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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS L 1 BRARYjM_URBANA^^ 
 
 L161— O-1096 
 
 ^
 
 \\
 
 JOHNNY ROBINSON 
 
 V L. I.
 
 JOHNNY ROBINSON; 
 
 THE STOEY OF 
 
 THE CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS OF AN 
 "INTELLIGENT ABTISAN/' 
 
 BY 
 
 'THE JOURNEYMAN ENGINEER/ 
 
 AUTHOR OP "some HABITS AND CUSTOMS OP THE WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND, 
 
 1868. 
 
 lAll rights reserved.']
 
 LONDON: 
 
 8ATILL, BDWABDS AND CO., PBINXEHS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 
 COVENT GABDEN.
 
 
 CD 
 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 CJ) 
 
 CO 
 
 TO 
 
 THOSE OF MY SCHOOLMATES 
 
 WHOM THE CHANCES AND CHANGES OF LIFE HAVE LEFT TO 
 ME AS THE FRIENDS OF MY MANHOOD, 
 
 lb Slork IS giff^dioitat^g g^bicalfb, 
 
 IN MEMORY OF THE HAPPY DAYS 
 
 « 
 
 'I 
 
 ^- 
 
 "^ "when we WERE BOYS TOGETHER. 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/johnnyrobinsonst01wrig
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ROBINSONS J^p. 1 — 16. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 do:j:estic management — my birth, christening, and 
 
 CHRISTENING " DO " pp. 17 — 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A SWELL BABY — A NEW BROTHER — THE COURT WHERE I WAS 
 BORN . pp. 38 — 51 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 I CONTINUE TO DEGENERATE, AND BECOME OP THE STREETS, 
 STREETY — WITH A VIEW TO MY REFORMATION WE CHANGE 
 OUR RESIDENCE — OUR NEW LANDLADY — IT IS DETER- 
 MINED TO SEND ME TO SCHOOL .... pj). 52 — 75 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 I AM SENT TO SCHOOL, AND FIND A GUIDE, PHILOSOPHER, 
 FRIEND, AND SWEETHEART IN MISS COOPER — INFANT- 
 SCHOOL LIFE AND TALK pp. 76 — 105-
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 I AX RESTORED TO RESPECTABILITY — LOYE AXD TOFFEE — 
 I LEAVE MRS. "WILSON's pp. 106 — 135 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANOTHER NEW BROTHER — I AM MADE, IN A PAINFULLY 
 LITERAL SENSE, "MY BROTHER'S KEEPER" — MY MONEY-BOX 
 
 pp. 136—159 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A DISCOURSE UPON WORKING-CLASS EDUCATION pp. 160 — 190 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I AM SENT TO THE BOROUGH SCHOOL — MY NEW SCHOOL, 
 SCHOOLMATES, AND MASTERS — I MAKE SPORT FOR THE 
 SCHOOL PHILISTINES, AND PASS A DECIDEDLY UNPLEASANT 
 FIRST DAY pp. 191 — 236 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I FIND A FRIEND AND PROTECTOR, AND DISCOVER THAT 
 MICKEY BRYAN IS NOT SO BAD AS I WAS INCLINED TO 
 PAINT HIM — I TAKE PART IN THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO 
 AND OTHER PLAYGROUND GAMES, AND ALTOGETHER CHANGE 
 MY OPINION RESPECTING THE SCHOOL . pp. 237 — 286 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE HOLLOW — LONG-TAILED PONY — NEW CLOTHES — SUNDAY- 
 SCHOOL — A STARTLING ACCIDENT IN CHURCH pp. 287 — 311 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I GET MY NEW SUIT, WHICH, AS WILL BE SEEN, LEADS TO A 
 FIGHT, IN WHICH I COME OFF VICTORIOUS — I ENCOUNTER 
 A STREET BOY, WHO ADDS INSULT TO INJURY, BY FIRST 
 STEALING MY BREAD AND THEN MAKING MY NOSE BLEED 
 
 — I "GET THE cane" pp.312 — 328
 
 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ROBINSONS. 
 
 O far as my reading slioweth_, it -would 
 appear to be an implied canon of aiito- 
 biograpliic composition^ that one or more chapters 
 of each work should be devoted to the family history 
 of its subject ; and as our family go upon the 
 principle that it is better to be out of the world 
 than out of the fashion_, I consider that I owe it 
 to them to do my best to comply with the rule. 
 Though; as we are a very commonplace family — 
 commonplacenesS; in fact^ being our distinguishing 
 characteristic — little can be said under tliis head 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 that is likely to interest that^ in these cases, 
 much-to-be-considered individual, the general 
 reader. In the present instance, therefore, the 
 greatest merit of the regulation chapter will be 
 to make it as brief as is consistent with what is 
 due to the family honour. 
 
 Ours, then, is a branch of the numerous and 
 proverbially Avell-known Robinson family, who 
 are generally spoken of in conjunction with the 
 equally numerous, well known, and proverbial, 
 Erown and Jones families. Sometimes when a 
 Kobinson who has commenced life at the foot of 
 the commercial ladder has worked himself up to 
 the position of a millionaire, and is going in for 
 the landed gentry business, he will so far interest 
 himself in the historic features of the family as 
 to purchase a gallery of ancestors from the 
 picture dealers, or order a coat of arms from the 
 Heralds^ Office ; but that I, a Robinson, low in 
 the scale of wealth, and with ni}^ landed interests 
 likely to be limited to a small investment in 
 some cemetery, should take an interest in the
 
 THE ROBINSONS. 3 
 
 family genealogy, is, I must confess, an ex- 
 ceptional circumstance. What first induced mc 
 to take such an interest I cannot now remember. 
 Perhaps it was in the hope of discovering 
 *' something to my advantage,^^ or it may simply 
 have been curiosity. Some of my acquaintances 
 kindly suggest that it was ^' low pride ;''■' but that 
 could scarcely have been the case, for I must 
 say that, like these acquaintances, I have never 
 been able to discover anything (genealogically 
 speaking) to be proud of in connexion with the 
 family. No Robinson, so far as I have been 
 able to ascertain, ever took a leading part in the 
 fighting and marauding by which names and 
 fortunes were so often made, and great families 
 founded in the old historic time. To no baron 
 bold or gallant knight can the Robinsons lay 
 claim as an ancestor; to no old legend or castle 
 can they point as pertaining to their name ; and 
 upon the whole, there can be little doubt that in 
 the olden as in modern times they were of " the 
 common people.^'' ' 
 
 b2
 
 4 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 Notwithstanding this failure to discover any- 
 thing in connexion witli tlic history of my 
 ancestors that would justify a little family pride 
 on the grounds usually relied upon by people 
 of " good family/^ I have always had a great, I 
 may even say a morbid, desire to learn all that 
 T possibly could respecting the origin of the 
 Robinsons. But that '^ ail/^ despite my in- 
 defatigable researches, has been very little, and 
 of a very vague character, as it only enables me 
 to arrive at the unsatisfactory, even if indis- 
 putable, conclusion that the family must have 
 been founded by somebody. In its progress to its 
 present position in the civilized community, it 
 has doubtless seen many nps and downs in the 
 world, and been of a variety of nations ; and 
 much of its very early history is necessai'ily 
 buried in obscurity. As there is no evidence, 
 either internal, external, or traditional, to fix the 
 date of their first settlement in Great Britain, 
 that date must always remain an exceedingly 
 problematical, if not a purely imaginative matter.
 
 THE ROBINSONS. 5 
 
 If I -svere to assert that tliere were Robinsons 
 among those '^Painted knights of savage chivalry ^^ 
 who inhabited Britain prior to the Koman in- 
 vasion, and that their favourite colours were red 
 and blue, with the addition of a yellow belt on 
 Sundays, the garter king at arms and the whole 
 Heralds^ College to boot could not prove that it 
 was not the case. It is possible that they came 
 over — among the " rank and file," of course — to 
 Britain with the Conqueror ; though, to judge 
 from the positions in life of the majority of their 
 descendants, it is much more probable that they 
 were some of those Saxon thralls whom the 
 Conqueror and his might-is-right followers found 
 already located upon their arrival in the country 
 which they so unceremoniously appropriated to 
 themselves. For aught any Robinson of modern 
 days knows to the contrary, his ancestors during 
 the Saxon period may, like the thraU of Cedric 
 the Saxon, have been swineherds, and have worn 
 brass collars with the names of their respective 
 owners engraven thereon soldered round their
 
 b JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 necks ; or they may have been among the 
 followers of '^ bold Robin Hood/^ and have aided 
 that ballad-famed outlaw to steal the king^s 
 deer_, and to rob and place in bodily fear the 
 Norman dignitaries of the Church. 
 
 A study of the characteristics of the family 
 induces the belief that numbers of them would 
 have been found upon both sides in the civil wars 
 between Charles I. and his Parliament ; for 
 though they are a loyal and patriotic family, 
 there are many moderate and some red-hot 
 Republicans among them; the latter talking 
 loudly of freedom and equal right s^ and never 
 missing any opportunity of launching wholesale 
 denunciations at the heads of the "bloated/^ 
 " useless/^ or " bloodsucking '''' aristocracy. It 
 is true that some of the members of this bloated 
 body are philanthropists^ and do all that single 
 men may do to benefit their race^ while others 
 among them devote the best part of long and 
 laborious lives to the service of their country, 
 and materially assist in maintaining it in the
 
 THE ROBINSONS. 7 
 
 proud position among nations to which it has 
 attained ; but then they arc '' aristocrats/^ and 
 consequently obnoxious to ultra- Republican 
 Robinsons, whose political opinions and notions 
 concerning the aristocracy are formed by the 
 weekly letters of " Bread or Blood '''' in Crusher's 
 newspaper. 
 
 But though the parts which the Robinsons 
 have or have not taken in the events which have 
 now become historical can only be guessed at^ 
 it is quite certain that at the present day they 
 are an exceedingly numerous and widely diversi- 
 fied family, embracing men of every shade of 
 political opinion, and of every denomination of 
 religion. There are Robinsons of all degrees of 
 wealth, from the " merchant prince " to snobbish 
 and despicable Robinson, who strives to " keep up 
 appearances,'^ and live " genteelly '^ upon 150/. 
 per annum, turns insolvent when pressed for 
 payment of his tradesmen's bills, and over- works 
 and half starves miserable little slaveys, and 
 defrauds unfortunate washerwomen, because his
 
 8 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 wife, who has been " a genteel young person '' 
 in a fancy repository, and who, in her silly, 
 penny-serial style, affects the fine lady, is in a 
 great measure unable, and altogether unAvilling, 
 to do what she would call " anything menial/'' 
 And there are Robinsons of all degrees of 
 poverty, from the petty tradesman or working 
 mechanic who is constantly struggling to bring 
 his family up honestly, despite of adverse 
 circumstances and limited means, to the Robin- 
 son whose decease is recorded in the newspapers 
 under the heading of " Death from Starvation,''^ 
 and who (alas ! that such sad tales shoukl be 
 '^ ower true '') has died in the street on a dreary 
 winter's night after having been refused ad- 
 mission to the casual ward of a workhouse. 
 Very few either good or bad transactions 
 are now completed without some member of the 
 Robinson family being connected with them. 
 — Robinson, Esquire, is chairman, director, or 
 promoter of all sorts of real and sham public 
 companies, and is connected with the making of
 
 THE ROBINSONS. 9 
 
 railways and the working of mines. He is 
 the senior partner in banks, the " Co/^ in 
 extensive firms, and the proprietor of patent 
 medicines and washing machines ; he speaks 
 at public meetings, '' ventilates " grievances in 
 the newspapers, originates ^' movements,^"* gets 
 up agitations, and calls his local M.P. to book 
 for his votes. And Robinsons are connected 
 with fraudulent bankruptcies and " gigantic " 
 swindles, are occasionally advertised for under the 
 head of " Absconded,^'' and sometimes sent into 
 penal servitude, and some of them have even 
 been hanged. But while, on the one hand, the 
 proudest Robinson must confess that the family 
 is essentially a plebeian one, the noblest-blooded 
 Fitz-Anything must admit that it is a tolerably 
 important one; and all things considered, the 
 Robinsons are, to a certain extent, justified in 
 considering themselves '^ no small beer." 
 
 Having spoken thus far of the Robinsons in 
 general, I w411 now refer to that branch of them 
 of which I have the honour of being a member in
 
 10 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 particular. I have already said that the Robin- 
 sons have doubtless seen many nps and downs in 
 the world,, and it is during the period of one of 
 their downs that I come upon the earliest reli- 
 able information I have been able to obtain 
 concerning the branch of them to which I 
 belong, as they were at that time (1740) agri- 
 cultural labourers in one of the northern 
 counties of Eogland. This occupation, sons 
 succeeding fathers, they continued to follow 
 through several generations, leading the lives of 
 exemplary peasants, and bringing up numerous 
 families (God and agricultural labourers only 
 know how) on an income of from eight to ten 
 shillings per week. True to the custom of his 
 family, my father at the age of eight years 
 commenced agricultural pursuits in the com- 
 pound capacity of crow-scarer and sheep-tender. 
 When he had followed these occupations between 
 four and five years, his parents began to consider 
 that it was time for him to be put to some more 
 remunerative and laborious employment. Cow-
 
 A VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 11 
 
 boy^ assistant waggoner, and several other of tlic 
 most decidedly practical occupations connected 
 with farm work were proposed,, but as he had 
 always evinced a strong predilection for mechanical 
 pursuits and had frequently given proofs — in the 
 shape of divers rat-traps and bird-cages made 
 upon new and improved principles of his own 
 invention — of his skill in them, he was, at his 
 own earnest entreaty, backed by these specimens 
 of his mechanical ingenuity, taken into the 
 workshop of the village blacksmith. Here his 
 work and conduct were of so satisfactory a 
 character that at the end of a year the black- 
 smith was induced to take him as an apprentice 
 without the customary premium, which his 
 parents would never have been able to pay. 
 During the '' seven long years '^ of his appren- 
 ticeship he was fully initiated into the mysteries 
 of horse-shoeing, plough -rep airing, and all other 
 kinds of work incidental to a village " smithy ;" 
 and so proficient did he become in these arts, 
 that when at the expiration of his "time^"' he
 
 12 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 spoke of leavings his master^ to induce him to 
 stay^ offered to take him into the business as a 
 partner. But the young villager had a black- 
 smithes soul considerably above horse-shoeing, 
 and SO; notwithstanding the brilliant offer of his 
 master, he determined to travel, for the two-fold 
 purpose of improving his fortune and his 
 abilities as a workman. 
 
 When this resolution became known it created 
 the utmost surprise among the villagers, for this 
 w^as in the ^' good old times '' when railways 
 were unknown, and when the travels of an 
 inhabitant of a country village rarely extended 
 further than an excursion to the neighbouring 
 market town. The fact of any young man leav- 
 ing the village would liave been a matter of sur- 
 prise among its primitive inhabitants, Avho prided 
 themselves upon being born, living, and dying 
 — if particularly fortunate without having 
 troubled the parochial authorities — in their 
 own parish. Indeed, the feudal system could 
 scarcely be said to be extinct among them^ for
 
 A VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 13 
 
 the estate of wliicli the village formed a part had 
 been in the possession of the same family — of 
 whose importance the villagers had very exalted 
 ideas — for centuries ; while many of the small, 
 ill-built, unventilated hovels called cottages that 
 were inhabited by the labourers and their 
 families had regularly descended from father to 
 son for many generations. The veneration and 
 awe with which '' the family '^ were regarded 
 were such as would have given satisfaction to 
 the most exacting baron of any age. Even 
 " Sandy Bill/" who was the greatest drunkard, 
 poacher, and bully in the village, would as soon 
 have thought of voluntarily paying a midnight 
 visit to the old mill, which was popularly believed 
 to be used as a " night house ■'"' by disembodied 
 spirits, as of disobeying, or even questioning, a 
 command, however absurd, of any member of the 
 family at " the hall."" The surprise that under 
 ordinary circumstances would have been excited 
 by the announcement that he intended to leave 
 the village, was in my father "s case heightened.
 
 14 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and in many instances combined witli indigna- 
 tion^ owing to the fact that he was looked upon 
 as a young man whose fortune was already 
 made ; for in the opinion of the villagers,, to be 
 a part proprietor of the " smithy '' was to be a 
 person of very considerable importance^ and a 
 position to which few men of my father^'s humble 
 birth could attain. Old and young gathered 
 round him to remonstrate with him on the folly^ 
 ingratitude^ and wickedness of his conduct. 
 Never within the memory of "the oldest in- 
 habitant '' — a man about ninety years of age, 
 whose chief boast was that he had never slept 
 a night out of the village — had such a thing 
 occurred before. The only two young men who 
 had left the village during his time had done so 
 under compulsion, one of them ha^sing been 
 transported beyond the seas for being connected 
 with a case of sheep- stealing, while the other 
 had fallen a prey to the wiles of a recruiting 
 sergeant, and had been killed in " the wars.^' 
 But remonstrance and entreaty alike failed to
 
 A VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 15 
 
 shake the resolution of the young blacksmith, 
 and it was then agreed upon all hands that he 
 was a shameless desperado of whom no good 
 could possibly come^ and who would ultimately 
 be hanged for emulating some of the deeds of 
 Dick Turpin or Captain Kidd. Notwithstand- 
 ing these prognostications of evil he adhered 
 firmly to his determination^ and so one bright 
 summer^s morning he bid " a long farewell '^ to 
 his native village, and with a bundle containing 
 his wardrobe under his arm, and a few pounds 
 that he had managed to save in his pocket, he 
 set out upon the tramp. Of his adventures, if 
 he had any, while on the tramp I can say 
 nothing, as I have never heard them spoken of, 
 but I know that for about three years he was 
 "knocking about the country,"^ working some- 
 times in one town and sometimes in another, 
 and finally settled down in the large and poj^u- 
 lous seaport town of Dockington, where he Avas 
 engaged in the workshops of an engineering 
 firm, who employed about two thousand work-
 
 16 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 men of all kinds. In this town he first became 
 acquainted with my mother, who was " the maid 
 of the inn^^ at which the blacksmiths of Dock- 
 in gton principally congregated. Of the story of 
 their loves I am not in a position to speak, but 
 as they were a very practical and matter-of-fact 
 kind of couple, it would probably not be at all an 
 interesting one even if I could tell it. 
 
 I have now, so far as I am acquainted with 
 it, given the history, both general and special, of 
 our family, and though it may not be a particu- 
 larly entertaining one, it has at least the advan- 
 tage of being reliable, and is such a one as I 
 think justly entitles me to say that, like many 
 persons of much greater importance and worth 
 than I can ever hope to be, I come of " poor 
 but honest parents."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DOMESTIC M.^^4.GEMEXT — MY BERTH, CHRISTENING, 
 AND CHRISTENING "DO." 
 
 OMESTIC economy, like a low, soft 
 voice, is a sweet thing in woman, 
 and a practical knowledge of, and a capability 
 of applying it, is one of their most valuable 
 qualities ; though as it is merely a useful art, 
 and does not rank as an accomplishment, it is of 
 course, in the present age, one of the least 
 studied branches of woman^s work. Important 
 to all classes of society, it is specially important 
 among the working-classes, with whom the know- 
 ledge, or want of knowledge of the art, upon 
 the part of a wife and mother, makes all the 
 difference between a comfortable and a wretched 
 home. Among these latter classes, the practice 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 of domestic economy is in a greater or lesser 
 degree compulsory, and a practical acquaintance 
 with it will be found among them in a larger 
 proportion than in any other class ; though even 
 among these classes a profitable proficiency in 
 this most necessary art is by no means so 
 universal as could be desired. In the working- 
 classes, as in all other gi'ades of society, there 
 are women who seem to lack all natural aptitude 
 for domestic management — women who, like 
 pretty, loveable Dora, in ^^ David Copperfield,^^ 
 are willing to manage, and really believe they 
 are managing, but who, like her, only meddle 
 and muddle. And there are others, who previous 
 to their marriage have been follovring pursuits 
 that render them in a great measure incapable of 
 efficiently discharging the domestic duties that 
 of necessity fall to the lot of married women in 
 their rank of life. 
 
 To get as a wife one of these mismanaging 
 women is one of the greatest of the many evils 
 that may fall to the lot of a working-man. She
 
 DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT. l^ 
 
 may be beautiful^ or possessed of " a bit of 
 money/^ or " have a trade in her fingers/' 
 whereby she can add a trifle to the family 
 income^ or she may even be '' accomplished," or 
 have other desirable qualifications ; but if she be 
 a bad manager,, then woe be to her husband. To 
 him will life become a mere accumulation of 
 small miseries. He may bid farewell not only 
 to " the tranquil mind/' but likewise to the 
 comfortable home, the timely and well-prepared 
 meal^ and the pleasant evenings by his own 
 fireside. To him will the " makeshift '' dinner 
 and buttonless shirts become as familiar as 
 household words^ and to him will washing and 
 scouring days have unusual and additional 
 horrors, while yielding him but a small share 
 of their compensatory advantages of cleanliness 
 of raiment and household. On him will debt 
 and the tally-man descend, as on theii* legitimate 
 prey, and poverty will mark him for its own. 
 To his lot will it come to see his children 
 running about dirty and draggled; to know 
 
 c 2
 
 20 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 that they and himself are regarded as objects of 
 pity by the more fortunately situated of his own 
 class, and to feel that in his partner he has got 
 not a helpmate but a clog that is dragging him 
 down to want and squalor. For him will the 
 public-house, with its cozy rooms, bright fire, and 
 boon companions, have its most dangerous at- 
 traction ; and finally perhaps upon him, in the 
 last stages of his degeneration, will magistrates 
 be called to pass sentences of " imprisonment 
 with hard labour,'^ for '' wife beating/' Where 
 there is so little to manage upon the conse- 
 quences of bad management are most du'e, and 
 it is fortunate for the working-classes that the 
 absolutely bad domestic managers among them 
 are comparatively rare, and that though there are 
 degrees of excellence among the better managers, 
 a large majority of female heads of working- 
 class households are fairly entitled to be classed 
 in the category of '' rare good managers,'''' and 
 regarded as the brightest ornaments of their un- 
 questionably humble, but nevertheless, owing to
 
 DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT. 21 
 
 their industry and economy, as unquestionably 
 happy and comfortable homes; and to this 
 section, fortunately for her husband and children, 
 my mother belonged. 
 
 It is only those avIio, like the present writer, 
 have personally experienced the effects of good, 
 and witnessed the disastrous results of bad man- 
 agement among the poorer classes of society, who 
 can fully appreciate how much those classes owe 
 to domestic management. Like many others in 
 the working-class ranks of life, my parents 
 married much sooner than cautious people would 
 have deemed prudent, for at the time of their 
 marriage they had neither money (except what 
 was due to my father as wages), house, nor 
 furniture, and commenced their matrimonial life 
 in furnished lodgings. Their apartments con- 
 sisted of a small and very dark underground 
 kitchen, and an upper room of an undecided 
 character, which, as a closet would have been 
 tolerably large, but having to be used by them 
 as a sleeping apartment, was most inconveniently
 
 22 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and unhealthily small ; the only redeeming feature 
 in connexion with it being that it was almost 
 impossible for anyone sleeping in it to fall out of 
 bed^ owing to there being but a few inches of 
 space on any side between the bed and the wall. 
 There are persons who will tell you that 
 no man has any right to marry upon less 
 than .£300 a-year, and who regard the idea of 
 ^' love in a cottage^'' as a romantic absurdity ;, and 
 perhaps the opinion of these matrimonial econo- 
 mists is quite correct. If they are^ my father^s 
 must then have been one of those exceptional in- 
 stances that are said to prove the rule^, as his 
 was a case not merely of love in a cottage^ but 
 of love in the two worst rooms of a very inferior 
 cottage. For though not a gushing or romantic, 
 my parents were a loving, aye ! and a happy 
 couple too, such a couple as many who have 
 commenced their married life with an expensive 
 '*" establishment " and an ample income — the 
 obtaining of which was their chief inducement 
 to marriage — and continued and ended it in
 
 MATRIMONIAL COMFORTS. 23 
 
 " splendid misery/^ miglit have envied, although 
 at the time of his marriage my father's income 
 was considerably less than £100 a year. 
 
