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 honours. 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.
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