Minor, Spolworthy, and Jobs.” We were duly grateful to the young poets, but I can scarcely be doing the old Doctor wrong when I think that his appreciation of their performances was more highly strung whenever he wanted the afternoon for playing purposes on his own account.
The sub-master in my day was . By a singular coincidence between the character and the christian names of this gentleman, his initials ran thus—W. A. C. Now insert an H. between the W. and the A. and the result will express the operation which he was ever performing on the persons of the boys under his care throughout school-hours. He really liked to cane the boys—he seemed to fancy they enjoyed the operation as much as he did, and had invented forms of torture of a playful kind for our benefit. His most dexterous piece of manipulation was this. The patient held out his hand, and would strike the end of the cane which he held—near the holding point of course—on his own disengaged arm. The effect of this was that the punishing end came down with a jerk upon the sufferer’s hand; but he had attained such a high degree of dexterity that he could chip off the end of a nail, and finally bring the cane back on the rebound well on the backs of the fingers. The pain was exquisite on a cold morning, and how would chuckle, and grin, and show his false teeth—you could see the gold about them—whilst the wretched boy danced about under the affliction. I do not believe that he was a man of unkindly nature for all that; but custom had deadened in him all sense of the torture he was inflicting upon others. It was not a pleasant thing to come in late when had been dining out the day before, and was suffering from headache. As the gentleman who was the lowest master at the time I entered the school still survives, and is still, I believe, connected with it, I will forbear to name him. If I made further mention of him it would only be for good, for even now that so many years are gone by I still retain a recollection of his kindness to the little urchins who, I dare say, gave him trouble enough, and taxed his patience at times almost beyond endurance. Nor will I speak of the fourth master by name, though he has long since gone to his account. It gives me still a shudder when I think of the savage manner in which he used to cane the boys whenever he became excited—and he was very often excited. As it turned out there was a physical reason for these violent outbreaks of temper; but he was clearly an unfit person during the later years of his scholastic rule to be entrusted with the charge of boys. I have always heard that in private life he was respected by those who knew him; but I can only say, that if you would arrive at a just notion of terrorism, imagine yourself to be a boy of about twelve years of age, standing up with at your back with a cane in his hand, and conjugating the verb χρυσόω. There was only one boy who ever overcame him in my time, and this was a small damp-looking youth, who possessed the faculty of uttering the most appalling and awful yell that ever passed from human lips: you might have heard it out in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Now, as all the classes or forms were indoctrinated in sound learning under one and the same roof, it was not pleasant for to find himself put in the position of a ruthless tormentor, if it was only that Sleath was there to hear the yells. The boy would stare at him for a second or two before the blow fell, and then writhe about like a wounded snake, whilst he howled in the manner suggested. would dance round him all the while, and call him a young dog, a young rascal, and what not; but the lad would keep his eye on the cane, and stand ready for a fresh scream as it fell.
I would not, however, do such injustice to the noble foundation of Dean Colet as to leave it to be supposed that it was a mere torture-house. There was a great deal too much caning, to be sure; but we had our moments and hours of delight. How good the hot rolls and pats of fresh butter were when eaten by hungry boys in those old cloisters, the more so that they were the captives of our bows and spears. We were liable to punishment if we were caught either eundo redeundo; but this only added zest to the rolls and butter. What entrancing moments have I not spent at Mother Shand’s, who kept the “tuck-shop” in one of the dark streets near Doctors’ Commons. How delicious were the hot three-cornered cranberry tarts! Oh! to have the faculty of feeling that juicy rapture once more! and the full cloying voluptuousness of the sausage-rolls! There were, too, periods of intense happiness when we effected our escape to the coal-lighters which lay snugly in the mud at Paul’s Wharf, not the noble structure at which the Waterman’s steamers now call for passengers, but then a mere Thames Hard. A game of follow-my-leader over those coal-lighters was not a thing to be lightly spoken of, nor a pull on the river whenever we could club our half-pence together in sufficient quantity to hire a boat for an hour. What a