 To my father, as to most newly married men, 
 the marvellous results of domestic management 
 were incomprehensible. He could not under- 
 stand how it was that the income which, in his 
 hands, had scarcely sufficed to support himself, 
 should, in the hands of his wife, be found suffi- 
 cient to keep them both, and that, too, in a 
 much more comfortable manner thai["it had kept 
 him previous to his marriage ; for as a Benedick 
 he had many little comforts and delicacies to 
 which in his bachelor days he had been a 
 stranger. His "working clothes,^^ in the fas- 
 tening of which with small pieces of string 
 and wire he had often had to exercise 
 all the mechanical ingenuity of which he 
 was possessed, had now always got their fall 
 complement of buttons. The holes in them, 
 which were gene ^ rally caused by sparks from 
 the fire, though originally less than a six-
 
 24 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 pence in size^ had, from lack of tlie proverbial 
 stitch in time, formerly been wont to extend 
 themselves into ghastly rents. Now they were 
 either darned or neatly patched upon their first 
 appearance, and were washed and changed with 
 much greater regularity and frequency than had 
 been the case in his bachelor days. In the days 
 of his lodgerhood he was " always getting in 
 the road^"* of his landlady, and when by any 
 rare chance he had spent an evening at home — 
 if a lodging in which you are told that you are 
 always getting in the road can be called a home 
 — he had been frowned at by the good dames 
 who had come to gossip and talk about their 
 neighboui's with the widow Jones. But now 
 he was never in the way, or, at least, he was 
 never told so, and his evenings were generally 
 spent at home, in the company of his wife, 
 whose bright smile and cheery manner made 
 their little kitchen appear a very bower of bliss. 
 In almost every incident of his daily life ; in the 
 meals set upon the table with a regularity equal
 
 MATRIMONIAL COMFORTS. 25 
 
 to that of the workshop bell ; in the elaborately 
 " got up " Sunday shirt and in the well brushed 
 and carefully put away Sunday suit ; in the pair 
 of warm slippers, the plate of hot toast, and the 
 nicely broiled bloater or bit of steak that awaited 
 him on his return from work on winter evenings ; 
 and in a host of other trifling but comforting 
 attentions, that in the days of his single 
 blessedness he had never received, he felt 
 and acknowledged the physically and morally 
 beneficial influences of domestic management. 
 
 Domestic management, though certainly not 
 a fine art, must, when the extent and importance 
 of its social influences and effects are duly 
 considered, be admitted to be a great and useful 
 one — greater, perhaps, than the more pre- 
 tentious, much talked of, and little understood 
 science of political economy. Does any one 
 suppose, for instance, that the greatest political 
 economist of the age could provide all the 
 necessary comforts for a family consisting, wc 
 will say, of a man and wife and three children,
 
 26 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and have a ^' surj)lus" left to deposit in the 
 Post Office Savings Bank, out of an income of 
 thirty shillings per week ? Is there not a pro- 
 bability, amounting almost to certainty, that in 
 this case the ^^ financial statement " of the 
 political economist would at the end of the week 
 show a considerable deficiency in his exchequer ? 
 And yet this is a feat that is successfully per- 
 formed every week by thousands of working 
 men^s wives, and is regarded as a comparatively 
 easy achievement in domestic economy by the 
 working class graduated in that science. 
 
 By the exercise of this art my mother, though 
 a dowerless bride, soon demonstrated to her 
 husband that she was — in the sense of a penny 
 saved being a penny gained — a fortune in her- 
 self; for before they had been married quite a 
 year she had, by judicious management and 
 strict economy in domestic matters, been able to 
 save enough money to furnish a small house of 
 their own with. This saving, it is true, was 
 effected under very favourable circumstances, as
 
 OUR EIRST HOUSE. 27 
 
 during the first year of their marriage they had 
 only themselves to provide for; and as each of 
 them had at the time of their marriage a tolerably 
 well supplied wardrobe, they had incurred very 
 little expense in respect to clothing during that 
 year ; but still it was regarded as a great and 
 wonderful achievement by my father, who was, 
 consequently, very proud of it. The house was 
 certainly a very small one, and the furniture of 
 the most homely description, but then they were 
 their own; and the feeling of dignity conse- 
 quent upon proprietorship gave to every apart- 
 ment in the house, and every article of furniture 
 contained therein, a twofold charm and value. 
 In after life I have heard my parents referring 
 in very disparaging terms to that establishment, 
 calling the house " a hole,^^ and speaking of the 
 furniture as " a few bits of sticks,^^ but at the 
 time of its formation they would have been 
 highly indignant with any person who had 
 expressed the smallest doubt of its being 
 one of the best and completest homes ever
 
 28 JOHNNir ROBINSON. 
 
 presided over by a Trorking man and his 
 wife. 
 
 In this, my parents^ first house, I, their first- 
 born, was about three o^clock one morning, in 
 the month of March, 18 — , ushered into the 
 world. Although I was necessarily present on 
 that to me important occasion, and was one of 
 the most interested and interesting persons 
 connected with it, I have, curiously enough, no 
 recollection whatever concerning the event ; and 
 for the information which I possess relative to 
 my birth, and to my career during the three or 
 four years immediately succeeding it, I am 
 indebted to my parents and others who knew me 
 during that period of my existence. 
 
 I have never had the '^ future revealed" to me 
 by any of those modern seers whose prophetic reve- 
 lations are given under the powerful inspiration of 
 thirty stamps and a stamped addressed envelope, 
 nor have I ever had my nativity calculated or 
 my horoscope cast, though I have often thought 
 of having these things done in consideration of
 
 MY BIRTH. 29 
 
 there being a sort of astrocardological prediction 
 connected with my birth,, which happened in 
 this wise : — During the first hours of the morn- 
 ing on which I was born, and the whole of the 
 night preceding it, a great storm of rain and 
 wind had been raging, the latter making a 
 dreadful noise and doing considerable damage, 
 of which the blowing down of the chimney of 
 my father^s house was a part. This state of 
 things had put the members of the household — 
 including for the time being a doctor and nurse 
 — in a state of alarm, by which, had it lasted, I 
 should probably have been a sufferer; but about 
 half an hour before I made my entrance on the 
 stage of life the rain ceased, the wind was hushed 
 with a surprising suddenness, and the moon, 
 which up to that time had been totally obscured 
 by masses of heavy watery clouds, shone out 
 with great brilliancy. On these circumstances, 
 afterwards strengthened by some corroborative 
 testimony obtained by " shuffling the cards,^^ a 
 sort of local " Meg Merrilies," familiarly known
 
 30 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 as " Old Peg/' who combined the occupations of 
 fortune-teller and nurse_, and was my mother's 
 attendant upon the interesting occasion of which I 
 am speaking, founded a solemn prediction to the 
 effect that the infant Robinson_, at whose birth 
 she was then assisting, would come to be a great 
 and wealthy man, and a glory and ornament to 
 his race. Of this prediction I should probably 
 never have heard, but for my mother entertain- 
 ing an apologetical belief in the truth of it. 
 
 '' There is no saying what may happen,^' she 
 would observe, when speaking upon this subject. 
 '^ What is to be will be ; and whatever people 
 may say about fortune-tellers, I kuow they tell 
 the truth sometimes, for one of them told me 
 that I would marry a dark man, and so I have ; 
 and another of them told a fellow- servant of 
 mine that some of her relations would die before 
 the year was out, and in tAvo months after she 
 received a letter saying that her grandmother 
 was dead. And if they tell the truth one time, 
 why mayn't they tell it another ?'' she would
 
 MY BIRTH. 31 
 
 triumpliantly ask, after adducing these instances 
 of truthful and realized divination. 
 
 Eut the prediction, unluckily, alas ! for the 
 subject of it, proved to be as false as any of 
 those which the sybil who had uttered it was 
 daily in the habit of making to the servant-maids 
 and other silly people who came to her to have 
 their fortunes told, and even my mother's belief 
 in it was at last destroyed owing to " Old 
 Peg '' professing to discover '^ the line of 
 murder''^ in the hand of her (my mother's) 
 sister. 
 
 By my mother I was considered to be in 
 every respect a baby of the first degree of excel- 
 lence, and when, by way of conferring a favour 
 upon them, she showed me to her lady friends, 
 they confirmed her in that opinion by assiu'ing 
 her that I was " the dearest little thing," '' the 
 sweetest little poppet," " the loveliest little 
 fellow," and so forth, that they had ever seen ; 
 although it was the private opinion of some of 
 these same lady friends — and more especially those
 
 32 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 who had babies of their own — that I was " a 
 nasty, ill-tempered little brute/' and wanted 
 " a good shaking.-" And many " a good 
 shaking/" if I have been rightly informed, I 
 received at the hands of divers small nurse- 
 girls, char and washerwomen, and other stray 
 domestics to whose charge my mother had occa- 
 sionally to entrust me during the first two or 
 three years of my infancy. 
 
 My first appearance in public was upon the 
 occasion of my christening, which took place 
 when I was about a month old. My parents, 
 after due deliberation, agreed that I should be 
 named John ; they likewise agreed that, inasmuch 
 as I was their first child, and, my mother added, 
 such an extraordinary fine baby, they would 
 have a " do'" in celebration of the event, and it 
 •was arranged that the christening should take 
 place on a Sunday, and the '' do" on the follow- 
 ing night. The baptismal ceremonial was duly 
 performed with all requisite pomp and decoruui ; 
 the young woman wlio had succeeded my mother
 
 MY CHRISTENING. 33 
 
 in the situation which previous to her marriage 
 she had filled at ''The Blacksmiths' Arms'' 
 acting as my godmother, Avhile two of my father's 
 '' mates " officiated as my godfathers. My 
 behaviour upon the occasion, I have my mother's 
 authority for saying, was " most beautiful." 
 *^ I was/' she said, " as quiet as quiet could be, 
 and never so much as whimpered even when the 
 water was sprinkled on my face;" but this 
 *' beautiful" behaviour might to a certain extent 
 be attributable to the fact that I was fast 
 asleep during the whole of the time that the 
 ceremony lasted. On leaving the church the 
 christening party returned to my father's house, 
 to which a few other friends had likewise been 
 invited to take tea ; and a splendid tea the guests, 
 when they had partaken of it, unanimously 
 declared it to be. I have often heard that tea 
 spoken of, and always in the most eulogistic 
 manner ; and if that variety which is allowed to 
 be charming can also be said to constitute splen- 
 dour, the tea in question must certainly have 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 been a most magnificent one. Some persons' 
 idea of a complete tea is to have tea Avitli bread 
 and butter^ toast, tea-cakes, and bun-loaf, but a 
 tea of this mild and insignificant description 
 would be ^^ a iooV to the one given by my 
 parents upon the day of the christening of their 
 son and heir. As my father truly observed, it 
 was the first occasion upon which they had 
 " come out" since their marriage, and he was 
 determined that they should come out well ; and 
 I have been assured by those w^ho had the good 
 fortune to be present at this memorable feast, 
 that he worthily carried out his determination. 
 ^ That tea," as my godmother would frequently 
 say when speaking of it, " was a tea, and no 
 mistake. There was nothing paltry at that tea ! 
 No ! she should rather think there was not." At 
 that tea there was, in addition to the eatables 
 already mentioned, an extensive assortment of 
 confectionery, consisting of biscuits, pound-cakes, 
 shortbread, about a dozen saucers of jams and 
 jellies, and a ninnber of sweetmeats the names
 
 CHRISTENING FESTIVITIES. 35 
 
 of which were unknowri to or unpronounceable by 
 the guests before whom they were placed. But 
 the confectionery only formed the lighter por- 
 tions of the meal; the more substantial part of 
 it consisting of beefsteaks^ mutton chops^ pork- 
 pies^ sausages^ and_, " by special desire " of one 
 of the party, red herrings. In addition to all 
 these, a bottle of rum was likewise provided for 
 the especial behoof of one of the gentlemen, who 
 on that day " did promise and vow three things 
 in my name/^ and who had strong and con- 
 scientious objections to drinking tea — slops he 
 called it — unless it was spirituously flavoured. 
 Having, by partaking heartily of it, and subse- 
 sequently singing its praises, borne testimony in 
 word and deed to the especial and superior excel- 
 lence of the tea, the christening party took their 
 leave, expressing themselves highly gratified with 
 the entertainment which they had received, and 
 promising to come without fail to the " do'^ 
 which was to take place on the following 
 evening. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 JOHNNY KOBINSON. 
 
 Those who had been bidden to the '' do ■'"' 
 assembled with a commendable punctuality on 
 the Monday evening. Cake and wine were 
 handed to each of the guests upon their 
 arrival,, and cards and conversation served 
 to fill up their time till supper was 
 served. 
 
 After supper a number of toasts and healths 
 were drank, including, among the latter, that of 
 the young gentleman in whose honour the feast 
 was held, and who had been sent to bed out of 
 the way while the rejoicings of which he was 
 the cause were in progress, and one of the 
 guests then proposed that a fiddler should 
 be sent for. This proposition was imme- 
 diately acted upon, and '' Rosin Dick,-*^ the 
 chief violinist of most of the threepenny and 
 sixpenny " hops " in the district, engaged ; 
 and with the aid of music, singing, and such 
 dancing as the smallness of the room ad- 
 mitted of, the merry-making was kept up 
 with great spirit till four o^clock the next
 
 CHRISTENING FESTIVITIES. 37 
 
 morning, at whicli hour the company de- 
 parted; and so terminated my christening 
 " do/^ which passed off to the satisfaction of 
 all parties concerned.
 
 CHAPTEH III. 
 
 A SWELL BAEY — A NEW BKOTHER — THE COURT WHERE 
 I WAS BORN. 
 
 Y christening being over; and the novelty 
 of having a child of their own some- 
 what abated, my parents once more settled down 
 into their ordinary quiet course of life, my 
 mother bringing all the energies of her mind to 
 bear upon the work of bringing me up in the 
 way I should go. 
 
 With the single exception, perhaps, of ladies^ 
 maids, barmaids are allowed to be the smartest 
 of all smart servants, but even when a barmaid 
 my mother had never been a di'essy person, and 
 after her marriage her dress, although always 
 neat and clean, was of the plainest kind. So 
 plain was it, indeed, that it quite excited the indig-
 
 A MATTER OF TASTE. 39 
 
 nation of a number of the more showily dressed 
 ladies in her own rank of life, who resented her 
 simplicity of attire as a degradation to their 
 order_, and unanimously declared that they were 
 quite ashamed to see a mechanic's wife, and a 
 young woman, too, dressing in the common 
 manner in which Mrs. Robinson did. But 
 shame, like most other emotions, is to. great 
 extent a matter of taste, and depends in a great 
 measure upon the feelings and opinions of the 
 persons by whom it is experienced ; and so, while 
 these ladies blushed lest the gentility of their 
 class should be lowered in the estimation of the 
 vulgar by the common dress of Mrs. Robinson, 
 the latter would have felt very heartily ashamed 
 to have taken her husband's Sunday clothes to the 
 pawn-shop, or to have contracted a debt with the 
 tallyman, without her husband's knowledge, as 
 some of the ladies who professed to feel shame 
 at her want of ambition in the matter of dress 
 were frequently in the habit of doing. If, how- 
 ever, there w^as any lack of pride in my mother
 
 40 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 with regard to lier own dress^ tliere was certainly 
 none in connexion with her selection of my 
 infant wardrobe. My hoods and cloaks, which 
 were of the latest fashion and the loudest and 
 most brilliant colours, were pronounced by all 
 good judges in such matters to whom they were 
 shown to be " splendatious/* My long clothes, 
 in addition to being made of the finest materials, 
 were ornamented with '^ any quantity '' of needle- 
 work and embroidery; and altogether, I am 
 informed — although I was unfortunately un- 
 conscious of the pleasing fact at the time — I 
 was a regular swell of a baby. 
 
 Nor did my swell baby days terminate with my 
 long clothes. I have in my possession a portrait 
 of myself, taken after I — or rather, my clothes 
 — had been ^^ short ened,^^ and when I was at the 
 " interesting age^^ of fourteen months, in which 
 one of my short frocks is — and I make the 
 statement advisedly — the principal feature, for 
 while the frock and even the row of buttons with 
 which it is adorned, are painted with the utmost
 
 A FAMILY FASHION PLATE. 41 
 
 elaboration and attention to details^ the coun- 
 tenance has evidently been considered as quite a 
 minor if not an altogether useless accessory, and 
 is much less naturally and skilfully treated than 
 an orange which is held in the left hand of the 
 subject. But it would be doing an injustice to 
 the artist to find fault with him for having in 
 this particular work of art left it doubtful as to 
 whether the head of the portrait was intended 
 to represent a threepenny loaf or a swede turnip, 
 as there can be little doubt that the chief 
 object of the work was to perpetuate — so far as 
 the power of perpetuation existed in a twelve- 
 and-sixpenny portrait — for the benefit of future 
 generations of the Robinson family, the elegant 
 design and splendid appearance of the frock, 
 which was the most prominent feature of the pic- 
 ture. And if ever garment was worthy of being 
 handed down to posterity through the painter's 
 art it was certainly this one. It was a low- 
 bodied frock, and left the neck and shoulders of 
 its wearer almost as freely exposed as those of
 
 42 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 a fashionable lady at the opera. It had very 
 short sleeves^ which were puffed, and both sleeves 
 and neck were trimmed with white lace. It had 
 a tight body, a short waist, and a wide skirt, 
 which — in the portrait, at least — fell into graceful 
 folds ; but its chief excellence lay in the neat- 
 ness and judicious combination of its colours. 
 The colour of the frock itself was a deep red, 
 while the trimmings consisted of two broad 
 bands of bright yellow round the lower part of 
 the skirt, a row of twelve large blue glass but- 
 tons down the front, and the white lace already 
 mentioned round the sleeves and neck ; and 
 when the effect of this combination of tints is 
 duly considered, it must be allowed by all un- 
 prejudiced persons that my mother was quite 
 justified in asserting that it was a most attrac- 
 tive looking frock. 
 
 Thanks to a tolerably strong constitution, and 
 the watchful care of my mother, whose chief 
 ambition was to have it acknowledged, even by 
 rival mothers, that I was in a physical as well as
 
 A NEW BROTHER. 43 
 
 in a dressy sense, a fine baby, I got through 
 the earlier stages of my "teething" and a variety 
 of the other ills that baby flesh is heir to in a 
 most satisfactory manner, and in due time, and 
 after undergoing the series of bumps and falls 
 usually sustained by infants when learning to 
 walk, I became able to toddle about by myself. 
 But even then my mother seldom trusted me 
 out of her sight, and I would doubtless have 
 grown up to be one of those social nuisances, a 
 spoilt child, or one of those most despicable of 
 male creatures, a mother^s pet, if an event had 
 not occurred when I was about two years and a 
 half old, which, although not very remarkable in 
 itself, had a most important bearing upon my 
 future position, inasmuch as it caused my mother 
 to perceive — at least with regard to the some- 
 what extravagant and over careful attentions 
 which she had been in the habit of bestowing 
 upon me — a divided duty, the event in question 
 being nothing less than an addition, in the shape 
 of another son, to our family.
 
 44 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 Of this eventj iiotwitlistanding my extreme 
 youth at the time at which it took place, and that 
 I have entirely forgotten other occurrences of a 
 more important nature and a later date, I have a 
 dreamy but still vividly accurate and distinct 
 recollection, and were I an artist I could from 
 memory paint the interior of our house, with its 
 inhabitants and furniture, precisely as they ap- 
 peared on the morning of my younger brother^s 
 birth. On that morning I had been left in my bed 
 till a much later hour than usual, and when I was 
 at last taken out of it, by an old woman whom I 
 had noticed about the house for a day or two 
 previously, instead of being immediately washed 
 and dressed, as was usually the case, I was 
 allowed to run about the house in my night- 
 dress, and left entirely to my own devices. 
 Availing myself of this state of uncontrolled 
 freedom, I left the house and joined a number 
 of other children, whom I found playing in an 
 adjoining gutter, and having spent a pleasant 
 half hour with these new-found companions, and
 
 A NEW BROTHER. 45 
 
 got my hands, face, and dress plentifully be- 
 smeared with dirt, I returned to the house. 
 Finding the breakfast things still on the table, I 
 laid siege to the sugar-basin, and after several 
 unsuccessful attempts, in the course of which I 
 broke a number of cups and saucers, and upset 
 the coffee-pot, I at last succeeded in laying hold 
 of it, and was comfortably seated on the floor, 
 regaling myself with its contents, when the old 
 woman Avho had taken me out of bed came 
 down the stairs with what appeared to be a 
 bundle of flannel in her arms. Having taken 
 the sugar from me, and given vent to a great 
 number of exclamations of horror and surprise, 
 she opened the bundle which she held in her 
 arms, and showed me an object within it which 
 she informed me was the new brother that the 
 doctor had brought from London in his pocket 
 for me. This introduction to my new brother 
 was attended with a circumstance which im- 
 pressed me in anything but a favourable manner 
 in his behalf I had never heard of a brother
 
 46 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 before^ and upon looking into the bundle and 
 finding that a brother was not anything to eat, 
 1 instantly concluded that it must be something 
 to play with. Under this impression I laid hold 
 of the object in the bundle somewhat roughly, 
 and was instantly rewarded for doing so by a 
 sound cuff on the ear_, from the hand of the 
 indignant nurse, who denounced me as a jealous- 
 minded little wretch, and informed the very 
 slovenly-looking maid, who was to assist her with 
 the household work till such time as my mother 
 should be able to again resume the reins of 
 domestic government, that as soon as I saw the 
 baby I seemed to know that my nose was out 
 of joint, and had made a savage attempt to pull 
 its arm out. In making this assertion, however, 
 the nurse gave me credit for an amount of know- 
 ledge of which I was certainly not possessed, for 
 I did not know that my nose was out of joint, 
 and was at that time much too young to havetlie 
 slightest conception of the meaning of that some- 
 what vulgar but still expressive phrase. But
 
 Mr NOSE OUT or JOINT. 47 
 
 though I did not knoiv, and could not understand, 
 that my nose was_, metaphorically speaking,, out of 
 joint, I soon began to feel that such was the case, 
 for the new brother now entirely monopolized the 
 attention of all who came about the house, while 
 I, who had hitherto reigned supreme, was left 
 unnoticed. And when by kicking, screaming, 
 and rolling about the floor, I succeeded in 
 attracting attention to myself, the " notice " 
 generally consisted in a threat to " give me 
 something,"'^ or the carrying out of that threat, 
 the promised " something " usually being a 
 ^' good smacking ;'^ or else I was '^''bundled out,^' 
 and ordered to go and play with the other 
 children in the court. 
 
 The court of which my father^s house formed 
 a part, was one of a number that branched off 
 from a tolerably large, and at that time re- 
 spectable front street. It was not a very large 
 court, comj)rising, as it did, only twelve small 
 houses, each of w^hich consisted of four small 
 apartments, and was let at a rental of three
 
 48 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 shillings per week^ the occupants being chiefly 
 labouring men^ of a class whose incomes were 
 less than that of my father. But though the 
 court and the houses in it were small^ that fault 
 did not extend to the families of those who lived 
 in them_, as they were upon a decidedly large 
 scale,, and there were few courts of the same^ or 
 indeed of a considerably larger^ size that could 
 have produced an equal number of children. 
 A cabman who occupied No. 4 headed the list 
 with teuj the eldest of whom was only fifteen 
 years of age ; there were two families with eighty 
 and several with six children each ; while 
 in our family^ which was the smallest in 
 the courts there were now two children. 
 Among the juvenile population of the court 
 there was a number whose ages were betAvcen 
 five and two years, and these children were 
 generally sent out of doors to play ; and so long- 
 as their games were carried on in the court all 
 went well. It was very rarely, however, that 
 their play was confined to the court for any
 
 NAUGHTY CHILDREN. 49 
 
 length of time, for with the true spirit of street 
 children, they generally made for the open air, 
 where they could indulge in the luxury of 
 playing in the gutter, and otherwise amuse 
 themselves in a more varied and unrestrained 
 manner than they could do when cribbed, cabined, 
 and confined within the limited space of our 
 court, and subjected to the watchful glances of 
 their parents. Now, my mother, much to the 
 disgust of some of her neighbours, would never 
 allow me to play, or in any other way associate 
 with these children. When questioned con- 
 cerning her motives for acting in this manner, 
 she would say that she had noticed that, how- 
 ever clean and tidy such children were when 
 they went out to play, they always returned 
 from play with their clothes ready for the wash- 
 tub ; and moreover than that, some of them were 
 in the habit of throwing stones and using '^ bad 
 words." And so I was strictly forbidden, under 
 penalty of receiving a beating in case of trans- 
 gression, to ^^ go near those naughty children.''^ 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 In this state of comparative seclusion_, and 
 jealously guarded from all communication with 
 the rougher urchins of the court,, I had grown 
 up a highly moral and respectable baby, and 
 would perhaps have continued to have grown in 
 grace as well as in years and stature, but for the 
 birth of my brother, which event, by entirely 
 withdrawing me from my mother^s care for a 
 time, and permanently engrossing a considerable 
 portion of that care and attention which she had 
 before bestowed exclusively upon me, was 
 destined to eflPect a revolution in my " manners 
 and customs,"^ highly detrimental to my infantile 
 morality and respectability. During my mother''s 
 illness, those who reigned in her stead, so far 
 from following her example in forbidding me to 
 associate with the other children in the court, 
 actually ordered me, as I have already stated, to 
 go and play with them. This order I at first 
 obeyed somewhat reluctantly, for though I had 
 of my own free will joined these childi-en on the 
 morning on which my brother was born, I had
 
 NAUGHTY CHILDREN. 51 
 
 merely done so in the exuberance of spirits 
 which I felt at finding myself master of 
 my own actions. In my cooler moments, 
 owing to my mother^s teaching, I entertained a 
 great though vague and undefined fear of 
 naughty children, whom I had been taught to 
 regard as very dangerous persons. But being 
 ordered to go out and play with, and finding 
 myself neglected and unnoticed at home, I 
 ventured in a timid manner to join in their 
 play, and finding that they were very sociable, 
 and not at all the terrible characters that my 
 mother had represented them to be, and feeling 
 delighted with their free and unconstrained mode 
 of life, I soon became a fully initiated and con- 
 firmed companion of the gutter. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSTVnFIIIIMnie
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 I CONTINUE TO DEGENERATE, AND BECOME OF THE STREETS, 
 STREETY — WITH A VIEW TO MY REFORMATION WE CHANGE 
 OUR RESIDENCE — OUR NEW LANDLADY — IT IS DETERMINED 
 TO SEND ME TO SCHOOL. 
 
