SCHOOL DAYS
ing to the house, I'll allow, and had had them for years, and that the Doctor put them down. But what good ever came of them? Only rows with all the keepers for ten miles round; and big-side Hare and Hounds is better fun ten times over. What else?"
No answer.
"Well, I won't go on. Think it over for yourselves: you'll find, I believe, that he don't meddle with any one that's worth keeping. And mind now, I say again, look out for squalls if you will go your own way and that way ain't the Doctor's, for it 'll lead to grief. You all know that I'm not the fellow to back a master through thick and thin. If I saw him stopping football or cricket or bathing or sparring, I'd be as ready as any fellow to stand up about it. But he don't—he encourages them; didn't you see him out to-day for half an hour watching us? [loud cheers for the Doctor]; and he's a strong, true man, and a wise one, too, and a public-school man, too. [Cheers.] And so let's stick to him, and talk no more rot, and drink his health as the head of the house. [Loud cheers.] And now I've done blowing up, and very glad I am to have done. But it's a solemn thing to be thinking of leaving a place which one has lived in and loved for eight years; and if one can say a word for the good of the old house at such a time, why, it should be said, whether bitter or sweet. If I hadn't been proud of the house and you—ay, no one knows how proud!—I shouldn't be blowing you up. And now, let's get to singing. But before I sit down I must give you a toast to be drunk with three-times-three and all the honors. It's a toast which I hope every one of us, wherever he may go hereafter, will never fail to drink when he thinks of the brave, bright days of his boyhood. It's a toast which should bind us all together, and to those who've gone before, and who'll come after us here. It is the dear old School-house—the best house of the best school in England!"
My dear boys, old and young, you who have belonged, or do belong, to other schools and other houses, don't begin throwing
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