While they had been quite little boys, the scrapes they got into
in the School hadn't much mattered to any one; but now they were in the
upper school, all wrong-doers from which were sent up straight to the
Doctor at once. So they began to come under his notice; and as they were
a sort of leaders in a small way amongst their own contemporaries, his
eye, which was everywhere, was upon them.
It was a toss-up whether they turned out well or ill, and so they were
just the boys who caused most anxiety to such a master. You have been
told of the first occasion on which they were sent up to the Doctor, and
the remembrance of it was so pleasant that they had much less fear of
him than most boys of their standing had. "It's all his look," Tom used
to say to East, "that frightens fellows. Don't you remember, he never
said anything to us my first half-year for being an hour late for
locking-up?"
The next time that Tom came before him, however, the interview was of
a very different kind. It happened just about the time at which we have
now arrived, and was the first of a series of scrapes into which our
hero managed now to tumble.
The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not very clear stream, in which
chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) plentiful
enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack, but no fish worth
sixpence either for sport or food.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219