 AVING thus found a means of passing 
 my time witli congenial companions,, and 
 in a manner exceedingly pleasant to myself, I 
 soon ceased to '^ botlier '' those who had charge 
 of me^ and they in return never bothered me or 
 themselves by attempting to interfere with my 
 amusements. The result of this state of things 
 was that when my mother became convalescent 
 she made the^ to her^ horrible discovery tliat I 
 had become a street child. ^ly downfall she 
 found was terrible and complete. Twice in the 
 course of the first day of her being downstairs 
 did I return from play with my clothes and my-
 
 MY mother's dismay. 53 
 
 self ready for the wash-tub ; on the following 
 day she detected me in the act of throwing 
 stones^ and before a week had elapsed she had 
 overheard me using ^' bad Avords '^ in the course 
 of an altercation with a young gentleman of 
 about the same age as myself, who resided in 
 one of the neighbouring courts^ and who had 
 presumed to encroach upon a part of the gutter 
 that by right of usage belonged exclusively to 
 the children of our court. My mother was 
 filled with consternation on making these painful 
 discoveries, and at once set to work to try and 
 bring about a better state of affairs by attempt- 
 ing to bring me back to my former state of 
 juvenile respectability. But the attempt was a 
 vain one, the respectable had, alas, fallen; and 
 the fall had been of too utter and complete a 
 character to admit of my being lightly re- 
 claimed. 
 
 It was in vain that I was told that the 
 beggars would take me away, or that a black 
 man would come for mc if I went with " those
 
 54 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 naughty little boys and girls/' In vain were 
 bribes and threats resorted to for the purpose 
 of inducing me to sever my connexion with my 
 street companions. For that purpose, even the 
 magic power of '' toffee '' — a power that to me 
 had hitherto proved irresistible — was insufficient,, 
 and the rod — and in this case it was certainly not 
 spared — powerless. In vain, too, were all endea- 
 vours to keep me in the house by force, for when 
 detained indoors against my will I generally 
 managed to incommode and otherwise so effectu- 
 ally to " bother " my mother while she was 
 engaged in the performance of her household 
 duties — now considerably increased by the late 
 addition to her family — that she was glad to let 
 me out, and when once free I was never long in 
 joining my companions. 
 
 That I should have become a street child was, 
 my mother considered, one of the greatest evils 
 that could have befallen her or me ; but bad as 
 she thought this state of things, she was destined 
 to find that worse was to come. In the first
 
 FROxM BAD TO WORSE. 55 
 
 stage of my degeneration I had simply joined 
 in the games of the neighbouring children, and 
 had always returned from play in company with 
 them, and with no worse consequence to myself 
 than perhaps a soiled or torn frock or pinafore. 
 Had my decline stopped at this point my mother, 
 notwithstanding the horror with which she at 
 first regarded it, would most probahly, owing to 
 the force of habit and the distraction of domes- 
 tic occupations, have become reconciled to it. 
 But my backsliding propensities were unfortu- 
 nately of too strong a nature to allow me to 
 stop at so comparatively safe a point in my 
 downward career. Increase of appetite for the 
 street and things streety seemed, in my case, 
 to grow with what it fed on, and in a short time 
 I found that the limited space to which I and 
 my companions confined our street operations 
 was all too small to gratify my inclination in this 
 respect ; and this feeling prompted me to take a 
 step in advance of my playfellows by enlarging 
 the area of my rambles, which had hitherto
 
 56 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 never extended beyond our own street. A good- 
 natured philosopher would perhaps have been 
 able to trace — to his own satisfaction, at least — 
 my roving disposition to a ''^thirst for know- 
 ledge/^ a crusty one would doubtless have at 
 once attributed it to innate vagabondism, while 
 non-philosophic and uninteresting persons might 
 have thought it was merely a spirit of adventure ; 
 but my mother, when she became acquainted 
 with my delinquencies, indignantly and empha- 
 tically declared that it was entirely owing: to 
 my '' low disposition,^-* and she added that I was 
 a little bad ^un, and would grow up to be no 
 good. 
 
 For some time my wanderings about town 
 were undetected, as I returned safely and in 
 reasonable time, and had I continued to act m 
 that manner all might have been well. But 
 then we are told that the best laid plans of mice 
 and men gang oft agee, and the saying also 
 holds good in regard to the plans of children. 
 In the case of my childish wanderings, it fell
 
 LOST AND FOUND. 57 
 
 out^ as it often does in the case of much older 
 and wiser persons, and under more important 
 circumstances, that the very success which 
 attended my early efforts was ultimately the 
 cause of my ruin. Emboldened by my success, 
 I extended my travels to such a degree that I 
 often got quite out of my reckoning, and was 
 unable to retura home, and the news that Johnny 
 Kobinson was lost again came to be regarded, 
 owing to the frequency of its repetition, as quite 
 an ordinary piece of intelligence by the inhabi- 
 tants of our court. Sometimes, when lost, I 
 would be found by my mother or the discovering 
 parties sent in search of me : but in the majority 
 of instances I was brought home by policemen 
 and accompanied by small crowds of street boys. 
 For this latter and, as it would at first glance 
 have appeared, very disagreeable style of being 
 taken home, I had a strong partiality. There 
 was a bustle and excitement about it highly 
 fascinating to a juvenile of my streety proclivities ; 
 and as passers-by paused to ask " Wliat^s up ?"
 
 58 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and on receiving the usual answer^ '^ Only a 
 child lost/^ suggested some plan of their own for 
 finding out and restoring me to my parents, 
 and succeeding groups of children escorted 
 me to the confines of their respective districts, I 
 was proudly conscious of being, if not a person 
 of importance, at least "■ an object of interest/^ 
 Sometimes when being taken home in my favour- 
 ite manner, we (the policeman and myself) 
 would be met by some of those jolly, pleasant- 
 looking old gentlemen of the Brothers Cheerible 
 type, whom children instinctively recognise as 
 their friends, and these old gentlemen, on ascer- 
 taining from the policeman that the " little 
 fellow '^ was lost, would pat me kindly on the 
 head and give me a penny to get a cake with, 
 and some of them would even give the police- 
 man " something to get a glass for himself 
 wdth." And here let me observe that the 
 " something" in this case was well bestowed, for 
 though policemen may have disagreeable pecu- 
 liarities and weaknesses, they are generally very
 
 LOST AND FOUND. 59 
 
 kind in their dealings with lost children. I 
 have seen one of the grandest of them^ a broad- 
 shouldered, large-whiskered six-footer, who was 
 the terror of all the roughs and the admiration 
 of all the cooks on his beat, and who had as 
 great an idea of his own importance and dig- 
 nity, and was as proud and careful about his 
 personal appearance, as the most aristocratic of 
 footmen — I have seen this policeman carrying 
 a ragged dirty little child in his arms and trying 
 to the best of his abilities to be playful with it, 
 regardless of the jeers and chaffing remarks of 
 a mob who followed him, and who were rejoiced 
 to see him under what they considered such 
 humiliating circumstances. 
 
 Nor were the meetings with these old gentle- 
 men the only pleasant incidents connected with 
 these journies. Comely young matrons, upon 
 learning the circumstances of the case, would, 
 after giving me a kiss or a kind word, insist upon 
 giving me " a piece,^^ and such a piece, too ! 
 Not one of your thick, clumsy, ordinary pieces
 
 60 JOHNNY ROBI^'SON. 
 
 — not one of your crusty " hunches/' or any- 
 thing of that kindj but one of those rarer pieces 
 that were usually only given upon festive occa- 
 sions^ or as a reward for meritorious conduct, 
 and known as " sugar butties ;" a style of piece 
 that only the cunning hand of a mother could 
 turn out in all its sweet perfection_, and which 
 was made by taking two thin-cut slices of bread 
 of equal size, spreading them thickly with 
 butter, covering them with sugar, and then 
 pressing them together with the sugared sides 
 towards each other. 
 
 While, however, some of my wanderings were 
 thus made pleasant by the gift of penny cakes 
 and deliciously manufactured " pieces,'''' others 
 were productive of very disagreeable conse- 
 quences. In addition to meeting with numerous 
 mishaps of a trifling nature, I had upon two 
 occasions been brought home in a state of nudity, 
 having been decoyed into some obscure place 
 and there stripped of my clothes by some of 
 those sneaking, heartless hags who prowl about
 
 LOST AND FOUND. 61 
 
 the poor neiglibourhoods of large towns preying 
 upon helpless children^ and for whom, but that 
 in the catalogue they count for women, a flogging 
 would be the fittest punishment ; and on another 
 occasion I had been brought home captive, 
 charged, and justly so, with the dreadful crime 
 of having thrown a stone through a window, for 
 the repair of which my parents had to pay. 
 
 I need scarcely say that my mother viewed 
 these occurrences with feelings of the utmost 
 alarm. That her Johnny, in whom she had taken 
 so much pride, should be found wandering about 
 the streets, an object of commiseration for 
 other mothers ; that he should be brought home 
 by a policeman, or be robbed of his clothing, 
 or charged with breaking windows, were to her 
 one and all painful and humiliating ideas. 
 My downfall she considered was entirely owing 
 to my association with the other children in the 
 court, and, as I have already said, she had 
 attempted to separate me from them by talking 
 alout beggars and black men, and trying to keep
 
 62 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 me in the house. But finding that these means 
 were unavailing for the purpose they were in- 
 tended to eflfect_, and that I was_, to use her own 
 expression^ going from bad to worse^ she de- 
 termined to take some decisive stej) for the 
 purpose of bringing me back to my former state 
 of respectability, and of restoring her own now 
 somewhat tarnished reputation as a model mother. 
 After carefully considering the case in all its 
 bearings, she came to the conclusion that the 
 best way to carry out her determination would 
 be to remove to another neighbourhood, as by 
 that means I would be withdrawn from the 
 companionship of those to whose example and 
 influence she ascribed my degeneracy. This 
 plan being decided upon, and having received 
 the sanction of my father, another house and 
 neighbourhood were soon selected. Our new 
 house was, like the one we had previously 
 occupied, situated in a court, but both the house 
 and the court were considerably larger than 
 those we had left, and the same might be said
 
 A CHANGE OF RESIDENCE. 63 
 
 of the rent. My mother had displayed a con- 
 siderable degree of skill in selecting the situation 
 of our new residence. There was an air of 
 respectability and primness about the court and 
 its inhabitants_, and more especially the juvenile 
 portion of them^ that was utterly blighting to all 
 things streety; a state of things that was in a 
 great measure owing to the influence of the 
 owner of the court_, a maiden lady named Miss 
 BrowU;, but commonly called Old Jenny Brown, 
 who resided in one of the houses^ and was thus 
 enabled to keep a strict watch upon the proceed- 
 ings of the other tenants; upon any of whom who 
 did,, or gave any indication of attempting to do, 
 anything that she considered derogatory to the 
 order and respectability of the court, she was in- 
 stantly and most emphatically down. Jenny was 
 a very tall, very angular, and very thin old lady, 
 with a carriage as upright as that of a grenadier. 
 Her face was long and thin, with high cheek 
 bones, thin and almost bloodless lips, deeply 
 sunken eyes and overhanging eyebrows, and a
 
 64 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 very large nose^ that suggested the idea that it 
 had been made to order for the purpose of sup- 
 porting the heavy pair of spectacles without 
 which she was never seen in public. Concerning 
 her age there was no positive information, and 
 her personal appearance furnished no indications 
 on the subject. Her face was too hard and thin 
 to admit of wrinkles, and as she always wore a 
 black cap and a false front, the colour of her 
 hair could only be guessed at; and though the 
 hardness of her features and the fact of her 
 wearing false hair were in themselves sufficient 
 to prove that she was past her bloom, they 
 helped to defy any attempt at calculating her 
 exact age, which might be supposed to be any- 
 thing between forty-five and threescore and ten 
 years, according to the tastes and impressions 
 of the person hazarding the supposition. The 
 general opinion was, that however long she lived 
 she would never look auy older, while those who 
 had known her longest asserted that she had 
 never looked anv younger. But if there was
 
 JENNY BROWN. 65 
 
 any uncertainty respecting her age, tliere was 
 none regarding her temper, for no one could 
 come within the reach of Jenny^s influence with- 
 out being made aware that it was one of the 
 worst, most exacting, and dictatorial that ever 
 old maid or strong-minded female was endowed 
 with. The chief object of her life seemed to be 
 the maintenance of the respectability of her 
 court; and in carrying out this object in accord- 
 ance with her own notions she ruled her tenants 
 with an iron hand. She was in her own large 
 and bony person a perfect incarnation of do- 
 mestic order, and did her own household work, 
 saying with a fiery sniff, if any person expressed 
 surprise at a woman of her wealth and position 
 scrubbing her own doorsteps, — an operation which 
 she might be seen performing at eight o^clock 
 every morning and nine o^clock on Saturday 
 nights, in order to obviate the necessity of doing 
 it on Sunday morning, — that she wouldn't see 
 any of the slovens that pretended to be servants 
 now-a-days in her road. After breakfast she 
 VOL. I. r
 
 66 ' JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 would proceed to take a critical survey of the 
 court, and if, in going her rounds_, she detected 
 an unpolished door-handle_, an unblackleaded 
 knocker^ or unwashed steps^ or any other indi- 
 cation of a lack of, or falling off from, the 
 supreme cleanliness and order which she con- 
 sidered essential to the maintenance of the high 
 and exceptionable respectability of her court_, she 
 would at once call upon the negligent tenant, 
 and give them '' a piece of her mind -/' which 
 piece of mind was generally embodied in a 
 statement to the effect that such a Blackenhall 
 Street (one of the worst streets of a notoriously 
 low and dirty neighbourhood) style of things 
 would not do in her houses,, and that there must 
 be an immediate alteration for the better if they 
 wished to remain her tenants. And as Jenny, 
 though somewhat eccentric, was, in such practical 
 points as keeping her houses in thorough repau', 
 and not pressing for immediate payment of rent 
 when sickness or loss of employment was the 
 cause of a tenant^s falling into arrears, and the
 
 JENNY BROWN. 67 
 
 tenants were tlie material gainers by the respecta- 
 bility of the courts those of them who were natu- 
 rally disposed to be clean and orderly submitted 
 to her tyranny on polishing and scouring points 
 with a tolerably good grace^ while any really 
 slovenly ones who by chance got into the houses 
 were either driven to leave them^ or received 
 notice to quit. 
 
 Jenny^s great aversion^ however_, in her cha- 
 racter of landlady_, was children. She preferred 
 childless tenants, and made it an invariable rule 
 never to let her houses to families in which there 
 were, at the time of their entering upon the 
 tenancy, more than two children. Nothing, 
 said Jenny, destroyed property so much as a 
 lot of children, and besides their mothers were 
 always quarrelling about them, and nothing so 
 injured the reputation of a street as women^s 
 quarrels. And so, while professing to rather like 
 children, as a woman, and in the abstract. Miss 
 Brown objected to those ^'incumbrances,*^ in her 
 capacity of owner and manager of household 
 
 F 2
 
 6B JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 property, as likely to prove detrimental to the 
 character of " Brown^s Court/'' It was only from 
 the consideration that she supposed we must all 
 have been children once, and that they (the 
 children) must be somewhere, that she allowed 
 any of them to become dwellers in her court, 
 against the peace and respectability of which she 
 considered that every woman who had an ad- 
 dition to her family while living there, grievously 
 and wilfully sinned. The few children who did 
 live in the court were, as might naturally be 
 expected, of a quiet and subdued disposition, 
 and were, as was also to be expected, in keeping 
 with the character of the court in being 
 thoroughly clean and orderly. Most of them, 
 from two years old and upwards, went to school, 
 and when they were at play after school hours, 
 their games were of a quiet character, very 
 different from the noisy, romping sports — 
 often leading to a fight amongst the chil- 
 dren, and a quarrel between two or more of 
 their mothers — of the numerous and streetv
 
 PLAY IN brown's COURT. G9 
 
 juveniles of " the court where I was born/' and 
 consisted chiefly of playing at school or keeping 
 house. It was in this latter game that I first 
 joined them on the second day after my arrival 
 in the court, and on this occasion I speedily 
 brought disgrace upon myself, and horrified my 
 highly respectable playmates, by using bad lan- 
 guage to the mother, a sedate little matron 
 about five years old, and kicking the shins of 
 the father, a grave young gentleman of about the 
 same age, in consequence of their having, in the 
 discharge of their temporary parental duties, 
 boxed my ears — boxing the ears of their children 
 and reminding them, at the slightest attempt at 
 self assertion, that they were not the father or 
 mother, being their idea of the whole duty of 
 parents. This ^dolent conduct upon my part 
 put an immediate stop to the play, and caused 
 what was in Brown-'s Court quite a tumult. 
 W'hile one of the children was informing his 
 mother, in tones of horror, that the new little 
 boy had called ^lary Ann Cooper a devil, and
 
 70 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 kicked Billy Perkins on the leg, old Jenny- 
 Brown appeared on the scene, and, having heard 
 this recital of juvenile depravity, threateningly 
 addressed ^^ the new little boy '^ as a little ruffian, 
 and glared at him through her spectacles in a 
 gorgon-like manner that caused him to fly howl- 
 ing, and augured unfavourably for his parents^ con- 
 tinuance in their present position of her tenants. 
 '^ Calling names,^^ kicking shins, and throw- 
 ing stones, and other proceedings of a like 
 hostile character, having been very little thought 
 of occurrences amongst my former companions, 
 a quarrel and reconciliation with them usually 
 taking place within the hour, I soon forgot all 
 about this little disturbance and old Jenny^s 
 terrible glance. The next evening, when the 
 children had returned from school and were at 
 play, I went to join them as unconcernedly as 
 possible, and was accordingly — as far as I was 
 at such a tender age capable of being — filled 
 with surprise and indignation at finding myself 
 cut dead, a thing which is felt, if not understood.
 
 THE CUT DIRECT. 71 
 
 even by children^ and upon wliich in this case 
 the juveniles of Brown's Court left no room for 
 mistake,, as one of them candidly informed me 
 that their mothers had. told them not to play 
 with me^ as I was an ill-bred little wretch. 
 Under these circumstances I acted^ as is fre- 
 quently the wontj not only of children but of 
 their elders also^ upon the principle of calling 
 the grapes sour, by telling these little exclusives 
 that I did not want to play with them, that they 
 couldn^t half play, that keeping house, or playing 
 at school, was nothing of a game compared with 
 the games that I had been used to and would 
 have taught them, and concluded by putting my 
 tongue out at them, " pulling a face,"*^ and ex- 
 claiming, '^ Yah ! yah \" 
 
 Being through this quarrel thrown upon my 
 own resources for amusement, I took to ex- 
 ploring the street from which the court 
 branched off, and admiring and wishing 
 for the possession of the contents of the 
 more attractive shop window^s in it. In two or
 
 72 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 three days^, however^ I had thoroughly ^^done^' 
 this by no means extensive street,, and it then 
 became necessary for me to seek fresh streets 
 and shop-windows new in order to fill np my 
 time^ and gratify my taste for the novel and the 
 beautiful in things streety. Accordingly one 
 day^ a little more than a week after we had re- 
 moved to Brown^s Courts I extended my after- 
 noon ramble so far that I entirely lost my 
 reckoning. But though dimly conscious of this 
 fact^ I had that sort of instinctive reliance on 
 Providence and the police which my mother 
 expressed when she said — speaking of the 
 frequency of my being lost — that^ like a bad 
 shilling, I always turned uj) again ; and being 
 among new scenes I wandered contentedly on. 
 The shades of evening were rapidly closing in 
 ere I bethought me that it was time to set up tlie 
 half-howling, half-crying sound of lamentation 
 with which it was my practice to announce to 
 passers by that I was a lost child. JNIy cries 
 soon had the desired effect of attracting notice^
 
 LOST ONCE MORE. 73 
 
 for a stout old lady, whom I rather startled by 
 my first howl, seeing that I was alone, came and 
 asked what was the matter with me. 
 
 *^ Fm lost,^^ I answered, repeating the first 
 part of a lesson that I had been taught with 
 an especial view to occurrences of this kind. 
 
 '' And don''t you know where you live T' asked 
 the old lady. 
 
 "Three Lambs' Buildings, Castle Street,'' I 
 said, repeating the concluding portion of my 
 lesson, though of course that was not now 
 my address. 
 
 Having learnt this much the old lady took me 
 by the hand and walked with me until we met a 
 policeman, to whom she handed me over, telling 
 him that I was lost, and giving him the address 
 that I had given to her. Lambs' Buildings not 
 being on the beat of this officer or the one next 
 to his, I was passed on by him and his brother 
 to the one in whose beat they were situated. 
 On arriving there, the policeman of course dis- 
 covered that that was no longer my place of
 
 74 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 residence and received my right address^ and I 
 was tlien passed on tlirough several other 
 ^' beats '^ until I finally reached home between 
 nine and ten o^'clock in charge of a policeman^ 
 and escorted by a small and_, I believe^ rather 
 disrespectable looking crowd. The noise of my 
 arrival brought out a number of the inhabitants 
 of the court,, and amongst them its termagant 
 landlady. Exasperated to the last degree at 
 seeing this invasion of her territory, Jenny at 
 once commenced to pour forth a tremendous 
 volley of abuse upon the heads of the intruders ; 
 but they not being her tenants, and belonging to 
 a class for whom " jawing '^ had very little 
 terrors, made very light of Miss Brown^s efforts 
 in that line, responding to her invectives by 
 " ironical cheers '' and cries of " Avell done, old 
 gal,^^ '' go it, Sal, Til hold your bonnet," and 
 finally by bursts of groaning, amidst which the 
 hitherto undefeated Jenny was fain to beat a 
 retreat. She, however, kept her wrath warm 
 through the night, and in the morning came to
 
 APPEASING MISS BROWN. 75 
 
 my mother and in a furious tirade gave her 
 ^' notice to quit/^ but after letting the steam off 
 she cooled down a little^ and consented to with- 
 draw the notice on my mother promising that I 
 should be packed off to school on the following 
 Monday morning.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I AM SENT TO SCHOOL, AND FIND A GUIDE, PHILOSOPHER, 
 PRIEND, AND SWEETHEART IN MISS COOPER — INFANT-SCHOOL 
 LIPE AND TALK. 
 
