TOM BROWN'S
Tom was flogged next morning, and a few days afterward met Velveteens, and presented him with half-a-crown for giving up the rod claim, and they became sworn friends; and I regret to say that Tom had many more fish from under the willow that May-fly season, and was never caught again by Velveteens.
It wasn't three weeks before Tom, and now East by his side, were again in the awful presence. This time, however, the Doctor was not so terrible. A few days before, they had been fagged at fives to fetch the balls that went off the court. While standing watching the game, they saw five or six nearly new balls hit on the top of the school. "I say, Tom," said East, when they were dismissed, "couldn't we get those balls somehow?"
"Let's try, anyhow."
So they reconnoitred the walls carefully, borrowed a coal-hammer from old Stumps, bought some big nails, and, after one or two attempts, scaled the schools, and possessed themselves of huge quantities of fives'-balls. The place pleased them so much that they spent all their spare time there, scratching and cutting their names on the top of every tower; and at last, having exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing H. East, T. Brown, on the minute-hand of the great clock. In the doing of which they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the clock's economy. So next morning, when masters and boys came trooping down to prayers, and entered the quadrangle, the injured minute-hand was indicating three minutes to the hour. They all pulled up, and took their time. When the hour struck, doors were closed, and half the school late. Thomas being sent to make inquiry, discovers their names on the minute-hand, and reports accordingly; and they are sent for, a knot of their friends making derisive and pantomimic allusions to what their fate will be, as they walk off.
But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much of it, and only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by heart,
[ 202 ]
