"
"To be sure, Tommy," said East demurely, but with a merry twinkle in his
eye. "Your new doctrine too, old fellow," added he, "when one comes to
think of it, is a cutting at the root of all school morality. You'll
take away mutual help, brotherly love, or, in the vulgar tongue, giving
construes, which I hold to be one of our highest virtues. For how can
you distinguish between getting a construe from another boy and using a
crib? Hang it, Tom, if you're going to deprive all our school-fellows
of the chance of exercising Christian benevolence and being good
Samaritans, I shall cut the concern."
"I wish you wouldn't joke about it, Harry; it's hard enough to see one's
way--a precious sight harder than I thought last night. But I suppose
there's a use and an abuse of both, and one'll get straight enough
somehow. But you can't make out, anyhow, that one has a right to use old
vulgus-books and copy-books."
"Hullo, more heresy! How fast a fellow goes downhill when he once gets
his head before his legs. Listen to me, Tom. Not use old vulgus-books!
Why, you Goth, ain't we to take the benefit of the wisdom and admire and
use the work of past generations? Not use old copy-books! Why, you
might as well say we ought to pull down Westminster Abbey, and put up a
go-to-meeting shop with churchwarden windows; or never read Shakespeare,
but only Sheridan Knowles.
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