 ITH a view to carrying out lier promise, 
 my mother made some inquiries amongst 
 her new neighbours, and found that most of 
 their children of both sexes went to a woman^'s 
 school in the next street. This school they 
 assured her was a highly respectable one, being 
 kept by the widow of a dissenting clergyman, 
 and its select character was testified to by the 
 fact that the terms were sixpence a week, 
 whereas the payment to ordinary schools of the 
 same class was only twopence per week. To 
 this school my mother determined to send me, 
 and she accordingly waited upon the " missis ^'
 
 T GO TO SCHOOL. 77 
 
 of it, and arranged for my admission on the 
 coming Monday. Aboat half-past eight on that 
 morning Mary Ann Cooper,, the young lady who 
 enacted the part of the mother in the game of 
 honse-keeping in which I had so disgraced my- 
 self by resenting parental correction, and between 
 whose mother and mine a feeling of good neigh- 
 bourship had sprung up, called for me, it having 
 been arranged that she was to take care of me 
 for a day or two and put me in the ways of the 
 school, of which she had been a scholar for a 
 year and a half. 
 
 When my school guide, philosopher, and 
 friend that was to be arrived my mother was 
 just putting the finishing touches to my toilette, 
 and having carefully wrapped my school wages 
 in a piece of paper, and given me a kiss and a 
 penny for myself, she committed me to the 
 care of that young lady. 
 
 *^ Is school a nice place V^ I asked Miss 
 Cooper, as hand in hand we walked along. 
 
 " O ! bcautiful,^^ she answered.
 
 78 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 " And what shall I have to do there/* I 
 asked. 
 
 " Learn yonr ABC; and I take the 
 ABC class sometimes,, and TU favour you^, 
 you know, Johnny/' she said, lowering her voice 
 and putting her arm around my neck in a most 
 loving manner. 
 
 Not knowing what " favouring '^ meant, I was 
 rather at a loss for a reply, but was speedily 
 relieved from my embarrassment by Mary Ann 
 taking up the conversation. 
 
 ^' Do you like toffee, Johnny V she asked in a 
 low, persuasive tone, and drawing me closer to 
 her side. 
 
 Toffee being the universal weakness of civi- 
 lized childhood, I of course at once replied that 
 I just did, and my companion then informed me 
 that by a strange coincidence she too liked 
 toffee, and, curiously enough, knew a shoj), 
 which she would be happy to point out to me, 
 where five sticks of that delectable article were 
 to be bought for a penny. This offer I accepted,
 
 THE TOFFEE MANs'. 79 
 
 and my companion then led me down a side 
 street, in wliich she met another girl of about 
 her own age_, who was one of the scholars of '' our 
 school/^ 
 
 ^^ Holloa, Mary Ann/^ said this girl, " where 
 are you going T' 
 
 " Nowhere/'' responded Mary Ann, in a 
 haughty tone. 
 
 " O yes you are,''' said the other ; " you''re 
 going to the toffee man's /^ 
 
 " O no we ain't,^' said Mary Ann, shocked at 
 having her veracity questioned in this unhesi- 
 tating manner ; " are we, Johnny 1" 
 
 Thus appealed to, I, of course, replied that 
 we were not. 
 
 But it was to the toffee man's that we were 
 going my companion informed me as soon as we 
 had got rid of her inquisitive friend, " only, you 
 know,'' she said, " it wouldn't do to tell that 
 Lizzie Simpson, for she's the greediest little 
 thing that ever was.'"* 
 
 The toffee man's shop was, as were many of
 
 80 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 the small retail shops in Dockington, in an 
 underground kitchen^ to which access was gained 
 by a flight of awkward stone steps,, and pointing 
 out this latter fact^ Miss Cooper kindly suggested 
 that she should " go in for them '^ — " them " 
 being the five " longsticks ^' which constituted 
 the particular pennyworth of toffee^ which " the 
 toffee man/^ as the proprietor of this special sweet- 
 shop was called^ was famed for selling. To this 
 suggestion I agreed, and at once handed the penny 
 over to her^ when she quickly darted down the 
 steps and after a time returned with the five 
 sticks, from each of which, as I became con- 
 vinced by subsequent experience, she must have 
 taken a considerable piece. 
 
 " Here they are, Johnny," she said, giving 
 them into my hand ; " but loe must eat them 
 before we go to school, for if we don^t, that 
 Lizzie Simpson and a lot more '11 be begging 
 from you; so wc^ll take our time, and them as 
 is done their toffee first 11 help the other." 
 
 To this arrangement I thoughtlessly agreed.
 
 AN INFANT SCHOOL. 81 
 
 and was a decided loser by the latter part of it, 
 as my considerate companion easily despatched 
 three sticks to my two. Owing to our having 
 turned out of the road and walked very slowly 
 while eating the toffee, it was after nine o^clock 
 when we reached school, and upon the mistress 
 asking Miss Cooper how it was that she was 
 late, that artless young lady curtsied, and ex- 
 plained that her lateness had been caused by 
 her having had to wait for the new little lad, 
 who was not ready when she had called for 
 him. 
 
 '' Oh, very welV^ said the mistress, evidently 
 satisfied with the excuse. '^ And so this is little 
 Master E/obinson, whose mother was here about 
 him the other day, is it V 
 
 " Yes, please, governess,^^ replied Miss Cooper, 
 with another curtsey, and passing on to her place 
 in the school. 
 
 "And are you a good boy. Master Robin- 
 son?" asked governess, as she took off my cap, 
 and gave me a kiss. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 S2 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 ''^Yes/^ I answered. 
 
 '^ Yes, what ?'' said the governess. 
 
 " Yes_, in double deed/^ I replied,, using a 
 form of asseveration with which I had been 
 familiar in Lambs^ Buildings. 
 
 '^ That^s not what I mean/^ said the governess, 
 with a half-suppressed laugh ; " don't you say 
 ' mam ■' to ladies ?'"' 
 
 '' Yes, when they give me a halfpenny/'' I 
 said. 
 
 " Oh but, you know, polite little boys say 
 ' mam ' whenever they speak to a lady. Now, 
 try again. Are you a good little boy ?" 
 
 " Yes '' (and after a pause in which the 
 governess whispered admonishingly, ' Now, 
 remember '), '' mam.'"* 
 
 " Ah, that's better. Now go and sit there," 
 she said, approvingly, and pointing to a stool 
 beside her own chair, ''^ and I'll come and set 
 you a lesson when I've got the others in their 
 places." And indeed, by this time it svas highly- 
 necessary to place some restraint upon the
 
 AN INFANT SCHOOL. 83 
 
 movemeiits of '' the others/'' as, while I had been 
 receiving my lesson in etiquette, they had become 
 decidedly uproarious. 
 
 While the governess was restoring peace and 
 order, forming the scholars into classes and 
 giving them lessons, I had a favourable oppor- 
 tunity for taking a view of the school, and as I 
 write, I can see in my mind^s eye the scene 
 which, with childish wonder, I gazed upon as I 
 sat on the little three-legged stool beside 
 governesses chair on the morning that I became 
 her scholar, as plainly as it presented itself to my 
 material vision at the time. The school-room 
 was the parlour of a small cottage house, and 
 was about eighteen feet square. It was furnished 
 with three benches, which, when formed into three 
 sides of a square, afforded accommodation for the 
 whole of the scholars, and each, when in line, 
 was apportioned to one of the three classes into 
 which the children were divided. Under the 
 window stood a large table, at one end of which 
 was gathered the ^' work '' of the girls, who were 
 
 g2
 
 84 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 taught plain sewing and knitting ; at tlie other, 
 the books and slates of the more advanced 
 scholars ; and in the centre were placed (when not 
 in use) two very tall, i^arti-coloured dunces^ caps, 
 of the orthodox fashion, with asses^ ears attached, 
 and a birch rod. Between this table and the 
 fireplace stood governesses chair and the stool I 
 occupied, the latter being specially set aside for 
 new or very young scholars; and the school- 
 roomly appearance of the apartment was com- 
 pleted, and the bareness of its walls relieved, by 
 a number of aljDhabetical and other cards, and 
 cheap coloured prints of Scriptural subjects being 
 hung round the room. The scholars were about 
 thirty in number, from two to eight years of 
 age, and rather more than half of them girls. 
 Mrs. Wilson, or " governess,^^ as she was always 
 called by her scholars, bore no resemblance to 
 the stock pictures of infant-school mistresses. 
 She was not very old, wrinkled, and fierce-look- 
 ing; she had not a hooked, high-bridged nose, 
 and neither wore spectacles nor a frightful-looking
 
 GOVERNESS. 85 
 
 cap ; and very rarely had tlie rod in her hands. 
 She was about forty years of age_, had glossy 
 brown hair, slightly '' picked out ''■' with grey ; 
 her countenance was pale and somewhat freckled ; 
 her mouth was large, and her nose a compromise 
 between the snub and flat; but there was a 
 sweetness in her large, soft, loving eyes that 
 made children ^' take to her '^ instinctively, and 
 gave an expression to her homely face that made 
 it beautiful and attractive, despite the irregularity 
 of her features. She was of medium height, and 
 just stoutish enough to have a motherly appear- 
 ance, and with her well-fitting dark dress, sur- 
 mounted by a snowy little collar, fastened round 
 her white, plump throat by a small silver 
 brooch, and a rather coquettishly-trimmed cap 
 on her head, she looked a very incarnation of 
 neatness. 
 
 In about half an hour governess got the 
 classes fairly settled to their lessons; and 
 then, taking a card from the wall, returned to 
 me.
 
 86 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 ^^ Now little Robinson/^ she said^ motioning 
 me to stand up^ ^'^yon must learn your letters, 
 you know ; I'll teach you to-day _, and then to- 
 morrow you^ll take your seat with those pretty 
 little boys and girls you see on the last form/' 
 
 While saying this she had seated herself in 
 her chair^ and drawn me to her side ; and every- 
 thing being now in readiness, my first lesson 
 commenced. 
 
 " Do you know what that is V she said, 
 pointing to the first letter on the card. 
 
 ^^ A boat,^' I said, the capital A strilving me as 
 something like the pointed pieces of flat wood that 
 I had been in the habit of sailing in the channel. 
 
 " O dear no,^' said the governess, shaking 
 her head, ^^ these are not pictures, they are letters, 
 and this one is the letter A. Say ' A.' '" 
 
 I said ^^ A,'' and repeated after her a great 
 number of times in the course of half an hour 
 that and the succeeding letters, down to E, and 
 that being considered sufficient for a first lesson, 
 she told me that if I got on well with that
 
 SMITH V. SHAW. 87 
 
 alphabet^ in the course of a week or two I would 
 be allowed to complete my alphabetical studies 
 from a beautiful rhymed alphabet,, beginning, 
 
 " A is an angel, who in heaven does dwell ; 
 B stands for Bethlehem, as the scriptures do tell." 
 
 Leaving me to con my lesson, the governess 
 proceeded to take the morning lessons of the first, 
 or reading class, and the second, or a-b, ab, class, 
 while one of the girls from the first class " took '* 
 the alphabet class, from which latter there pre- 
 sently came a howl that startled the whole school, 
 and which it turned out had been given vent to 
 by Jenny Smith, in consequence of Johnny Shaw 
 having, as she put it, stolen a piece of toffee off 
 her. Accuser and accused were at once brought 
 before the governess, and it then transpired that 
 Miss Smith had entered into an arrangement 
 with Master Shaw to the effect that she was to 
 let him have three sucks at a piece of toffee in 
 consideration of a piece of blue ribbon that, with 
 the recklessness of spirit which the desire for
 
 88 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 the possession of toffee produces,, he had torn 
 from the sleeve of his frock for the express pur- 
 pose of this sweet barter. The first two sucks 
 the young lady admitted Johnny had taken 
 fairly^, but in taking the thirds he had snapped 
 the whole stick out of her hand^ and bitten a 
 considerable piece off it before returning it. 
 Indignant at hearing this charge. Master Shaw 
 opened his mouth to its utmost capacity, and by 
 his gestures invited governess to look into it ; 
 but this proved an unfortunate mode of pro- 
 testing his innocence, for the piece of tofiee was 
 plainly to be seen, only partially, and not, as he 
 had fondly hoped, wholly concealed by his 
 tongue, and his guilt thus made unmistakably 
 apparent. The governess readily and wisely 
 disposed of this case, deciding that Smith had 
 been wrong in the first place in having tempted 
 Shaw to tear the ribbon from his frock, and that 
 though Shaw was certainly wrong in having bit 
 where he should only have sucked, his guilt must 
 for the once be regarded in the light of poetical
 
 ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE. 89 
 
 justice upon Miss Smith, though he was at the 
 same time informed that he would get the rod if 
 he didn't mind what he was at. 
 
 There was no play-ground attached to the 
 school, but at eleven o^clock each morning the 
 scholars were allowed to go into the street and 
 play about the school door, nominally for a 
 quarter of an hour, though in reality the length 
 of time devoted to play depended upon the 
 nature of the preparations for " SamueFs din- 
 ner,^' Samuel being governesses only son, who 
 was at this time in the last year of his appren- 
 ticeship to the trade of a carpenter. By the 
 time the case. Smith v. Shaw, had been disposed 
 of, and the lessons of the classes taken, it was 
 eleven o^clock, and we were dismissed to our 
 morning play, after being strictly cautioned not 
 to go far from the door. Heedless, however, 
 of this injunction, I, as soon as I had taken 
 the bearings of my position, set off home, as I 
 felt an irresistible craving for the luncheon, in 
 the shape of a '^ piece " which I had been accus-
 
 90 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 tomed to have about this hour. After making 
 one or two slight mistakes I arrived at our house 
 in safety,, and my mother taking the fact of my 
 presence there as a sufficient proof of the legitimacy 
 of this unexpected visits gave me the much desired 
 piece, which I was just about to commence 
 eating, when Miss Cooper made her unwelcome 
 appearance upon the scene^ and explained to my 
 horrified mother that I had run away, and that 
 she was deputed by governess to take me back. 
 Upon hearing this my mother at once bundled 
 me off, with the still untasted piece in my 
 hand. 
 
 As soon as we were out of the court my 
 companion, who affected to have then seen the 
 piece for the first time, started back with a look 
 of horror. Having thus attracted my attention, 
 she proceeded to explain that if there was one 
 crime which above all others was obnoxious in 
 the sight of governess, and visited by her with 
 the direst punishment, it was eating pieces 
 during school hours ; and in order to save me
 
 ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE. 91 
 
 from the consequences of my rash ignorance in 
 this matter,, she heroically offered to help me to 
 eat the piece^ so that we might finish it before 
 getting back to school^ and this offer she carried 
 out in a manner that must have proved much 
 more satisfactory to her than it did to me. 
 When we got back to school the other scholars 
 were already at their lessons, to which circum- 
 stance governess directed my attention, and then 
 went on gently to explain, in a manner suitable 
 to my understanding, that when we went out at 
 eleven o^ clock, it was simply to play about the 
 door for a short time ; but that at half-past 
 twelve we should go home to dinner, and would 
 not have to come back until two o^ clock. 
 After making me acquainted with these rules, she 
 proceeded to test my knowledge respecting the 
 five letters, the repeating of which had been 
 my first lesson, and finding I had forgotten all 
 of them but B, my studies for the first day were 
 judiciously cut down to the first three letters. 
 At dinner-time I was accompanied home by the
 
 92 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 all-attentive Miss Cooper^ and another little girl 
 about my own age^ who also lived in our court, 
 hut whose taking me by the hand Miss C. 
 evidently regarded in the light of an encroach- 
 ment upon her vested rights and interests in me, 
 as she took frequent occasion to pointedly 
 inform her that she had been specially appointed 
 by Mrs. Robinson to take care of Johnny. On 
 delivering me to my mother, Miss Cooper gave 
 a very voluble account of the morning^s pro- 
 ceedings — according to which it aj)peared that 
 she had been of the greatest service to me, and 
 had preserved me from all kinds of trouble— at 
 the same time she reiterated her assurance that 
 she would " favour " me when she took the 
 ABC class, and for these supposed services past, 
 and favours to come, she was rewarded with the 
 gift of a halfpenny. 
 
 I returned to school about a quarter to 
 two, still in company with my disinterested 
 companion of the morning, and joined some of 
 the other scholars in a game called " Jenny
 
 PLAYING AT '' JENNY JONES." 93 
 
 Jones/' which is carried on by the players 
 dividing themselves into two parties_, one of 
 which stands against the wall,, the other with 
 their hands linked facing them^ at a few yards' 
 distance. When all are ready this last party 
 begins to step toAvards the stationary one, 
 regulating their movements by the time of a 
 lively little tune, to which they sing the follow- 
 ing words : 
 
 " We've come to see Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones, Jenny 
 Jones, 
 We've come to see Jenny Jones, how is she now ?" 
 
 The party thus applied to take up the tune 
 and reply — 
 
 " She's very well, ladies, ladies, ladies. 
 She's very well, ladies, how are yon ?" 
 
 To this inquiry respecting the state of their 
 health the ladies do not deign to reply, but 
 begin to skip backwards to their former station. 
 
 Fare ye well, ladies, ladies, ladies, 
 Fare ye weU, ladies, for we must away."
 
 94 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 After a short pause they again skip forward, 
 singing, " WeVe come to see Jenny Jones/^ &c., 
 and are told in tlie same style that she is very 
 ill, when they again retire, singing, ^' Fare ye 
 well, ladies," &c. They then come forward a 
 third time, making the same musical inquiries 
 respecting Jenny Joneses health, and are in- 
 formed that — 
 
 " She's just died, ladies, ladies, ladies ; 
 She's just died, ladies, how are you ?" 
 
 Upon which they once more, and for the last 
 time, skip back, singing, " Fare ye well, 
 ladies," &c. This game, I am told by the 
 learned in such matters, is intended as a bur- 
 lesque on the meaningless formality of the 
 card-leaving calls enjoined by the laws ot 
 etiquette; but if such is the case, children are 
 all unconscious of the fact that they are reading 
 society a lesson upon its conventionality when 
 they play at " Jenny Jones." 
 
 It was two o^clock when our game was 
 finished, and we then went into school. The
 
 EXERCISE. 95 
 
 benches were now formed into three sides 
 of a square, and the scholars, instead of being 
 formed into classes, took their seats at random, 
 this being their practice when — as was the case 
 now — they were going to have " exercise/^ 
 When all were seated, governess, beside whom 
 I was again placed, called out in a drill-sergeant 
 tone, " Attention.^'' On receiving this word of 
 command the children extended their arms at 
 right angles to their bodies, dropping them to 
 their sides again at the word " Down,"'' and these 
 movements were repeated until they were per- 
 formed with almost as much precision as a 
 movement in the manual exercise of a well- 
 trained volunteer corps. The governess then 
 gave a wave of her hand, and in obedience to 
 the signal the children began a vigorous clapping 
 of hands, keeping time to the tune of an 
 irregular rhyme, running — 
 
 " Clap, clap, altogether, clap, clap away, 
 This is the way we exercise, as teacher says we may." 
 
 This movement and rhyme were alternated by
 
 96 JOHNNY R«felNSON. 
 
 tlie shooting in and out of the arms^ and the sing- 
 ing of " Shootj shoot altogether/'' &c.; and the 
 drill whieh these movements jointly constituted 
 was continued for three quarters of an hour. The 
 sewing and knitting were then given out to those 
 girls who were being taught ^^ work/^ the slates 
 to those boys and girls who were learning writing 
 or arithmetic, and the lesson books and cards to 
 the others^ and comparative quietness reigned 
 in the school. But before four o'clock — 
 which was the hour at which we were dis- 
 missed for the day — arrived, the monotony of 
 our proceedings was considerably relieved by 
 both the dunce^s cap and the rod being brought 
 into requisition. The first-mentioned article 
 was placed upon the head of a young gentleman 
 in the ABC class^ who had not only refused to 
 say his lesson_, but defiantly declared that he 
 did not want to be a good boy, and didn^t care 
 what his father would think if he heard of his 
 contumacious conduct. For this shocking 
 behaviour he was made to stand in the middle
 
 PUNISHMENT. 97 
 
 of the room^ -with the tallest and most grotesque 
 of the dunces' caps on his head_, while the other 
 scholars pointed at him^, and sloAvly chanted, 
 three several times, " Dunce, dunce, double D, 
 can^t say your A B C" But this practical 
 pointing at him of the finger of scorn had no 
 effect upon this hardened young sinner, who 
 evidently regarded the whole affair as good fun, 
 and coolly informed his companions that he 
 could say his ABC, and indeed could say down 
 to H, it being the letters that came after that 
 one that had so disgusted him with his alpha- 
 betical studies. 
 
 The circumstance which led to the use of the 
 rod originated, as the disturbance in the morniDg 
 had done, in toffee. One Davy Edwards had 
 exchanged a piece of toffee for a bit of red glass, 
 but presently repenting him of the exchange, he 
 requested Freddy March, the other party to the 
 transaction, to '' cough up '' and return the 
 toffee, and being informed that that was an 
 impossible feat, he insisted upon being allowed 
 VOL. I. H
 
 *^8 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 to cut him open in order to recover the lost 
 piece of Everton. And it was for persisting in 
 expressing himself still willing and anxious to 
 perform this piece of vivisection^ after he had 
 been informed that it would cause the death of 
 Master March^ that governess decided upon 
 birching him^ though the style in which she 
 performed that operation was not such as to 
 justify the horrible howling which the san- 
 guinary-minded young gentleman set up when 
 undergoing it. At tea-time I had plenty to tell 
 my mother about what I had seen and heard at 
 school; and after tea I went and joined in the 
 play of the other children of the court, several 
 of whom Tv'cre now my schoolmates, and having 
 patiently submitted to having my ears boxed by 
 the father and mother when playing at keeping 
 house, I became fairly established as one of the 
 juvenile set of Brown^s Court. 
 
 On the following morning I had scarcely 
 crossed the threshold of the school when I was 
 brought to a stop by governess asking me where
 
 IN MY CLASS. 99 
 
 my manners were. Being unable to answer 
 this question^ I was next asked if I did not know 
 how to make a bow to governess,, and replying 
 in the negative^ I received a second lesson in 
 etiquette in order to qualify me for executing that 
 piece of politeness on future mornings^ and was 
 then assigned a place in the alphabet class. 
 "When our lesson cards were given out^ the 
 gentleman on whom the penance of the dunce's 
 cap had been inflicted on the previous afternoon^ 
 and on whose left hand I now found myself 
 seated, asked me in a whisper if I could say past 
 H. Findings from my incoherent answers, that 
 I could not even say that far, he seemed greatly 
 rejoiced, though it is only right to say that his 
 joy arose rather from a fellow-feeling than a 
 sense of triumph, and he informed me in a 
 chuckling whisper that he would give me an acid 
 drop when he got a halfpenny, which would 
 probably be at dinner-time, as his uncle, who had 
 come to see them, had promised to give him 
 one then. This uncle, he informed mc, was a
 
 100 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 sailor, and had a great big beard and big black 
 hands, and was in the habit of saying bad 
 words to the cat. He had taken him (my 
 informant) to the Circus on the previous night, 
 had treated him to cakes, oranges, and ginger- 
 beer while there, and after carrying him home 
 on his shoulder, had promised to give him a 
 halfpenny next day. At this point this inte- 
 resting monologue (for I had been only a 
 listener) was broken off by the girl who had been 
 deputed to take our class giving the speaker 
 a rap on the hand, and requesting him to 
 make less noise, whereupon Master Johnson (for 
 that was my new friend^s name) immediately 
 made more noise by exclaiming aloud, " j\Iy 
 uncle ^11 warm you, Sarah Thomas, if you 
 hit me.'' 
 
 As it was raining hard at eleven o'clock, we 
 could not go out to play, but we were allowed 
 to talk while governess went into the kitchen 
 to look after her son's dinner. The permission 
 to converse was eagerly made use of, and all
 
 INFANT-SCHOOL TALK. 101 
 
 kinds of cliilclren^s topics — from the quality of 
 sweetmeats and the fashion of dolls' clothes^ 
 to what they would do when they were men and 
 women — were discussed. A little girl who was 
 seated beside me struck up a conversation by 
 asking me what I would do with a shilling if 
 by any chance I happened to be in possession 
 of so large a sum. 
 
 " Buy lots of things to eat/-* I said ; ^' wouldn^t 
 you?- 
 
 " Well^ I should buy some things to eat/^ 
 she answered,, " but 1 should buy dolls^ and 
 cradles^ and picture-books besides. - 
 
 " Oh V said a little boy^ who had been listen- 
 ing to us, " Vyq got picture-books with giants 
 with three heads and as tall as a church steeple 
 in them."^ 
 
 Before we could express our admiration at 
 hearing this interesting piece of intelligence, or 
 give vent to the curiosity excited by it by mak- 
 ing inquiries respecting the triple-headed mon- 
 sters, our wonder and fear were immeasurably
 
 102 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 heightened by another young gentleman coolly 
 and contemptuously observing — 
 
 '^ Oh, Fve seen a giant with five heads and as 
 tall as the sky ?" 
 
