If he's got nothing odd about him, and
answers straightforward, and holds his head up, he gets on. Now, you'll
do very well as to rig, all but that cap. You see I'm doing the handsome
thing by you, because my father knows yours; besides, I want to please
the old lady. She gave me half a sov. this half, and perhaps'll double
it next, if I keep in her good books."
There's nothing for candour like a lower-school boy, and East was a
genuine specimen--frank, hearty, and good-natured, well-satisfied with
himself and his position, and choke-full of life and spirits, and
all the Rugby prejudices and traditions which he had been able to get
together in the long course of one half-year during which he had been at
the School-house.
And Tom, notwithstanding his bumptiousness, felt friends with him at
once, and began sucking in all his ways and prejudices, as fast as he
could understand them.
East was great in the character of cicerone. He carried Tom through
the great gates, where were only two or three boys. These satisfied
themselves with the stock questions, "You fellow, what's your name?
Where do you come from? How old are you? Where do you board?" and, "What
form are you in?" And so they passed on through the quadrangle and
a small courtyard, upon which looked down a lot of little windows
(belonging, as his guide informed him, to some of the School-house
studies), into the matron's room, where East introduced Tom to that
dignitary; made him give up the key of his trunk, that the matron might
unpack his linen, and told the story of the hat and of his own presence
of mind: upon the relation whereof the matron laughingly scolded him for
the coolest new boy in the house; and East, indignant at the accusation
of newness, marched Tom off into the quadrangle, and began showing
him the schools, and examining him as to his literary attainments; the
result of which was a prophecy that they would be in the same form, and
could do their lessons together.
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