 " Where T' we unanimously exclaimed. 
 
 This juvenile Munchausen had evidently 
 intended his startling statement as a clencher, 
 and was consequently unprepared for our ques- 
 tion, so that there was a considerable pause, 
 during which we were in a state of the utmost 
 excitement, before he hesitatingly answered, 
 '' In a place." 
 
 This was rather a damper; but, recovering 
 from our disappointment, we next asked, " When 
 did you see him?" To which he replied more 
 readily, but, if possible, more vaguely, '' One 
 day;" and his answers to other questions being 
 of the same vague and indefinite character, it 
 began to dawn upon our mind that he had been 
 di'awing upon his imagination. A young lady 
 of a logical turn of mind intimated her belief 
 that such was the case by observing that giants
 
 INFANT-SCHOOL TALK. 103 
 
 were buggy-boos^ and buggy-boos only came 
 at nigbtj so that the five-lieaded giant wbo 
 reacted to the sky could not have been seen one 
 day. Master Johnson, however_, expressed his un- 
 belief more pointedly by stigmatizing young Mun- 
 chausen as '^ a big storier/'' whereupon that 
 imaginative youth took the huflp, and intimated 
 in tones of displeasure that he wouldn't tell us 
 anything else. 
 
 Encouraged by the silencing of Munchausen^ 
 one of the girls who had been listening to but 
 taken no part in the conversation, ventured to 
 say that her mother had told her that there 
 were no giants, but this preposterously heterodox 
 statement was received with the disapprobation 
 and scorn that it deserved. 
 
 ^^ No giants V' we exclaimed in chorus. ^^ No 
 giants, eh ? Where, then, were the giants of 
 ^ Jack the Giant Killer," ^ Jack and the Bean- 
 stalk," and divers other truthful histories V asked 
 my companions, who, although unable to read, 
 were fully acquainted with the adventures and
 
 104 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 exploits of the giant-slaying Jack and other 
 juvenile knights-errant. '^ If there were no 
 giants^ where did the giants of these standard 
 histories come from?^^ they asked, with the 
 triumphantly sarcastic air of a cross-examining 
 barrister putting a poser ; but it was by Scripture 
 that this daring young free-thinker was finally 
 and irretrievably put down. One of the girls 
 from the first class having wandered within ear- 
 shot of our conversation_, authoritatively decided 
 the controversy by stating that she had read about 
 giants in the Bible,, and if the Bible said there 
 were giants, of course there must be giants. 
 
 There were not wanting sceptics in the first 
 and second classes, and even in the ABC 
 class — as I found when I had been a little longer 
 in the school — who were disposed to regard 
 buggy-boo and the big black man, who was said 
 (by injudicious parents and others) to be con- 
 stantly waiting round the corner or ready to 
 come down the chimney at a moment^s notice 
 to carry away naughty boys, as mythical per-
 
 INFANT-SCHOOL TALK. 105 
 
 sonages^ but the school faith in many-headed 
 giants was strongs and ^Ye were still rejoicing 
 over this decided and scriptural demonstration 
 of their existence when governess re-entered the 
 school^ and lessons were resumed until dinner- 
 time. The afternoon was again devoted to 
 exercise work and lessons^ and by four o^clock I 
 had progressed so far in my studies as to be 
 able to unhesitatingly identify A and B^ thus 
 bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the labours 
 of the day that saw me settled down as a pupil 
 in Mrs. Wilson''s select infant school.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I Ail KESTORED TO RESPECTABILITY — LOVE AND TOFFEE- 
 I LEAVE MRS. WILSON's. 
 
 ENTERED this school when I was 
 about four years and a half old,, and 
 remained there until I was eighty and though 
 my recollections of that period — recollec- 
 tions that have been brightened by recent 
 communication^ with an especial view to these 
 memoirs_, with such of the friends or companions 
 of my youth as the chances and changes of a 
 rather knock- about life have still left to me — are 
 sufficiently vivid to enable me to give a detailed 
 account of this part of my school career, I 
 think its history will be more interesting (if it 
 has any interest at all) if epitomized, than if 
 given with that minuteness which constitutes the 
 graphicness that w^e so much admire in Defoe
 
 JUVENILE GENTILITY. 107 
 
 and some other writers^ but wliicli would, I fear 
 me, become a bore of the first magnitude in 
 the hands of the present humble scribe. 
 
 It was at this school that I first practically 
 experienced the potent character-forming power 
 of surrounding influences. I had not been a 
 pupil in it many weeks before the Bohemian 
 spirit and mud-larking habits I had con- 
 tracted in Lambs^ Buildings were eradicated and 
 replaced by manners and customs more worthy 
 of the polished society in which I now moved. 
 " Bad words '' I came to regard with a com- 
 mendable horror, and I soon began to entertain 
 the same sentiment towards children of the 
 stamp with which I had formerly been in the 
 habit of associating, and to speak of such little 
 '^ outer barbarians " with respectable aversion 
 and disdain, as naughty boys or girls, who 
 were ultimately destined to go to the bad place, 
 and with whom it were contamination to play. 
 And in this genteel tone of feeling I was con- 
 firmed by a barefooted, bareheaded, and generally
 
 108 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 scantily-clothed young gentleman^ much addicted 
 to tlie use of ^"'bad words/^ and whose acquaintance 
 I had made when wandering about the street 
 during the first week of my residence in Brown's 
 Courts having given me a sound thrashing and 
 bespattered my clothes with mud upon my 
 informing him that I wasn't going to play with 
 him any more^ because he was a dirty, bad boy. 
 I now began to take an interest in the colour of 
 my frocks_, and if I discovered a speck of dirt 
 upon my pinafore or white stockings, it lay 
 heavy on my mind, while any damage to the 
 enamel or buckle of my belt or the tassels of my 
 cap was a source of the deepest grief. I aban- 
 doned all but the mildest and most genteel of 
 out-door games, and became a proficient in 
 manners; of which last proficiency I made all 
 visitors to my father's house aware by informing 
 them that I always said " Thank you," when 
 anything was given to me. And though among 
 all this I must confess that I acquired a habit 
 common amongst my schoolmates of giving
 
 THE dunce's ordeal. 109 
 
 highly imaginative accounts of the wealth and 
 possessions of my parents_, I do not think any 
 great harm could have resulted from it^ as my 
 stories Tvere generally to some such effect as 
 that my mother had three boxes full of silk 
 dresses and a big chest full of gold and silver, 
 and that my father was in possession of a tre- 
 mendous sword, with Avhich he had cut off the 
 heads of five robbers. 
 
 My progress in juvenile gentility, imaginative 
 story-telling, and the mysteries of sundry games 
 of the Jenny Jones type, was, however, more 
 satisfactory than my educational progress. I 
 was, governess said, both dull and careless, and 
 so backward was I considered at the end of a 
 month, that the inspiration and incitement of the 
 dunce's cap was considered necessary for my 
 improvement. I was accordingly walked into 
 the middle of the school, and the smallest of the 
 duncc^s caps placed on my head, while my 
 schoolfellows sang at me the dunce, dunce, 
 double D incantation, which completed the
 
 110 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 ordeal of the dunce^s cap. I did not stand this 
 imposing penance with the cool_, cheerful 
 indifference that my communicative friend. 
 Master Johnson had done. On the third 
 repetition of the incantation I set up a dismal 
 howl^ and attempted to tear both my hair and 
 the cap^ whereupon my hands were tied to my 
 sides_, and I was made to stand in a corner with 
 my face to the wall for the space of an hour. 
 At the end of that time I was released from 
 bondage, governess expressing a hope that what 
 I had undergone would do me good, though^ as 
 far as I can remember, it had not the intended 
 effect of stimulating my mental powers. 
 
 But though I came under the ban of the dunce's 
 cap at so early a stage of my scholastic career, I 
 was very fortunate in escaping other punish- 
 ments, as I had been fully five months at school 
 before I " got the rod '' for the first time. 1 
 then received an outward, application of birch 
 for having made Dicky Wilson's nose bleed, in 
 revenge for that young gentleman, who was about
 
 SCHOOL SCAT5DAL. Ill 
 
 my own age^ having called me ^'clat tale." I 
 had repeated a statement that he had made to 
 me_, to the effect that Annie Brown, who was five 
 years of age and the belle of the school,, was his 
 sweetheart, and that he meant to steal a dolFs cloak 
 from Sarah Thomas to give to her (Miss B.). This 
 statement had, through my repeating it, come 
 to the ears of Miss Brown, who indignantly 
 denied the truth of it, openly stating that Hany 
 Pearce was her sweetheart, and appealing to that 
 favoured youth to corroborate her assertion, 
 which he did without the least hesitation, 
 threatening at the same time to warm Dicky 
 A^'ilson. The latter^s boasting having been re- 
 futed, and himself held up to derision, he turned 
 his rage upon me, and, as I have already said, 
 stigmatized me as a " clat tale," and enraged by 
 the repeated application of this offensive, even 
 if partly deserved, epithet, I fell upon him, and 
 made his nose bleed. Such a sanguinary affray 
 had never taken place in the school before, and 
 it was immediately decided that, as the perpe-
 
 112 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 trator of sucli an outrage against infant-school 
 gentility ;, I was to be well birclied. I was, 
 accordingly, hoisted on to the back of one of 
 the other scholars — whom it gave me a melan- 
 choly satisfaction to find staggered under my 
 weight — and governess proceeded to execute the 
 sentence, though in doing so she did not lay it 
 on with that degree of vigour that might have 
 been anticipated from the manner in which she 
 had expressed herself regarding the heinous 
 nature of my crime. 
 
 In the meantime, my first friend, Miss Cooper, 
 continued to mark me for her own. We went 
 to and returned from school hand in hand to- 
 gether, and loving at all times, she was particu- 
 larly so on those occasional mornings on which 
 I had a penny to spend ; and in dividing the 
 toffee, in which she took care the penny should 
 be spent, she still continued to act upon the 
 same principle, more or loss modified, as that 
 upon which the clown shares property between 
 the pantaloon and himself, I, of course, coming
 
 FAVOURING. 113 
 
 in for the pantaloon^s meagre portion. In the 
 school games we were constant companions^ and 
 when, as sometimes happened, she took our class, 
 of which I was, as already noticed, one of the 
 dullest scholars, she nobly kept her promise of 
 "favouring''^ me, if neglecting to teach me, and 
 patronisingly saying, in the face of the whole 
 class, " You needn^t say your lesson, Johnny ; 
 ni favour you,^"* and so bringing upon me the 
 hatred of my less- favoured compeers, could be 
 called favouring. If this was favouring, favour 
 me she certainly did, though whether I was 
 benefited by this style of proceeding is rather 
 questionable. Out of school, too, we were in- 
 separable. Mary Ann now always refusing to 
 accept the post of mother in the game of keeping 
 house, unless I was allowed to officiate as father, 
 and insisting that I should play on the same side 
 as her in games of the Jenny Jones order. This 
 being the state of affairs between us, it is scarcely 
 surprising that the public voice should have 
 assigned us to each other as STreethearts ; and for 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 once rumour^ it appeared^ was correct, as upon 
 mentioning this interesting report to Mary Ann, 
 as we were on our road to the toffee-man^s one 
 morning, she put her arm round my neck, and, 
 in her most seductive tone of voice, said — 
 
 " Well, I am your sweetheart, you know, 
 Johnny ; arn^t I ?^' 
 
 My sense of gallantry was happily sufficiently 
 developed to enable me to see that I was bound 
 to answer in the affirmative, and I accordingly 
 replied, '^ "Well, yes, if you like/^ And as Mary 
 Ann did like, it was thus definitely settled that 
 we were to be sweethearts, and our intimacy 
 became, if possible, greater than it had been 
 before. 
 
 But the course of true love, even when founded 
 on a basis of toffee, does not always run smooth, 
 and after a time the juvenile loves of Miss 
 Cooper and myself were productive of an inci- 
 dent that put us to the blush, and in the 
 estimation of Jenny Brown, scandalized Brown^s 
 Court. One Sunday my mother had had a
 
 SWEETS. 115 
 
 number of friends to tea_, and these friends 
 bestowed upon me a considerable amount of 
 coppers^ out of whicb I managed to secure 
 threepence for spending money. This important 
 and agreeable fact I communicated to my lady 
 love, as we were going to school on the following 
 morning. Upon hearing it she became loving 
 in the extreme,, and immediately proposed that 
 the money should be laid out in a large supply 
 of sweetmeats, to which, after she had overruled 
 a proposition upon my part for the purchase of 
 a shuttlecock and battledore, I agreed, and we 
 then went to the toffee-man''s, and changed the 
 threepence for its equivalent in the choicest of 
 his wares. The time consumed in selecting this 
 unusually extensive assortment of confectionary 
 gave us little opportunity for eating any of them 
 before reaching school, and having happily 
 negatived a proposal which, owing to our being 
 pressed for time, Mary Ann had been compelled 
 to make somewhat more abruptly than was her 
 wont, to the effect that she should take care of 
 
 I 2
 
 116 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 tlie sweet treasure^ I entered school with the 
 delightful consciousness of having in my pockets 
 a feast of tofiPee and a flow of " all-sorts " suffi- 
 cient for several hours^ ambrosial sucking. 
 During the time of morning lessons the loving 
 looks which my sweetheart continually cast upon 
 me became quite oppressive,, and the expression 
 of agony that crossed her face each time that 
 she saw me furtively conveying a portion of the 
 all-sorts to my mouthy considerably lessened my 
 enjoyment. And when at last she detected me 
 slily passing a whole stick oft offee to the young 
 lady who sat next to me^ and who^ having found 
 out that I was eating toffee^ had threatened to 
 " tell the others ^' if I did not give her some, 
 the mute reproach of her glance made me feel 
 uncomfortable to an extent that was beyond the 
 reach even of toffee to cure. 
 
 Although while in this painful frame of mind 
 Miss Cooper thought — as she subsequently in- 
 formed me — that it would never be eleven 
 o'clock^ that wished-for hour did come round at
 
 BITTERS. 117 
 
 last, and, the day being fine, we were sent out 
 
 to play. We had scarcely got outside the school 
 
 door before Mary Ann took possession of me, 
 
 and, taking me some little distance from the 
 
 school, placed her arm round my neck and 
 
 began to kiss me most vigorously, while with 
 
 her disengaged hand, she commenced to help 
 
 herself to the toffee that was in my pocket. 
 
 While we were thus engaged a number of the 
 
 other scholars, headed by the one to whom I 
 
 had given the stick of toffee, came upon us, and 
 
 taking in the state of affairs at a glance, fell to 
 
 performing a kind of demon dance around us, 
 
 at the same time singing in chorus — 
 
 " Tie for shame, fie for shame, 
 Everybody shall know your name ■," 
 
 a performance by which I was at first utterly 
 confounded, and subsequently led to momentarily 
 return to my former habit of using " bad words,'' 
 and even the usually imperturbably self-possessed 
 Mary Ann somewhat abashed. But this was 
 as nothing compared with the sequel of the
 
 118 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 transaction which took place in Brown^s Court 
 on the afternoon of the same day. I had been 
 home from school about half-an-hour^ and was 
 still lingering over my tea^ for which,, owing to 
 the quantity of sweetstufF that I had eaten in 
 the mornings I had less appetite than usual, 
 when I became aware of an unusual noise in 
 the court, and on looking out saw the greater 
 portion of my schoolfellows assembling imme- 
 diately in front of our door. This movement 
 I instinctively felt boded no good to me, nor 
 did my instinct deceive me, for my school 
 companions having formed themselves into a 
 ring by joining hands, commenced to skip round 
 and sing, in a tone loud enough to bring my 
 mother and her neighbours to their doors — 
 
 " Mary Ann Cooper's got a new frock, 
 Her petticoat wants a border ; 
 Johnny Robinson is the lad 
 That kissed her in the corner." 
 
 For some minutes my mother was unable to 
 comprehend the meaning of this demonstration.
 
 BITTERS. 
 
 119 
 
 but presently becoming enlightened, she ques- 
 tioned and cbaffed me about the kissing business 
 until I began to cry from mingled shame and 
 vexation. Nor did the assurance with which she 
 then tried to console me, that if I had kissed 
 Mary Ann there was no harm in it, restore my 
 peace of mind, and it was with feelings of heart- 
 felt relief that I at last heard old Jenny Brown, 
 who had been out, coming up the court, and 
 putting my unmercifully moral schoolmates to 
 flight. The sense of shame was too heavy upon 
 me to permit me to go out to play that evening, 
 and when Mary Ann called for me on the follow- 
 ing morning, its shadow still hung over me. But 
 the young lady, I found, had not been so deeply 
 affected by the occurrence of the previous evening, 
 as on mentioning my griefs to her, she simply 
 observed, '' Well, we needn't care, Johnny ; 
 sweethearts can kiss each other if they like."' On 
 reaching school, I ascertained that the scholars 
 had been chiefly prompted to act in the manner 
 they had done through being informed, by the
 
 120 JOHNNY llOBINSON. 
 
 girl to whom I had given the long sticky that I 
 had two pockets full of toflfee_, all of which I had 
 kept to myself; and when we went out to play 
 at eleven o''clock_, they completed their revenge 
 upon me for this act of selfishness by getting me 
 in the centre of a ring, and running round me, 
 
 singing, 
 
 " Greedy guts, greedy guts, 
 Eat all tlie world up." 
 
 Thus the money from the possession of which I 
 had anticipated so much enjoyment became, in 
 conjunction with Mary Ann^s too demonstrative 
 love, the root of a very considerable amount of 
 evil to me. 
 
 But this was only the commencement of the 
 troubles which broke the smoothness of, and at 
 last put a blighting end to the course of my first 
 love. Whether or not an oyster may be crossed 
 in love is one of those problems in natural history 
 on which the learned in such matters still dis- 
 agree, but that a commonplace male juvenile, of 
 the interesting age of five years, may be so
 
 TIFFING. 121 
 
 crossed, is a matter upon which my own youthful 
 experience justifies me in asserting there can be 
 no doubt. As my worldly wisdom increased,, and 
 my belief in the justness of my sweetheart^s style 
 of dividing the toffee purchased with my money 
 diminished^ tiffs between us became frequent^ 
 Mary Ann invariably going into the sulks and 
 uttering keen reproaches whenever I insisted on 
 sharing the toffee myself, and only giving her a 
 fair half. But '' tiffs ^' are the lot of all lovers, 
 and, like many other things that seem very un- 
 desirable when merely contemplated, are nothing 
 when you are used to them. Indeed, to the 
 seasoned mind, tiffs become enjoyable rather than 
 otherwise, and even to have your love passages 
 detected, and publicly derided in song and dance 
 by companions whose sense of moral propriety 
 you have failed to conciliate by gifts of ^^ all- 
 sorts," is, after the first agony of shame is over, 
 a bearable trial. But when you are ruthlessly 
 jilted, and upon complaint openly reviled before 
 friends, and in the presence of your hated and
 
 122 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 successful rival, then may you indeed come to 
 tlie maddening conclusion that you have loved, 
 not wisely but too well. Well regulated indeed 
 must be the mind in which such treatment does 
 not replace the slighted love by hatred of the 
 faithless fair. By such heartless conduct as this 
 (as will presently be seen) the faithless and venial 
 (alas, that I should have to call her so !) Mary 
 Ann put an end to our courtship, and planted 
 a feeling of estrangement and hatred where 
 love had been. 
 
 After being decorated with the dunce^s cap, 
 made to stand on the line times innumerable, 
 and being frequently told by governess that I 
 was the dullest little boy that ever she had in 
 her school ; after my grieving parents had 
 prognosticated, from my exceptional duluess, 
 that I would never be anything, I was, at the 
 end of ten months' study — though even then my 
 knowledge of those letters that came after R was 
 decidedly shaky, and a cross-examination con- 
 fused my identification of letters considerably
 
 A DULL SCHOLAR. 123 
 
 nearer to A — promoted to the a-b ab class, wliere 
 for several months the slowness I had exhibited 
 in the alphabet class continued to characterize 
 my progress. Children who had come into the class 
 after me had got to words of two syllables,, while 
 I was still floundering amongst those perhaps ex- 
 pressive^but certainly uninteresting monosyllables, 
 ab, ib, ob, ub ; and save for a day or two after a 
 new scholar had been admitted into it, the bottom 
 of the class was my fixed position. And so 
 governess continued to repeat, with daily in- 
 creasing emphasis, that I was the dullest little 
 boy that had ever been in her school, while the 
 gloomy views of my parents respecting my future 
 were confirmed. 
 
 In course of time, however, and by dint of 
 much patient and conscientious labour upon the 
 part of governess, ab and ub were conquered, 
 and I then began to spell words. After a while 
 I was able to spell out short sentences, to some 
 such efiect as that John was a bad boy, little 
 Mary was a good girl, and Harry was in the
 
 124 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 habit of doing what lie was told. From this 
 point,, although I was at this time very dimly 
 conscious of it^ a change came o'er the spirit of 
 my educational dream. For the first time I began 
 to experience a desire to learn^ and to see in 
 reading a means of personal gratification, a 
 power which would ]Dut me in the possession of 
 all the glowing and truthful details of those 
 stories of youthful adventurers who had en- 
 countered and defeated giants and magicians, and 
 rescued and afterwards married ravishingly 
 beautiful princesses, parts of which I had some- 
 times heard read by some of the boys in the first 
 class. My advances in education from this 
 point became — my former slowness considered — 
 extraordinarily rapid. I had been six months in 
 the second class before I got fairly past the ib^ 
 ob class of syllables, but in less than thi'ee 
 months from the time when I first laboriously 
 spelled out the information that good boys love 
 their parents^ I was able to read " short moral 
 stories,'-' of a collection of which the highest
 
 I BEGIN TO PROGRESS. 125 
 
 book of the second class consisted,, and this 
 degree of proficiency being the qualification 
 necessary for admission to the first class I was 
 duly promoted to that class. On making this 
 step in advance^ governess^ who was naturally of 
 a sanguine disposition^ cheerfully predicted^ as 
 she gave me an encouraging pat on the head, 
 that I would " be a man before my mother/'' 
 while my parents so far modified their views 
 respecting my future, as to indulge in the hope 
 that something might be made of me after all. 
 In the first class my educational progress con- 
 tinued in a most satisfactory manner, and by 
 adopting the simple plan of skipping the hard 
 words I was soon able to read ordinary books 
 with tolerable fluency. 
 
 With the increased power of reading came an 
 increased taste for it, and a corresponding 
 change in my tastes in other respects. My 
 general belief that there was nothing half so 
 sweet in life as toff'ee remained unshaken, but 
 the charms of longsticks and all-sorts, powerful
 
 126 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 as they still were to sway my mind, began to be 
 less irresistible when weighed against the posses- 
 sion of a penny edition of " Jack the giant- 
 killer/^ "Jack and the Beanstalk/^ and other books 
 of a like class. And though a love of sweetmeats 
 is not necessarily incompatible with a taste for 
 the perusal of the adventures of the heroes and 
 heroines of modern juvenile mythology, the 
 smallness of the amount of my " spending 
 money ^^ placed them in a position of antagonism 
 in my particular case. The result was that 
 many of the pennies that would at one time 
 have been unhesitatingly spent with the toffee- 
 man_, were now, after a mental struggle against 
 the fascinations of his sweet wares, laid out in 
 books. Miss Cooper was not slow to perceive 
 this change in my mode of spending my coppers, 
 and naturally considered herself aggrieved by it. 
 " Why don^t you always buy toffee like you 
 used to do, Johnny T' she would reproachfully 
 ask, on finding that I had been investing a 
 penny in one of my favourite stories.
 
 LOVE AND TOFFEE. 127 
 
 I would reply tliat I just wanted to read that 
 particular book ; to whicli slie would answer 
 generally and still in an injured tone that books 
 were no good after they were read; that I 
 could borrow books of the others if I tried^ and 
 that she knew that I wouldn^t buy toffee just 
 because she liked it. Nor would she give any 
 heed to me when I pointed out to her that toffee 
 was no good after it was eaten, and that the 
 others would not lend me books unless I had 
 books to lend them in return, or when I fer- 
 vently assured her that it was in no spirit of op- 
 position to her natural and commendable taste for 
 toffee that I occasionally bought books. To none 
 of these excuses would my aggrieved sweetheart 
 listen, the only terms on which she would con- 
 sent to be appeased being that I should give an 
 unconditional promise to spend my next penny 
 in toffee. The alternate bickerings and makings 
 up consequent upon the difference of opinion 
 between Mary Ann and myself on the question 
 of story-books versus toffee lasted for several
 
 128 JOHNNY UOBINSON. 
 
 months^ but_, as might naturally have been ex- 
 pected^ at length terminated in the severing of 
 our connexion. 
 
 About three months after I was admitted to 
 the first class, a new scholar,, a boy of about my 
 own age^ who was the son of a general provision 
 dealer^ who among other things traded in sweets, 
 came to the school. The new arrival;, whose 
 name was Morris, being able to read, was at 
 once placed in the first class. As he readily fell 
 into the ways of the school no particular notice 
 was taken of him for the first two or three 
 days ; but it then becoming known that he 
 brought a large paper of sweets to school every 
 morning, a number of his class-mates began to be 
 very anxious to make his acquaintance. Of these, 
 the most eager and most immediately successful 
 was the perfidious Miss Cooper. As her attentions 
 to blaster Morris relieved me from her oppressive 
 — even if loving — vigilance, and left me at liberty 
 to spend my pennies as I willed, I was at first 
 disposed to look upon them favourably. But her
 
 THE GREEN-EYe'd MONSTER. 129 
 
 pointed devotion to him^ and oj)en neglect of me, 
 became so marked as to attract general obser- 
 vation^ and the remarks of my companions on 
 the matter at length roused the green-eyed 
 monster within me^, and determined me to assert 
 the rights of my position towards the fickle 
 Mary Ann. Accordingly, one morning when 
 we were at play, and she was, as had now 
 become her habit, attaching herself to Jemmy 
 Morris, and guarding him from the approaches 
 of others who might have designs upon his 
 affections or sweets, I went up to her, accom- 
 panied by a band of sympathizers, and asked her 
 what she meant by always going with Jemmy 
 Morris, when she was my sweetheart; my co- 
 adjutors adding force and point to the question 
 by singing the chorus incidental to all such occa- 
 sions, ^' Fie for shame,'''' &c. Thus attacked, she 
 at first attempted to temporize, by saying that 
 she only went with Jemmy sometimes ; but this 
 faltering explanation being received with merited 
 incredulity, and redoubled singing of " Fie for 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 sliame/^ Mary Ann_, instead of being subdued, 
 — as had been confidently anticipated by my 
 advisers and myself — threw off all further dis- 
 guise of her sentiments,, and made herself 
 mistress of the situation^ by turning fiercely and 
 defiantly upon me. 
 
 " I arn^t going to be your sweetheart any 
 more — I^m Jemmy^s sweetheart now/^ she said, 
 seizing that young gentleman^s hand ; '' he gives 
 me sweets every day^ and isn^t a stingy thing 
 like you^ Johnny Robinson, the Stobinson, the 
 rick- stick Stobinson.^^ 
 
 This tirade was delivered with an over- 
 whelming vigour that rendered me almost 
 incapable of retaliation, and it was in a very 
 feeble tone that I replied to it, by calling the 
 now loved and lost, Mary Ann Cooper, the 
 Rooper, the rick-stick Stooper, and informing 
 her that I did not want anyone for my sweet- 
 heart who was always begging my things of me, 
 and that I would warm Jemmy Morris if he 
 spoke to me.
 
 RETRIBUTION. 131' 
 
 Miss Cooper having now got fairly rid of me, 
 was enabled to turn her undivided attention to 
 the new object of her interested attention, and 
 soon managed entirely to monopolize his com- 
 pany, and a gTeat portion of the sweets with 
 which he was always plentifully supplied, and 
 from this circumstance, by which every one 
 with a sweet tooth and powers of persuasioa 
 considered themselves injured, more probably 
 than from the intrinsic merits of my case, my 
 class-mates of both sexes sympathized with me 
 for having been so ungratefully thrown over by 
 the selfish being to whom I had given so much 
 love — and toffee. It was, therefore, with feelings 
 of undisguised satisfaction that the class saw 
 the machinations of the faithless Mary Ann at 
 length result in her own ignominious downfall. 
 Master Morris was, as events proved, of a fickle 
 and self- asserting disposition, and about a fort- 
 night after he had publicly accepted the position 
 of sweetheart to Miss Cooper, on my unceremo- 
 nious dismissal from the post, he began to resent 
 
 K 2
 
 132 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 some of the more oppressive of that young 
 lady's attentions^ and was loudly heard to 
 exclaim, in reply to some whispered remon- 
 strance of hers, that he did not care if Martha 
 Cheshire was a greedy thing, and that he would 
 go with her (Martha) if he liked. But these 
 symptoms of rebellion on the part of her new 
 lover only induced her to increase her watch- 
 fulness over what she considered her vested 
 interests in him, and one day when the rebellious 
 and unstable Jemmy had refused to give her as 
 large a share of his paper of sweets as she 
 considered she was entitled to, she, as she had 
 often done in my case, took them out of his 
 pocket with loving force ; whereupon he set up a 
 dreadful howl, and loudly accused the dismayed 
 Mary Ann of robbing him. Upon this charge 
 she was arraigned before governess, who made 
 her restore the sweets, read her a severe lecture 
 upon her want of modesty in always running 
 after the boys, and forbade her for the future to 
 stand next to a boy in the class, or to associate
 
 TAKING HONOUKS. 133 
 
 with any of the male scholars during play-time. 
 And this sentence of partial^ and to the object 
 of it most tantalizing, banishment, was strictly 
 carried out during the whole of the three months 
 that, after this occurrence, she remained at the 
 school. 
 
 In the first class I continued to make satis- 
 factory progress, and in the course of my last 
 year at the school I got to the top of the class, 
 was initiated in the simpler mysteries of numbers 
 and writing, and became one of the select few 
 occasionally appointed to take the ABC class, 
 and then for the first time tasted what were, in 
 this case, literally the sweets of office, in the 
 shape of toffee, given to me by those who were 
 unable to say their lessons, not to put them on 
 the line. During the last few months that I 
 was her pupil I had the honour also of being 
 governess's errand boy, and was generally dis- 
 patched three or four times a day, with a little 
 basket in one hand, and a red-covered memo- 
 randum book, in which the accounts were
 
 134 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 entered, in the other, to a neighbouring retail 
 provision dealer^s, for pounds or half-pounds of 
 sugar, butter, bacon, candles, and other articles 
 of household consumption. As a reward for 
 these services, I was permitted about once a 
 month to settle the provision dealer's weekly 
 bill, upon which occasions he always gave me a 
 penny and a biscuit, and these, together with 
 the opportunity of having a little play while 
 going on the errands, made the post of gover- 
 nesses messenger the most envied to which any 
 of the scholars could attain. My continuance 
 in this position of threefold greatness, as top 
 boy, messenger, and occasional teacher, was not, 
 however, of long duration. I was nearly eight 
 years of age ere reaching the climax of this 
 triplicate height of power, and my father was 
 already beginning to remark that I was getting 
 too old to stay at a woman's school any longer. 
 It was therefore decided that when my brother 
 — who about this time had become a pupil of 
 Mrs. Wilson — should have got properly into
 
 I LEAVE MRS. WILSON 's. 135 
 
 the ways of the school^ I should leave it^ and 
 be sent to a boy^s school ; and my brother hav- 
 ing been sufficiently initiated into the ways of 
 the school to be able to take care of himself by 
 the time I reached my eighth year, I was accord- 
 ingly withdrawn ; governess giving me a parting 
 kiss, a small book entitled " A Hundred Pretty 
 Tales/^ an invitation to come and take tea with 
 her some Sunday, and a penny to spend.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANOTHER NEW BUOTHER — I Ail MADE, IN A PAINFULLY LITE- 
 RAL SENSE, "my brother's KEEPER"— MY MONEY-BOX. 
 
 URING the time of my pupilage with 
 Mrs. Wilson^ chances and changes by 
 which I was more or less affected,, and in some 
 of which I found the commencement of my 
 troubles in life^ had been occurring at home, 
 and chiefest among the domestic events that 
 came to me in the nature of a grievance was the 
 addition to our family of another new brother. 
 This little stranger joined our home circle when 
 I was about seven years old. On going home 
 from school one evening I found the house in 
 possession of a stout^ red-faced old woman, from. 
 W'hom exhaled an odour curiously like that which 
 I had noticed as appertaining to a neighbouring
 
 A DEPUTY MOTHER. ]37 
 
 spirit vaults to which I had once or twice been 
 sent for a bottle of rum, wherewith my father 
 was going to " mug ^^ his strikers upon the 
 strength of the profitable completion of a piece- 
 work job. 
 
 '^ Vm. agoin to be your mother for the next 
 two or three weeks,, lovey/'' said the old woman, 
 in answer to my inquiries as to where my 
 mother was, and concluding her reply by a 
 spiritously-flavoured hiccup. " You^re mother^s 
 ill, you know, lovey,'"' she went on, noticing my 
 puzzled looks ; "^ the doctor have brought you a 
 little brother from London, and Fm agoin to 
 look after ■'im and your mother and all o^ you 
 till your mother gets about again, which it wont 
 be long I expects, for she^s a doin as well as 
 ever I see any one, and I^^e seen a few, I can 
 tell you. However,''^ she said, suddenly check- 
 ing the rambling tone into which she was falling 
 and making towards the stairs, " 1^11 show ^im 
 you.''"' 
 
 Presently she came downstairs with my new
 
 138 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 brother^ who slic informed me was " the beauti- 
 fullest little cretcher wot ever she had handled/^ 
 in her arms. Having disengaged him from the 
 numerous folds of flannel in which ho was 
 enveloped sufficiently to allow me to get a good 
 view of him^ she called upon me to testify to 
 liis exceeding beauty^ which 1, bowing to her 
 superior knowledge of the subject^ did, though I 
 remember that my private opinion w^as that if 
 there was anything special about him it was that 
 he was shapeless. Later in the evening I saw 
 my mother,, who confirmed the nurse^s statement 
 respecting my brother's exceptional beauty, and 
 told me that I must love him, which I of course 
 promised to do; though had I known at the time 
 what I was to suffer through my beautiful 
 brother I should certainly have given that 
 promise with a most decided mental reservation. 
 In about a fortnight my mother Avas about 
 again, and to my joy relieved me from the 
 power of my deputy mother, who during her 
 brief period of government had ruled me Avith a
 
 A deputy's management. 139 
 
 drunken though not wilfully unkind hand. She 
 invariably sent me to school late and Avith my 
 clothes huddled on in a most uncomfortable 
 manner. Some mornings my coffee would be 
 cold J grouty^ and over-sugared, on others it 
 would be scalding hot and sugarless ; and while 
 at one time it would sicken me with its turkish- 
 like strength,, at others it was — save from being 
 slightly coloured — coffeeless. At: tea it was the 
 same, and at dinner time I had to forage for 
 myself by picking np what scraps I could of the 
 make- shift meal that was placed upon the table. 
 I was never put to bed until long after my usual 
 hour, and then I generally found the bed un- 
 made, and had to turn into it unwashed, and 
 often only partially undressed. When I ventured 
 to ask any question about, or utter any remon- 
 strance against any of these things, I received 
 the invariable reply, " Oh, drat you, don't 
 bother V For all these things the unlimited 
 permission " to play about " after school hours, 
 which the red-faced lady granted me, made but
 
 140 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 small amends^ and it was therefore,, I say, in a 
 rejoicing spirit that I welcomed my mother^s 
 convalescence, and the consequent return of 
 order and comfort to our household. 
 
 My mother^s resumption of the reins of house- 
 hold government, while it was the means of 
 restoring domestic comfort, was, at the same 
 time, the commencement of my troubles as the 
 eldest child of the family. To be the eldest son 
 of a family in which the eldest son is the un- 
 alienable heir to a title and estates is even in 
 childhood doubtless a pleasant thing. The pro- 
 babilities are that even in the nursery he will 
 feel the advantages of the divinity that doth 
 hedge a son and heir. He will in a variety of 
 ways have '' the pull '' of his younger brothers, 
 and attendants will take special care to prevent 
 anything offensive or distasteful from coming 
 between the wind and his embryo, but if he 
 lives assured nobility. In short, he is as a rule 
 destined to fill a more important position in 
 society than his less fortunate because later-born
 
 ELDEST SONS — WITH A DIFFERENCE. 141 
 
 brethren^ and is accordingly brought np in the 
 way he should go. Even among the trading 
 classes the eldest son, the one who is destined to 
 perpetuate the commercial reputation of " the 
 house/^ is not unfrequently treated with special 
 consideration from his childhood upwards. But 
 among the working classes these matters^ as I 
 was speedily fated to find, are managed in a very 
 different manner. 
 
 The eldest son of a working man_, especially in 
 those families in which — as was the case in ours 
 — there are no daughters,, is for some years of 
 his childhood in a much less desirable position 
 than his younger brethren. It is true that even 
 among the working classes eldest sons have their 
 advantages. As first-born children they are 
 petted and spoilt in a special degree, until the 
 arrival of their successor in the family cradle 
 distracts the attention of the fond mother and 
 causes her to entertain some slight misgivings 
 as to whether her first-born is really the paragon 
 among children which she had considered it to
 
 142 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 be. They get new clothes,, or at any rate 
 clothes only one remove from new^ a consider- 
 able portion of the clothes of those of them 
 whose mothers are handy with their needle being 
 made from the cut-down garments of their 
 parents^ while their younger brothers have in 
 turn to wear their old clothes as they grow out 
 of them ; and among strangers or visitors the 
 pride of place due to their priority of birth is 
 acknowledged. But these advantages are insig- 
 nificant compared with the disadvantages which 
 during some years of his childhood are inevitably 
 incidental to the position of the eldest son of a 
 daughterless working man^s family^ in relation 
 to his younger brothers. He becomes the slave 
 of those brothers, he is made to a great, and to 
 him very irksome, extent literally his brother^s 
 keeper; and that at an age when the love of 
 play being far more fully developed than 
 fraternal feeling, he is led to regard that par- 
 ticular brother to whom he is for the time 
 being attached in the compound capacity of
 
 MY brother's keeper. 143 
 
 nurse, playmate, and body servant, as a sort of 
 infantile man of the sea^ whom he will he 
 justified in getting rid of by any means. 
 
 Having been little more than an infant myself 
 when the first of my brothers was born, I escaj^ed 
 comparatively free from the evils of elder 
 brotherhood, so far as he was concerned, during 
 the earliest period of his infancy. And though 
 when he began to be able to walk, I was often 
 commanded to take Tommy with me at times 
 when his room was much more desirable than 
 his company, yet, as he could walk, and would 
 generally allow himself to be persuaded to sit 
 quietly on some neighbouring door-step while I 
 joined my companions in their games, I soon 
 came to regard the matter lightly, and was there- 
 fore all the less prepared for the trial that 
 awaited me in connexion with my last born 
 brother. The misrule of the dram-drinking 
 nurse and housekeeper had thrown everything 
 into disorder, so that for some time after she 
 came downstairs, my mother was unusually busy.
 
 144 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and my fate from this cause came with crushing 
 heaviness upon me at the very beginning. On 
 those mornings when baby was cross — which 
 happened about five times a week — I was called 
 up long before my usual hour of rising, and 
 ordered to play with and try to keep him quiet 
 until my mother prepared breakfast ; and w^hen, as 
 generally happened, my efforts to soothe him 
 were unavailing, I suffered from the crossness of 
 temper engendered in my mother by his per- 
 sistent crossness, and was packed off to school with 
 strict injunctions to come straight home at 
 dinner-time, upon pain of " catching it '^ in case 
 of disobedience. When, in compliance with this 
 stern command, T did hasten home at dinner- 
 time, my first salute on entering the house would 
 be, " Johnny, just hold baby a minute, while I 
 look after your fatlier^s dinner.^'' But this minute 
 often stretched to half an hour, and as baby was 
 a very fine — that is, a very fat — baby, the effect 
 upon my arms was of anything but a pleasant 
 character, though the arm-ache was a mild in-
 
 MINDING BABY. 145 
 
 fliction compared with the mental agonies that I 
 endured from my desire to join my playmates, a 
 desire fanned to fever-heat by the sounds of their 
 revelry which came through the open door, beyond 
 which I was forbidden to go, lest the wind should 
 blow too roughly on the cheek of baby. This 
 miserable half-hour before dinner was followed 
 by another equally miserable quarter of an hour 
 after it, during which I had to hold baby while 
 my mother cleared away the dishes ; and to the 
 other miseries of this latter portion of my dinner- 
 time martyrdom, was frequently added the 
 humiliation of hearing schoolmates who called 
 for me curtly told that Johnny couldn^t come 
 yet as he had to mind the baby. In the evenings 
 baby was again heavy on my soul and arms. 
 If by good fortune he happened to be asleep 
 when I went home, and I got out after tea, the 
 chances were that before I had fairly settled 
 down to play. Tommy would be sent to tell me 
 that baby had " woke up,'^ and I was to go in 
 and mind him. On going in I would be imme- 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 diately set to rock the cradle,, with a view to 
 *' getting him off again/'' and for the better 
 performance of the cradle-rocking business, I 
 was specially taught the words and music of a 
 number of such supposedly sleep-inducing 
 rhymes as 
 
 " Hnsh-a-by baby on the tree top, 
 "When the wind blows the cradle will rock ; 
 "When the tree bends the cradle will fall, 
 And down will come baby, and cradle, and all." 
 
 Sometimes after he had been awake for several 
 hours at a stretch — as a rule, he was of an 
 aggravatingly sleepless temperament — these in- 
 -cantations and the vicious energy with which I 
 rocked him would send him to sleep j but when 
 he once woke up, it was very rarely indeed that 
 he would permit himself to be '' got off " again, 
 and then I would be condemned to nurse him 
 until my own bed-time. 
 
 In short, baby, during the first few months of 
 his existence, entered into and became the bane 
 of my life. Whenever he wanted anything of mine
 
 MINDING BABY, 147 
 
 — and he wanted everything that he saw — I was 
 compelled to give it up to him, upon the grounds 
 that I was getting a great lad, while he was only 
 a baby. Morning, noon, and night, I was con- 
 demned to mind him, rock his cradle, and do him 
 service in a variety of physically-tiring and 
 mentally- aggravating ways, that caused me, in 
 my childish way, to wish that there had been no 
 such thing as babies in the world, and to repine 
 at my unhappy fate in having been born so long 
 before Tommy, who, being now about four years 
 of age, was able to play about by himself or with 
 other children, and was allowed to do so at his 
 own sweet will. Though even he might have 
 been pressed into baby^s service, had he not, 
 fortunately for himself, put the cat in the cradle 
 upon the first and only occasion that he had been 
 put to watch the slumbers of his infant brother, 
 with a view to giving his mother notice if he 
 woke up. This incident had so horrified my 
 mother that from that time forth she rigorously 
 excluded Tommy from taking the slightest part in
 
 14S JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 the task of minding baby^ which task in conse- 
 quence fell with all its horrors unmitigated on 
 my devoted head. Tommy might roam fancy 
 and un-baby-burdened free ; but I, the eldest 
 brother,, was the slave of baby — ay, and baby 
 knew it too ! and tyrannized over me. If he was 
 awake when I entered the house he would imme- 
 diately stretch out his arms towards me, and 
 crow in an imperious manner; whereupon, say- 
 ing, '' He wants to come to you, Johnny/' my 
 mother would place him in my unwilling arms. 
 And when anything in my hand or about my 
 clothes attracted his notice, he would set up a 
 shrill cry, in which even I could detect an accent 
 of demand, and would continue to cry and grasp 
 at the object of his desires until it was given up 
 to him, when he would give a chuckle of 
 mingled satisfaction and triumph, and then settle 
 down for a few minutes, during Avhich I brooded 
 o'cv the wrongs that I endured from and through 
 him. 
 
 As baby grew oldo', my position with regard
 
 MINDING BABY. 149 
 
 to him greWj if possible, worse ; insult was added 
 to injury. When he was some eight or nine 
 months old, and I began to take him out with 
 me, and my mother, as sometimes happened, 
 came and found baby seated on the ground, and 
 me at play, she would seize me by the " scruff of 
 the neck,^^ denounce me as a very monster 
 of cruelty, and, calling upon the neighbourhood 
 generally to witness that I was a bad ■'un, and 
 that bad would come of me for my ill-treatment 
 of that little dear, drag me home, with her 
 scolding and the laughter of my companions 
 tingling in my ears. Time, however, in my 
 case, as it does in most others, brought relief. 
 Baby, as has been observed, was a very fine baby, 
 and at fifteen months old was able to run about 
 by himself, and from that time I became com- 
 paratively free again, and I enjoyed my restored 
 freedom with all the greater zest from having 
 gone through a period of social penal servitude." 
 And after all, my sufferings in this phase of elder- 
 brotherism were comparatively light. Three
 
 150 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 years elapsed from the birth of the baby to which 
 I had been a victim before another child was 
 born to our house^ and by that time Tommy was 
 old enough to become the servant of our last new 
 brother^ and I had progressed far enough in my 
 education to be able to plead '' night lessons '* 
 whenever called upon to do service to baby. 
 And thus I had only once to go through the ordeal 
 which some eldest sons of my own age and 
 standing, but belonging to families in which 
 there were a greater number of children than in 
 ours, were called upon to endure three or four 
 times. 
 
 Another grievance to which at this period I 
 was subjected, in virtue of my position as the 
 eldest child of the family, was that when Tommy 
 was of age to be in some sort my companion 
 and playmate, and we began to get into mischief 
 together, I was always punished for both, upon 
 the principle — very often erroneous — that, being 
 the elder, I had artfully led my brother into 
 wrong-doing for my own advantage. Thus,
 
 MAKING TOFFEE. 151 
 
 when on Saturday mornings I was left in charge 
 of the house and my brothers^ while my mother ■ 
 was at market,, and I had succeeded either in 
 singing and rocking baby to sleep^ or been 
 driven by his crossness to that stage of despera- 
 tion at which I was wont^ when my mother was 
 not about, to fling him into his cradle and let 
 him cry his fill. Tommy and I would proceed to 
 make for ourselves a primitive kind of confection, 
 which we manufactured after the following 
 manner : — We first placed a poker in the fire, 
 and while it was heating took as much sugar as 
 we thought it safe to do consistently with 
 avoiding making our visit to the sugar-basin 
 perceptible to the housewifely eye of our mother. 
 Spreading the sugar on a piece of paper on the 
 hearthstone, we applied the heated poker to it, 
 and a black, brittle substance, which we dignified 
 with the name of tofiee, was the immediate 
 result. The sugar would probably have tasted 
 better had it been left unburnt, but the proud 
 consciousness of the so-called tofi'ee being our
 
 152 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 own manufacture made it taste to us sweeter 
 than the finest Everton. AVhen I say my 
 brother and I had been engaged in the manu- 
 facture and consumption of stolen sweets_, and 
 had;, by tolling the sugar-basin so heavily as to 
 leave the diminution of its contents too palpable, 
 blackening the neatly- whitened hearth, or some 
 other means_, left unmistakeable evidence of our 
 guilty proceedings^ it was always I who got the 
 whole of the bitters which, in the shape of '' a 
 good hiding/^ followed the sweets upon these 
 occasions. This might be both morally and 
 poetically just the first two or three times that 
 it happened, as on those occasions I had been 
 the sole manufacturer^ and had merely given 
 Tommy a small piece of toffee not to tell. But 
 it certainly seemed to me to be as morally unjust 
 as it was physically unpleasant upon those later 
 occasions when Tommy had been the first to 
 propose toffee-making ; had, with the rash impe- 
 tuosity of youth, insisted upon taking a larger 
 quantity of sugar tlian I^ in my greater wisdom^
 
 MADE A SCAPEGOAT. 153 
 
 would have allowed; had;, in trying to take a 
 principal part in the manufacture, singed the 
 carpet ; and finally, had made me give him the 
 largest share of the toffee by threatening to tell 
 if I did not. That on these occasions I should 
 get a thrashing, while Tommy escaped with a 
 mild rebuke, appeared to me anything but fair ; 
 but any appeal of mine upon that ground was of 
 no avail. I was always told that / was old 
 enough to know better ; and as Tommy always 
 unhesitatingly declared that I had " made him 
 do it,^^ the case against me was considered amply 
 made out, and there was nothing left for me but 
 to take my thrashing and console myself by 
 secretly resolving to " have it in for our Tommy.^"* 
 Again, when in course of time Tommy and I 
 were put to sleep together, and got more noisy 
 than usual in conducting the attack and defence 
 of fort pillow, it was always me who " got the 
 strap ^' when my father, after in vain calling us 
 to be quiet, came upstairs in a rage, though it 
 was generally my brother who had been making
 
 154 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 the noise, as I had learnt by painful experience 
 to be quiet " the first time of asking/^ And for 
 some years this sort of thing continued. I was 
 constantly " catching it '^ for doing, and being 
 told that I was old enough to know better than 
 to do a variety of things which my younger 
 brother — even after he was of age to be fully as 
 capable as myself of distinguishing right from 
 wrong — could do with impunity, simply because 
 he was a youDger brother. 
 
 Another great grievance of this period of my 
 childhood was a money-box which my mother 
 established under the name of " Johnny^s Bank.'''' 
 My father, as I have incidentally mentioned, was 
 at this time in the habit of taking piece-work, 
 and, objecting to the then almost universal 
 practice of paying his mates in a public-house, 
 used on settling days to bring them to our 
 house. As the receiving of piece-money tends 
 to induce liberal feelings, these men, who, to the 
 delight of my parents, pronounced me " a chip 
 of the old block,'^ and a regular Robinson, gene-
 
 MY MONEY-BOX. 155 
 
 rally gave rae any odd pence that came to their 
 share ; and other visitors to onr house also 
 tipped me occasionally. For a time I was per- 
 mitted to spend — or^ as my mother put it^ waste 
 — the money thus obtained on toffee and other 
 luxuries ; but my mother^ s natural thriftiness of 
 disposition would not allow her to endure this 
 state of things long^ and accordingly^ when I 
 was between four and five years old, she esta- 
 blished the obnoxious (to me) money-box, in 
 which I was from that time forth called upon to 
 put the money that was given to me. According 
 to a legend invented by my mother at the time 
 she introduced the money-box, I was always 
 saving up for some article of personal attire, and 
 it curiously happened that, whatever sum was 
 given to me, it wanted exactly that amount to 
 make up the price of the new belt, or cap, or 
 pair of shoes that I would require next week. 
 Even the penny a-week pocket-money which my 
 father allowed me would have had to go into 
 this insatiable bourne from whence no coppers
 
 156 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 e^er returned to me, had not he taken my part 
 in the dispute upon that point. Sometimes my 
 mother would try to reconcile me to my com- 
 pulsory economy by praising me for what she 
 affected to consider my voluntary thriftiness, or 
 dilating upon the surpassing beauty of the article 
 of dress for which_, according to the maternal 
 legend, I was saving up ; but these devices fail- 
 ing to dispel the gloomy sense of injury under 
 which I laboured, she would change her tone, 
 denounce me as an ingrate and spendthrift, who 
 in after life would never have a penny to bless 
 himself Avith, and conclude by giving me a good 
 shaking — so that, for a variety of reasons, my 
 money-box was hateful to me. While, however 
 a great, it was not an entirely unmitigated 
 evil. Sometimes when the odd coppers given to 
 me by my father^s mates amounted to as much 
 as sixpence or eightpence, I managed, by a little 
 juggling, to keep back a penny or two from the 
 maw of the all- devouring box ; and after a while 
 Miss Cooper, with whom I was then on terms of
 
 MY MONEY-BOX. 157 
 
 friendship^ put me up to a move by which I was 
 occasionally enabled to do it altogether. " Fll 
 tell you what you should do_, Johnny/^ she said^ 
 when I confided my grievance to her sym- 
 pathizing breast^ " you should watch till you 
 see the people nearly ready to go, and then pop 
 out and meet them when they get out of sight 
 of yonr house, and then, if they gave you any- 
 thing your mother wouldn''t know ;^' and the 
 plan thus suggested I pursued with a consider- 
 able degree of success. 
 
 But though I suflPered from the grievances I 
 have named and others of a less aggravating 
 character, it mnst not be supposed that I was an 
 ill-used child, or that my home-life at this time 
 was, upon the whole, unhappy. On the contrary, 
 while those things which, in my childish judg- 
 ment, I regarded as special personal wrongs, 
 were, for the most part, inseparably incidental to 
 my position as the eldest child of a working man^s 
 family, some of the advantages which I enjoyed 
 were of a much more special character. I was
 
 158 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 always well and cleanly dressed^ had abundance 
 of good food^ and was^ as has been shown, 
 regularly sent to school,, while many children of 
 my own age and rank, but who had mismanaging 
 mothers or drunken fathers, were left to run 
 about the street neglected, dirty, ill-clad and 
 ill-fed. My mother would never beat me, as I 
 have seen some mothers do, at the instigation of 
 other people. If any one complained to her of 
 " your Johnny,^^ she would investigate the 
 charge, and only chastise the offending Johnny 
 when it was clearly shown that he had done 
 wrong ; and if I was " put upon,^^ she would, at 
 any cost of time and trouble, see me righted, or 
 those who had " put upon^" me punished for so 
 doing, if it was possible for her to bring it about. 
 And thus I had very rarely occasion, and never 
 just occasion, to feel that bitterest of all 
 feelings that a child can experience — the sense 
 of wrong, namely, arising from the belief that 
 they have been beaten not for their own offences, 
 but to satisfy others, or that their parents are
 
 GOOD OUT OF EVIL. 159 
 
 indifferent to the injuries whicli others may 
 inflict upon them. Even out of the evils of my 
 lot there came occasional gleams of good. 
 When I did get free from baby for an hour in 
 the evening, that particular hour's play was 
 doubly sweetj as were also the toffee and books 
 purchased with the money saved from the money- 
 box ; and when I managed to tumble Tommy 
 out of bed when defending fort pillow, my 
 laughter was to the full as loud and hearty as 
 my howls when I got the strap. To my other 
 sources of comparative happiness at this time 
 was also added the implicit, unquestioning 
 belief, and vivid, though erratic, imagination, 
 which caused me to regard the heroes of fairy- 
 laud as veritable personages who had existed in 
 the flesh, and dream of emulating their great 
 achievements. And, all things considered, my 
 home life during the time of my pupilage with 
 Mrs. Wilson was one of the happiest periods of 
 my childhood's happy days.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A DISCOURSE UPON WORKING- CLASS EDUCATION. 
 
 OMPARED with tlie children of the 
 
 higher grades of society^ the children 
 of the working classes may^ as a rnle^, be said to 
 be precocious. As soon as they are physically 
 capable of doing so^ they are permitted to run 
 about and mingle with the other children of the 
 neighbourhood, and while still infants themselves, 
 are entrusted with the care of other infants. 
 When scarcely able to lisp the names of the 
 articles for which they are sent, they are made to 
 run errands, and many of them, while their heads 
 do not as yet reach the level of the shop counter, 
 are deputed to drive bargains with, or ascertain 
 prices from, the retail shop-keeper, or to convey 
 to him the oft-repeated promise of their needy
 
 POOR CHILDREN. 161 
 
 or worthless parents | to pay some of the old 
 score next vveek^ or the last plausible invention 
 of the parental brain for obtaining further credit. 
 And but too frequently they are^ alas^ while yet 
 mere infants, sent to the public-house, in the 
 hope that their childish entreaties may draw the 
 drunken father from it ; or that failing, that 
 their helplessness will disarm the violence with 
 which the drunkard often resents any attempt to 
 draw him from his haunts. From being thus 
 early forced into contact with the realities of life, 
 the children of the working classes, while yet at 
 an age when the children of wealthy parents are 
 still in the nursery, are more or less capable of 
 taking care of themselves. At five or six years 
 of age they are considered quite fit to be sent to, 
 and competent to take care of themselves at, a 
 large public school, numbering some five or six 
 hundred pupils, of from five to fourteen years 
 of age, drawn from all parts of a large and often 
 rough district. When these things are taken 
 into consideration, it is by no means surprising 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 that, on finding me still at an infant-school in my 
 eighth year, my father should declare somewhat 
 emphatically, that I was getting a great lump of 
 a lad, and that it was high time that I was 
 taken out of a woman^s school ; and accordingly 
 at this age I was, as I have already said, with- 
 drawn from Mrs. Wilson^s school. 
 
 Although, from Mrs. Wilson being a woman of 
 greater educational attainments and more consci- 
 entious principles than the majority of the women 
 who keep private infant-schools, I had made a con- 
 siderable degree of progress in the rudiments of 
 education while under her care ; I had been sent 
 to her school in the first instance merely with a 
 view of being out of the way. But the time 
 had now arrived when the kind and degree of 
 education that I would be likely to receive at it 
 was the all-important consideration in selecting 
 a school for me, and the task of making this 
 selection gave my father, who now took me in 
 hand, much thought. His own education had 
 been of a very elementary character ; he could
 
 iEDUCATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS. l(5S 
 
 read sufficiently well to be able to wade through 
 his weekly newspaper and Punch — which latter 
 he bought second-hand^ from a reading-room in 
 the neighbourhood of our house* — in the course 
 of Saturday evening and Sunday. If compelled 
 by a combination of unfortuitous circumstauces 
 to do so_, he could write a letter^ the general 
 purport of which mighty with a little persever- 
 ance^ be made out ; and he kept the accounts 
 relating to his piece-work in a perfectly correct, 
 though somewhat peculiar^ style, which^ though ap« 
 
 * My father was entitled to take away the current 
 number of Fundi at the close of the room at ten o'clock 
 on Saturday night ; but it not being convenient for him 
 to call for it at that hour, and as we were intimately 
 acquainted with the woman who had charge of the room, 
 I used to be sent for the j)aper on the Sunday morning, 
 when the following little scene almost invariably tock 
 23lace : — 
 
 Mrs. (a stout, comely, good-himioured Cumber- 
 land woman, who, though having charge of a reading- 
 room, cannot read,) opening the front door and discovering 
 Johnny Eobinson solus. — Well, Johnny, lad, hast come 
 for't paper ? 
 
 Johnny. — Yes, i^lease, mam. 
 
 Mrs. (going back in the lobby a short distance and 
 
 M 2
 
 164 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 pearing exceedingly hieroglyphical at the first 
 glance, could, with a little explanation from him, 
 be readily comprehended by any moderately good 
 accountant. But beyond this limited know- 
 ledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic, his 
 educational accomplishments went not. Unlike 
 many uneducated or little educated working- 
 men^ however, he did not_, on the sour grapes 
 principle, affect to regard education as an 
 effeminate and despicable thing; on the con- 
 trary _, he set a very high estimate on its practical 
 
 shouting up-stairs). — Jenny, here's lUe Johnny Eobiiison 
 com'd for his father's paper, 
 
 Jenny (from within). — What paper, mother ? 
 
 Mrs. . — Why, one with feather in't hat, to be siii-e. 
 
 (A pause of some two or three minutes ensues, when 
 
 Mrs. again calls up the stairs.) ]N"ow, then, our 
 
 Jenny, art going to be all day looking for that paper ? 
 Drat thee ! I know thou'rt standing there gaup gauj^ing 
 at 't'pictures instead of doing what thou'st bid. 
 
 (A shuffling of feet heard above, and then the paper 
 comes flying down the stairs, and is picked up by 
 Mrs. , who hands it to Johnny, observing), — 
 
 " There's some rare funny pictures in it this week, 
 Johnny lad." 
 
 Johnny. — Thank you, mam. {E.vit — door shuts.)
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 1G5 
 
 value^ and openly deplored liis own want of it, 
 and expressed his determination of giving his 
 children better opportunities of obtaining educa- 
 tion than had fallen to his own lot. Being a skilful 
 and steady workman, and employed by a firm 
 who gave good piece-work prices, he was at this 
 time earning very large wages, and was thus m 
 a position to give effect to his declaration that a 
 bit of money should not stand in the way of 
 making Johnny a scholar. 
 
 '' You see, lass,'' he said, talking the subject 
 over with my mother, " an education and a trade 
 is likely all that we will ever be able to give him, 
 and I should look upon it as robbing him if we 
 let a trifle of money stand in the way of giving 
 him the best of both in our power.'' 
 
 This was said in a deprecatory tone, as though 
 he were under the impression that if such a 
 proposition had been made as a matter of course, 
 my mother's habitual thriftiness of disposition 
 would have led her to object to it. But any 
 such fear as this— if he really entertained it—
 
 166 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 was groundless — for^ drawing me to her side^ and 
 fondly stroking my hair_, she energetically 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " Be robbing him ! Well, I should say it 
 would ! and a very silly robbing it would be, 
 too. What we spend on Johnny now will, as 
 the Bible says, be like bread cast upon the 
 water to return again in many days ; and when 
 Johnny^s a rich gentleman he''ll keep his old 
 father and mother, if needs be ; wont you, 
 Johnny ?^^ 
 
 To which I, taking it for granted, as my 
 mother had done, that I would in due time 
 become a rich gentleman, replied that I would. 
 
 It being thus agreed that no expense should 
 be spared in respect to my further education, my 
 father procured the prospectuses of a number of 
 '' genteel ^' academies and seminaries, and after 
 anxiously puzzling over them for several even- 
 ings, he decided that I should become a pupil, 
 at two guineas a quarter, in the select day- 
 school of the Rev. Birchem Harder. But
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 167 
 
 *' there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough 
 hew them how we will/' and this plan, a plan 
 frequently adopted by working men anxious to 
 give their sons a good education,, but which, as 
 applied to a boy of the working classes, is a very 
 unsound one, was not in my case destined to be 
 carried out. 
 
 The cashier of the establishment in which my 
 father was employed used occasionally to come 
 to our house — in the first instance he had done 
 so for a consideration, but afterwards in a 
 friendly way — to make out from my father's 
 books a properly got-up balance-sheet to be sent 
 into the office on the completion of a job ; and 
 on the evening succeeding that on which my 
 father had concluded to send me to the Eev. 
 Birchem Harder's select scholastic establishment, 
 this gentleman called. He was a middle-aged 
 Scotchman, and, in addition to being possessed 
 of a considerable share of the shrewdness 
 characteristic of his country, he was a well- 
 educated and well-read man. From such a man
 
 168 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 as this my father felt confident of receiving the 
 credit which,, without being guilty of egotism, 
 he might fairly consider due to him for what he 
 was doing on my account. But though, on 
 confiding his plan to the shrewd and friendly 
 Scot, he certainly received his due meed of 
 praise for his commendable intentions, his satis- 
 faction was materially lessened by his friend at 
 the same time expressing an entire disapproval 
 of his plan, and speaking of the proposed 
 pecuniary sacrifice as equally unnecessary. 
 
 '^ Well, Kobinson,^^ he said, when my father 
 had explained his views to him, '' I honour you 
 for your intentions towards your boy, but I must 
 say that I think your ideas respecting the 
 education of a boy in his station in life are 
 radically wrong. You tell me that he is 
 destined for the trade, and consequently he 
 must in any case leave school at fourteen years 
 of age to be apprenticed ; and now let us see 
 how the matter stands. Here in Harder^s pro- 
 spectus is a list of ' studies ' fourteen in num-
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 1G9 
 
 ber, and comprising^ in addition to an ordinary 
 English education,, two dead and two modern 
 languages^ an ^ology, and two ''tieS;, the three 
 latter beiug the comprehensive names of as 
 many abstruse and unrelated sciences^, with 
 which the mind of youth is utterly unable to 
 grapple^ especially when they have to study 
 them not only in conjunction with each other, 
 out with eleven other ' studies.' Now, I'll 
 put it to you whether a boy can be expected to 
 complete or even make a moderate degree of 
 progress in all these studies between the ages 
 of seven and fourteen. Why, a moment's con- 
 sideration/' continued the cashier, seeing my 
 father was silent, '' must convince you that the 
 thing is simply impossible ; and you may take 
 my word for it that this cramming system, which 
 is now the generally adopted one in private and 
 semi-public schools of a far less pretentious 
 character than Harder's — schools exclusively 
 attended by the children of the better orders of 
 tlie working classes — is as prolific a cause of the
 
 170 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 ignorance that prevails among what ought to be 
 the educated portion of these classes, as the 
 total want of education is of the scarcely 
 more lamentable ignorance prevailing among 
 the less fortunately situated portions of 
 them/' 
 
 My father was_, to use his own expression, 
 " dumfoundered '' by the, to him, novel and un- 
 satisfactory view of working-class education thus 
 propounded ; and the cashier, warming with his 
 subject, went on. 
 
 " Indeed, it is questionable whether this sys- 
 tem of mi5-education in youth is not ultimately 
 productive of worse effects than the absolute 
 want of education. It is impossible for a mere 
 boy to learn all the subjects professed to be 
 taught under such a system, and the attempt to 
 teach him so much results in his learning 
 nothing, as it is evident that between fourteen 
 educational stools the unfortunate pupil must 
 come hopelessly to the ground. Then he is so 
 harassed and persecuted by the multitudinous
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 171 
 
 exercises^ and night and day lessons whicli tlie 
 system necessitates_, and which leave him no 
 time for recreation^ that he soon comes to hate 
 books, lessons, and everything else pertaining to 
 the work of education. So that when he leaves 
 school he does so with a sense of relief, and, so 
 to speak, shakes the dust of the land of educa- 
 tion from his feet, determined to return to it no 
 more. And worse than all, he leaves school 
 fully impressed with the idea that his sufferings 
 have not been all in vain, and that he is really 
 well and completely educated ; and there being ^^^ 
 none so ignorant as those who are ignorant of 
 their own ignorance, there is less hope for the 
 youth who is growing up ignorant, ill informed, 
 and unintelligent while imagining himself to be 
 highly educated, than for the one who, being 
 wholly uneducated, is conscious of his ignorance, 
 and who may by a little perseverance pick up a 
 kind and degree of education which would do 
 far more towards making him an intelligent 
 member of society than all the showy, imperfectly-
 
 172 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 taught,, speedily-forgotten studies of the select 
 schools." 
 
 "Why/^ broke in my father^ you wouldnH 
 have me not educate him at all, would you?^'' 
 
 " Well, not exactly," said the cashier, smiling; 
 "for, as I AYas about to observe if you had not 
 interrupted me, the boy in the working-class 
 rank of life, who, before being sent to work, has 
 received such a degree of elementary education 
 as interests without disgusting him, and is at 
 the same time sufficient to enable him to con- 
 tinue his own education without the aid of a 
 master, is far more likely than either a mis- 
 educated or wholly uneducated boy to become 
 in time one of those interesting but at present 
 rather scarce individuals — a really intelligent 
 artizan; and it is an education of this kind that 
 I would advise you to secure for your son dming 
 his school days." 
 
 Being open to conviction, my father could 
 not but be struck by these observations, and he 
 tacitly admitted his conversion to a belief in
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 173 
 
 their general soundness by askings in reply to 
 this last remark — 
 
 " Well^ how would you recommend me to set 
 about getting him such an education ?" 
 
 " Well/^ answered the cashier_, " what I would 
 advise you to do is to send him to the Borough 
 School. It^s a very large school, and, it must 
 be confessed, a rather rough one^ as it is avowedly 
 unselect, but then it will be much better for him 
 to learn to rough it a bit than to imbibe a lot 
 of snobbish, shabby-genteel notions that would 
 subsequently have to be thrashed out of him in 
 the workshop. And then if the scholars are not 
 genteel, neither are the payments, three halfpence 
 per week per scholar being the standard charge, 
 and " no extras,^^ while the education given, 
 though apparently insignificant compared with that 
 set forth in a fourteen or seventeen study-power 
 prospectus, is in reality a much more substantial 
 and beneficial one. Being practically confined 
 to reading, writing, and arithmetic, which, be it 
 remembered, are the solid basis of all education.
 
 174 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 those subjects are taught with a degree of 
 thoroughness impossible of attainment in any 
 school conducted on the cramming system ; and 
 in learning these in a comprehensive manner, 
 the pupil incidentally obtains a considerable 
 general knowledge of a number of the most 
 useful of the subjects of the genteel studies. 
 What at the first glance might appear drawbacks 
 in this simple system/" continued the cashier, 
 " are really advantages. Thus the school au- 
 thorities supply all the books and other educa- 
 tional appliances for the use of the pupils^ and, 
 as might naturally be expected, they are much 
 more sparingly provided than in schools in which 
 each pupil pays for his own, and the master has 
 frequently a profit upon the sales. The con- 
 sequence of this comparative absence of what 
 may be called the mechanical appliances of 
 education is, that the teacher is to a considerable 
 extent really a teacher, and has to teach his pupils 
 instead of in merely listening to them repeating 
 lessons learned ' ofi" book," and counting the
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 1?5 
 
 number of mistakes tliey make after the manner 
 of tlie so-ealled teaeliers of many of the more 
 pretentious schools. Take the important sub- 
 ject of arithmetic^ for instance. In the genteel 
 working-class schools in which the pupils find 
 their own books_, and pay from sixpence to a 
 shilling a week each^ every pupil has a coi3y of 
 the arithmetic^ or, as it is generally called, 
 ^ Tutor/ used in the school. Out of this tutor 
 the boys of each class have every night to do a 
 certain number of sums, to which the answers 
 are given in the book, and show them to the 
 teachers on the following morning. And now,^' 
 asked the cashier, with the air of a person 
 putting a poser, ^' how do you think these sums 
 are done ?" 
 
 " By the rules in the book, I suppose,'^ said 
 my father. 
 
 " Well, that of course,^^ answered the cashier, 
 " but that was not exactly what I meant. 
 What I alluded to was the manner in which the 
 boys work the oracle, so as to be able to take
 
 176 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 the sums to school in the morning, worked out, 
 and with the right answers, while really knowing 
 nothing of the general principles of arithmetic, 
 or of the particular rules applicable to the sums 
 in question/^ 
 
 ^' Why, it would require a good deal of oracle- 
 working to do that, I should fancy ,^^ said my 
 father. 
 
 '^ Well, not so much,^^ said the cashier ; " like 
 many more apparently very difficult things, it is 
 very simple when you once know how it is done. 
 In the class of schools to which I am referring, 
 the sums, when done, are copied into account- 
 books, and these books, when filled, are given, 
 either in the way of friendship or for a con- 
 sideration, to boys who are engaged upon the 
 sums entered in them, and from these easily- 
 obtainable cribs many of the boys habitually copy 
 out their sums. Then there are a few boys who, 
 having a natural aptitude for arithmetic, really 
 work out their sums; and from these others, who do 
 not go the length of taking a wholesale crib, copy
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 177 
 
 the statement of the questions. The result 
 of all this is that a large proportion of 
 the boys educated in schools of this kind^ go 
 through a tutor_, and are supposed to understand 
 even the highest rules of arithmetic^ while they 
 are ignorant of its fundamental principles, and 
 would be utterly astonished if they were told that 
 the whole science of arithmetic consisted in a 
 thorough knowledge of the first four rules,, all the 
 others being merely logical combinations or 
 applications of these primary ones. Now, in the 
 school to which I am recommending you to send 
 Johnny, a very different plan of teaching is 
 adopted. Arithmetic there is taught in the 
 school, and is taught without the aid of a book 
 by the teacher, who explains the nature and 
 mode of operation of each rule, illustrates its 
 principles and application by working out ex- 
 amples upon a black board, and replies to any 
 questions that his pupils may put to him, with a 
 view to properly understanding his explanation. 
 These proceedings are persevered in until the 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 whole class — with perhaps one or two dull 
 exceptions — affirm that they understand the rule. 
 The teacher then calls out pupils one at a time, 
 and sets them to state and work questions upon 
 the black-boardj the other pupils meanwhile 
 watching operations to correct (if they can) any 
 mistakes that may be made. This practice is 
 continued until the teacher is satisfied that the 
 general body of the pupils in the class compre- 
 hend the principle of the rule, and then the 
 class is, in technical phrase, " put into '"' it. 
 That is to say, their arithmetical lesson will 
 consist of sums in that rule given to them by the 
 teacher " out of his head,^^ and worked under his 
 eye, and gradually increasing in difficulty and 
 extent of application, until they reach the point 
 to which the practical use of the rule is ordinarily 
 limited. A class remains in a rule until such 
 time as the head master considers, from occa- 
 sional examination, that the general Iwdy of the 
 pupils are well grounded in it. This process, 
 under which a class may remain in one rule of
 
 A DISCOORSE ON EDUCATION. 179 
 
 arithmetic for many months^ appears a slow one ; 
 but the progress made under it is surc^ and it is 
 real substantial progress^ involving a sound 
 knowledge of arithmetical principles and their 
 application,, and is of infinitely greater practical 
 value than the more showy^ apparently more 
 rapid^ though in point of fact merely nominal^ 
 progress achieved under the cramming system. 
 And this difference in the mode and results of 
 teaching arithmetic is characteristic of the 
 general and essential differences between the 
 cramming and what may be called the old and 
 limited system of working-class education. Not, 
 understand me/^ explained the cashier in a paren- 
 thetical manner, " that I object in the abstract 
 to the teaching of such things as classical and 
 modern languages, and physical sciences. On the 
 contrary, I consider that no man can be regarded 
 as educated in a scholarly sense unless he possesses 
 a good knowledge of them, and I think they 
 ought to form part of the education of every 
 man the circumstances of whose position admits 
 
 N 2
 
 180 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 of his being taught them. But the circumstances 
 of the working classes_, which necessitates their 
 being taken from school at an early age, do 
 not admit of their being taught these higher 
 branches of education^ and the attempt to teach 
 them a multiplicity of subjects is a grievous 
 mistake. It not only miserably fails in its 
 object^ but is the means of preventing many of 
 the most advantageously situated of them (the 
 working classes) from attaining that useful and 
 elevating proficiency in the simpler and more 
 essential branches of education which_, but for 
 the distracting influences of the attempt to teach 
 them more than it was possible for them to 
 learn, they would in all probability have 
 done.^^ 
 
 During this long harangue, my father^s face 
 had been expressing the utmost astonishment, 
 partly at the doctrines set forth, but chiefly at 
 finding his friend so well up on the subject of 
 working-class education. Observing this, the 
 cashier said, ^^You seem surprised to find that I
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 181 
 
 know so much about tins matter ; and I must say- 
 that your surprise is natural, for the subject is 
 not much in the way of an old bachelor like me, 
 and indeed it is only lately that I have known 
 anything about it. You see that the firm, to 
 oblige gentlemen with whom they were ac- 
 quainted, have at different times taken boys from 
 the Borough school into the office, and I in- 
 variably found that these boys, who were only 
 taken as a favour, and were supposed to be com- 
 paratively uneducated, were, both in point of 
 technical education and general intelligence, 
 much superior to the boys who came from more 
 expensive and select schools. This set me to 
 thinking and making inquiries upon the subject, 
 and the result of my thoughts and inquiries is, 
 briefly, that I recommend you, as a friend, to 
 send your son to the Borough school. 
 
 " There is just one other thing in connexion 
 with the system of education pursued in that 
 establishment that I would just like to mention 
 to you,''' continued the cashier, dropping the
 
 182 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 parentlietical and resuming the colloquial tone, 
 '^ and that is^ that it involves very few night 
 lessons,, so that the pupils can devote most of 
 their evenings to play, or to that self-education 
 that comes of reading. And do you know, 
 E/obinson/^ he went on, speaking with increased 
 emphasis, " it^s my opinion that the chief aim 
 of working-class education ought to be to esta- 
 blish and direct a taste for reading. A working 
 man having very little opportunity of travelling, 
 and his actual experience of society being, as a 
 rule, confined exclusively to his own section of 
 it, it is chiefly by reading that he will be able to 
 gain a knowledge of the constitution of society 
 and the modes of life and diflerences of opinion 
 of the various ranks of which it is composed, and 
 their relations to and influences upon each other. 
 And any system of education that induced a 
 sound taste for reading among working men 
 would ultimately do far more for the improve- 
 ment of their class than any other that has yet 
 been tried for that purpose. In the present age
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 183 
 
 of abundant and easily-accessible literature such 
 a taste could be readily gratified^ and would lead 
 to working men obtaining such a knoAvledge of 
 the relative position and power of their class^ as 
 well as of its faults and weaknesses and the 
 causes that produce so much want and misery in 
 itj as would_, combined with the practical know- 
 ledge which their experience gives them of the 
 opinions^ pecuHarities^ and tone of feeling of their 
 own body^ enable them to improve themselves 
 more effectually than others could improve them, 
 for there is no improvement like self-improvements 
 Nor will the position of the working classes as a 
 body ever be generally and permanently elevated 
 until they become the chiefest instruments of 
 their own progress, and by their own successful 
 efforts point out to those in higher ranks of life 
 who may be willing to help them, how their 
 auxiliary help may be most profitably applied/^ 
 
 '' Well, there^s something in that/^ said my 
 father, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Something in it V' echoed the cashier. '^ My
 
 1S4 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 dear sir^ there's a very great deal in it ; mucli 
 more^ in fact^ than appears to be dreamt of in 
 your philosophy. Knowledge^ you may depend 
 upon it^ is the lever whereby the working classes 
 will — if they ever do it — raise themselves to a 
 better position ; and reading is^ in their case, an 
 essential means of obtaining the material for 
 their lever. To continue the mechanical analogy, 
 I may say, that as scrap iron is among the 
 toughest and best of all descriptions, so the 
 general information derived from a varied course 
 of reading is the best material for a lever of 
 knowledge that is to be applied to raising the 
 position of the working man — a much better 
 material than the more costly, refined, and for 
 m/^ny purposes really more valuable one of 
 scholarly education would be. And yet," he 
 went on, shrugging his shoulders, '^ when a boy 
 begins to evince a taste for reading, his parents 
 or teachers, in nine cases out of ten, immediately 
 try to stifle it, because, forsooth, the boy wants 
 to read fiction. If he will read ^ Moral Dis-
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 185 
 
 courses for Youth/ or silly, brimstone-breathing, 
 text-bespattered tracts, well and good, but he 
 must not read fiction. Novels are not fit for 
 little boys ; they are naughty books, and he must 
 not read them, lest he be corrupted ; and so the 
 taste for reading is either crushed out ere it has 
 properly taken root, or the boy is driven to 
 indulge in it secretly, and probably becomes a 
 reader of penny numbers of ' Jack Sheppard ' or 
 'Dick Turpin,' and so gets his taste utterly 
 vitiated.''^ 
 
 '' What Tvould you have people do, then, in 
 this respect T' asked my father. 
 
 " Well,'' answered the cashier, " as far as 
 experience shows, it seems to be a law of nature 
 that boys, when they first take to read, fly to 
 fiction, and in this impulse lies the germ which, 
 by a little judicious cultivation, may be developed 
 into a sound and discriminating taste for reading, 
 and for this reason a young boy's love for the 
 marvellous in literature ought to be guided and 
 not crushed. The taste is a beneficial one in
 
 186 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 itself, for the reading of fictitious narratives of 
 thrilling adventure interests boys^ and keeps them 
 out of mischief while they are boys_, and often 
 fills their minds vrith aspirations which, though 
 often impossible of attainment, are neverthe- 
 less of an ennobling character ; and the 
 higher class of novels which they take to a 
 little later gives rise to a great deal of in- 
 cidental reading of a more substantial character. 
 Properly guided, the general result of this youth- 
 ful taste for works of fiction would be, that those 
 who had as boys began their reading with the 
 ^ Arabian Nights ' and the '' Scottish Chiefs,' 
 would, as men, after they had had a few such 
 works as ' Alton Locke ' and ' Mary Barton ' 
 through their hands, read political economy, and 
 in all probability be able to deduce some prin- 
 ciple from it that would enable them to better 
 understand the position in society of themselves 
 and the class to which they belong. And when 
 the general body of the working classes once 
 properly understand their own relative and
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 187 
 
 abstract position in the social scale, an im- 
 provement in their condition will inevitably 
 follow/^ 
 
 " Then," said my father, " if a taste for fiction 
 is a good sign. I think onr Johnny is coming on 
 well, for he's read ' Jack the Giant Killer ' and 
 ^ Cinderella/ and a whole lot of them sort 
 already.^' 
 
 " Well/' said the cashier, " that's a very good 
 beginning ; and in the course of another year or 
 so Fll take the liberty of presenting him with the 
 ' Pilgrim's Progress ' and ^ Robinson Crusoe/ 
 and one or two more of that kind ; and when he 
 has got through them, you can follow them up 
 by 'Two Years Before the Mast/ 'Brace's 
 Travels/ and other books of voyages and travels, 
 varied occasionally by some such novels as 
 ' Ivanhoe ' and ' The Last of the Mohicans,' and 
 these would be as much as, with a due attention 
 to play, he would be able to manage while at 
 school.'^ 
 
 My father having, by a motion of his head.
 
 188 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 expressed a general approval of these observa- 
 tions, the cashier continued, 
 
 " But mark me, Robinson, I hope that uhen 
 your son does leave school, you Tvont make the 
 very prevalent and disastrous mistake of looking 
 upon his education as completed. Many working 
 men cannot of course continue the education of 
 their children beyond the school-house in any 
 manner that involves additional expense ; but 
 even men in this position might, in the present 
 day, do something towards promoting home 
 education among such of their boys as are at 
 work, and who have previously received some 
 degree of elementary education. But for it 
 being a general idea among working men that a 
 boy^s education is finished when he walks out of 
 school for the last time, thousands of the boys 
 of the working classes who spend their evenings 
 in roaming about the streets, and grow up 
 ignorant, ill-informed, and sometimes vicious 
 men, would be brought up in a manner that 
 would result in their becoming intelligent.
 
 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION. 189 
 
 respectable^ and comparatively well - educated 
 members of society/^ 
 
 " Well;, if I^m alive when Johnny goes to 
 work/' said my father^ " Til take particular 
 notice that he doesn't go raking about the 
 streets at night/'' 
 
 " O, I've no doubt but that you'll look after 
 him/' said the cashier, " but at the same time 
 you musn't keep too tight a hand upon him ; 
 that would most likely spoil him, you know, 
 make him scheme and tell lies, and all that sort 
 of thing. Since you can afford it, what I would 
 advise you to do when he starts to work is to 
 make him a member of the Mechanics' Institu- 
 tion, and let him join the classes for mathematics 
 and mechanical drawing in connexion with it. 
 The study of these two subjects, which will be 
 of great use to him in his trade, will occupy him 
 two or three evenings a week, and with a taste 
 for reading already formed, the library and 
 reading-room of the institution will supply him 
 with abundant means of pleasantly and profitably
 
 190 JOHNNI ROBINSON. 
 
 spending most of his other evenings; while an 
 occasional visit by permission to the theatre or 
 other places of amusement will serve to give 
 variety to his evenings^ occupations and keep 
 him from resorting to underhand expedients to 
 obtain amusements. Such a course during his 
 apprenticeship, combined with that practical 
 knowledge of men and the ways of the world 
 which,, as well as a knowledge of a trade, is 
 acquired in a workshop, would result in his 
 becoming one of those much oftener spoken of 
 than seen individuals — an ' intelligent artizan.^ 
 And now, Robinson,^^ concluded the cashier, 
 smiling, " as we have so far forecast the time as 
 to land Johnny into manhood, I will conclude 
 this long and, I am afraid, very dry lecture."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I a:m sent to the borough school — my new school, 
 
 SCHOOLMATES, AND MASTERS — I MAKE SPORT FOR THE 
 SCHOOL PHILISTINES, AND PASS A DECIDEDLY UNPLEASANT 
 FIRST DAY. 
 
 HE cashier^s exposition of his views upon 
 education had an immediate and decided 
 efifect upon my father, who ere it was finished 
 had abandoned his select academy idea,, and at 
 its conclusion emphatically expressed his inten- 
 tion of sending me as a pupil to the Borough 
 school on the following Monday morning. 
 
 This resolution was duly announced to my 
 mother, by whom it was at first very unfavour- 
 ably received. 
 
 '^ Well, Fm sure,^^ she said, breaking in upon 
 my father as he was about to explain the reasons 
 for this alteration in his intentions, '^you^U send
 
 192 JOHNNY KOBINSON. 
 
 him somewhere after a bit ! A pretty chance 
 heHl have among the gang that go there ; a nice 
 lot of rips they are for our Johnny to go among, 
 and him straight out of a woman^s school. 
 You^ll be having him coming home with his 
 clothes all torn off his back and his head broke, 
 or perhaps killed altogether; and then it^ll be, 
 who^d have thought it ? But you w ont have me to 
 blame for it when it happens ; for^ mind, I''ve told 
 you ; and if he goes he don^t go w ith my will, 
 remember/^ 
 
 "Ah, but, my dear,^'' said my father in a 
 soothing tone, " don^t you see it^s just because 
 he has as yet always been at a woman^s school 
 that he ought to go to a school of this kind now ? 
 You know lie^ll have to learn to rough it a bit 
 like other lads, and the sooner he begins the 
 better for himself; and as to his being knocked 
 about, I dare say the masters and teachers will 
 see that no great harm comes to him ; though if 
 any one should get putting on him too much Fll 
 put a stopper on that. And then, my dear "
 
 A FAMILY COUNCIL. 193 
 
 " Oh_, it^s no use you ' my clearing ' me !" again 
 broke in my mother_, who liad by this time re- 
 covered her breath. " I aint to be talked out of 
 my seven senses like that. I know all about it ; 
 if they don''t lame him or something worse before 
 he^s been there a week^ they'll spoil him and make 
 him as bad or worse than themselves. You 
 know he was a little bad 'un before he went to 
 Mrs. Wilson''s^ and now if he^s sent among the 
 lot as goes to the Borough school, little fault to 
 hinij poor lad, if he turns out a regular bad 'un 
 altogether, and takes to swearing and fighting, 
 and brings your grey hairs — which they will be 
 grey in the course of time — in sorrow to the 
 grave, as the Bible says : and if he does, don^t 
 you blame me, mind.^^ 
 
 In reply to this last adjuration, my father 
 hastened to assure her that in case such an un- 
 toward state of things as she anticipated should 
 come to pass, he would 7iot attach any blame to 
 her, and would remember with all due credit to 
 her prophetic powers the warnings she had given 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 him. And after a time^ when she had so far 
 given vent to the overcharged vials of her 
 wrath as to be prepared to ^' listen to reason/' 
 he gave her an epitomised version of his friend's 
 educational lecture; and either the cogent reasons 
 contained in that lecture or the intimation that 
 he ^' meant to have his own way whether or not/' 
 with which he concluded his abstract of it^ 
 induced her to acquiesce in the proposed change 
 of plan and the modifications in her part of the 
 arrangements which the change involved. 
 
 During my last six months at the infant 
 school I had worn as my Sunday clothes a semi- 
 highland costume^ consisting of a Rob Roy tunic 
 drawn in at the waist by a japanned leather 
 belt, the large gilt clasp of which was conspicu- 
 ously and^ as my parents fondly beheved, 
 appropriately ornamented by a striking bas-relief 
 of a fully-equipped warrior of the tobacconist's- 
 sign clan ; short linen, lace-edged drawers, 
 between the termination of which, about the 
 middle of my thigh, and my short tartan socks, my
 
 A SPLENDID SUIT. 195 
 
 at that time richly mot tied legs were left exposed 
 to the public gaze^, the blasts of winter, and the 
 horrifying attacks of hungry or frolicsome street 
 curs ; a black cloth glengarry cap trimmed with 
 tartan of the same pattern as my coat, and sur- 
 mounted with a Brummagem silver thistle, and a 
 pair of high-lows, ornamented with steel buckles. 
 But when it was decided that I was to go to 
 Harder's academy, it was at the same time 
 resolved that this gorgeous suit, together with 
 all my week-day clothes, should be made down 
 for my brother, and that I should be formally 
 jacketed and breeched. To carry out this 
 resolve, two . complete suits, one of superfine 
 black for Sunday and the other of strong mixed 
 cloth for school wear, were to have been ordered. 
 But the change with respect to the class of 
 school to which I was to go necessarily involved, 
 with a woman of my mother^s managing dis- 
 position, a change in the arrangements with 
 regard to the proposed alteration in my style 
 of dress. She now determined that my high- 
 
 o 2
 
 196 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 land costume should be still retained for my own 
 wear^ and with the simple addition of a pair 
 of leggings attached to my short drawers, con- 
 verted into my school suit,, while the mixed cloth 
 suit which would have been my school dress 
 had I gone to Harder's, was to succeed the all- 
 tartan as my Sunday clothes. 
 
 These arrangements being final, I was on the 
 following Monday morning arrayed in all the glory 
 which a full suit of Rob Roy plaid (for the leg- 
 gings at that time a favourite intermediate step 
 to breeching proper, were of the same material 
 as my tunic) could confer, and, accompanied by 
 my mother, set out for the Borough school. This 
 school, which was at the north-end of the town 
 and in the centre of a poor and densely popu- 
 lated district, was a large two-story building, 
 consisting of two wings fronting and having 
 entrances from different streets. One of these 
 wings was divided into the infants^ and girls' 
 school, the other being the boys' school, and the 
 inner portion of the large square of which these
 
 IN THE WAITING-ROOM. 197 
 
 wings formed two sides was divided into three 
 commodious, walled-in play-grounds, of which the 
 boys^ was the largest. 
 
 As we neared the school, which was a con- 
 siderable distance from our house, we began to 
 overtake and be overtaken by numerous bands of 
 children, and in the stream formed by the con- 
 fluence of a number of these bands we passed 
 into the school. A teacher stationed at the door 
 by which we entered showed us into a waitmg 
 room, in which about a dozen other boys with 
 their mothers were already assembled, and others 
 soon began to drop in and take their seats upon 
 the bench on which, under the superintendence of 
 another teacher, we were ranged to wait our 
 turn. 
 
 Waiting your turn in a public waiting-room, 
 whether it is that of a dentist, a statesman, or 
 the head master of a scholastic establishment, is 
 a very soul-depressing affair to the interested 
 and anxious client whose fate is to be decided 
 upon by the potentate of the presence chamber.
 
 198 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 the way to which lies through the necessary but 
 still purgatorial waitiug-room. Whether wait- 
 ing-rooms are really selected with an especial 
 view to dreariness of aspect_, or whether it is that 
 the state of suspense existing in the minds of 
 their occupants, combined with the plentiful lack 
 of furniture that generally obtains in them,, 
 gives them an imaginary air of dreariness, 
 certain it is that to those who have to wait 
 their turn in them they appear to be the gloomiest 
 of all possible rooms. Compared with them a 
 lumber-room, which to a stranger would at 
 least have something of the attraction pertaining 
 to a cabinet of curiosities, would appear an 
 abode of bliss to the waiting dwellers on the 
 threshold. Children who are past the happy 
 age when they are unconscious of any save the 
 most direct physical dangers, but who are not 
 yet capable of bringing philosophical reflection 
 to their aid when placed in a trying situation or 
 labouring under depressing influences, are, when 
 subject to it, naturally the severest sufierers
 
 WAITING-ROOM FRIGHT. 199 
 
 from waiting-room fright. As I sat in the 
 gloomy, ill-lighted_, stone-floored, vault-like pas- 
 sage which served as ante-chamber to the com- 
 mittee-room of the school, this fright lay heavily 
 upon me, and, assisted by the unpleasant ideas 
 conjured up by the prospect of being placed as a 
 stranger among the crowd of rough lads that I 
 had seen entering the school, wrought me up to 
 a high state of nervous dread. The committee- 
 room I felt sure I would find to be a sort of 
 chamber of horrors, presided over by an ogre, 
 nor did the safe return from the room of my 
 co-victims dispel this belief. It was, therefore, 
 with fear and trembling that, when it came to 
 my turn, I heard the monotonous and oft- 
 repeated '' Now, then, you," of the saturnine 
 teacher who officiated as the Cerberus of the 
 occasion. I would fain have appealed for a little 
 time in which to screw my courage up for taking 
 the dreaded plunge into the dragon's cave ; but 
 my mother, who, having been detained much 
 longer than she had anticipated, was by this
 
 200 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 time very impatient^ and had twice informed me 
 in an agitated whisper that some meat that she 
 had left stewing would be done to rags^ put me 
 on my fect_, and had me into the committee-room 
 before I could utter a word of remonstrance. 
 
 With downcast eyes, a painful sense of burn- 
 ing in the face and general dizziness in the head, 
 I found myself placed in front of a table, at the 
 other side of which I felt the ogre was seated. I 
 stretched out my hand to take hold of my 
 mother^s dress, but she was not within reach, 
 and with a sort of confused despair I braced 
 myself to meet my fate, and listened for the 
 ogress gruff fee-fo-fumish announcement that 
 when he had once got me fairly in his power he 
 meant to grind my bones to make his bread. 
 
 Great, therefore, was my surprise when, after 
 a brief pause, there came from the spot which I 
 instinctively knew to be occupied by the ogre a 
 remarkably pleasant and much more fairy than 
 ogre like voice, which, first flowing past me a 
 little to the right said, " Good morning, mam,^'
 
 A GREAT RELIEF. 201 
 
 and then coming directly to me^ " Look up, my 
 little fellow. What ! a young Highlander, and 
 hang your head ? Oh ! that will never do." 
 
 Surprised and somewhat reassured by the 
 unmistakably kind tone of this voice, I did look 
 up; and behold! I was in, not a dragon's haunted, 
 bone-bestrewed cavern, but what to my relieved 
 imagination appeared to be a veritable little 
 Eden. A glance round the room at once con- 
 vinced me that in the present instance the pas- 
 sage through the valley of the shadow of the 
 waiting-room had led, not to a chamber of torture 
 or slough of despond, but to a brick-and-mortar 
 bower of bliss. It was a light, airy apartment, 
 about the size of an ordinary sitting-room, and 
 was brightly but still harmoniously papered, 
 painted, and pictured (with Scripture pieces set 
 in richly- gilt frames), while the general cheery 
 effect of its still-life features were materially 
 enhanced by the ruddy glow of the fire which 
 blazed in the grate. 
 
 But the cheerful light of the fire and the
 
 202 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 generally paradisiacal air of tlie apartment were 
 dull and almost waiting-roomish compared with 
 the kindly genial glow that beamed from "the 
 smiling countenance of the man whOj in my 
 imagination, I had so greatly wronged by sup- 
 posing him to be a child-destroying monster. 
 He was seated in a large easy chair, with his 
 legs under the table, so that to me, standing at 
 the opposite side, he was only visible from the 
 lower part of his chest upwards. The broad, 
 firm chest, with its liberal display of snowy well- 
 fitting shirt front, was that of a robust middle- 
 aged man, but the face was scarcely in keeping 
 with the rest of the bust ; for though, from its 
 being full and rather fleshy, it harmonized well 
 enough as to mere size, its expression and 
 general appearance was more that of a stoutishly- 
 inclined, comely, good-humoured youth of twenty, 
 than of the stout middle-aged gentleman which, 
 when he stood up, it became fully apparent this 
 kindest of schoolmasters was. Although the 
 face was full, there was not the slightest coarse-
 
 MR. MAYFIELD. 203 
 
 ness about it; its faulty, if fault it was, being 
 rather that the features were soft and regular to 
 the degree of effeminacy : the white, polished 
 forehead, the plump, rosy cheeks and small ripe 
 mouthy and a singular delicacy of skin, on 
 which there appeared no vestige either of 
 " hirsute appendages " or the indications that 
 usually accompany regular shaving, combining 
 to give his countenance more of feminine beauty 
 than masculine handsomeness. But though, 
 from its softness and regularity, the face pre- 
 sented no strongly marked characteristics, its 
 general expression was decidedly intelligent, 
 and the bright, honest glance of the dark-blue 
 eyes, and the magic of the smile which seemed to 
 be constantly hovering about the lips and 
 dimpling the chin, saved it from any charge 
 of insipidity or inexpressiveness. In short, 
 the face of Mr. May field, the head master 
 of the Dockington Borough Schools, was of 
 that open, cheery type that at once inspires 
 love and confidence in the minds of children.
 
 204 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 who as yet reck not of worldly-wise maxims 
 regarding the deceitfulness of appearances, and 
 had he been made to order to fill the position 
 he held he could not possibly have been improved. 
 
 " That^s the way, my little man — hold your 
 head up, and don^t be frightened/'' he said 
 encouragingly, as, after the first reassuring 
 glance, I looked boldly round the room, and 
 replied to his cheery smile in kind. 
 
 ^^ He's never been to a large school before, I 
 suppose ?'''' he said, turning to my mother, on 
 finding that I had banished the shyness and 
 alarm that had overwhelmed me on first entering 
 the room. 
 
 " No, sir,'-* replied my mother, ^' he^s only 
 been at a woman^s school, where the scholars 
 were all neighbours' children, and I'm afraid 
 he'll be very timid among so many strange boys.''^ 
 
 '' Well, naturally, at first ; but he'll soon 
 make acquaintances among his class-mates, and 
 we'll see that no wrong comes to him. He's 
 your own son, I can see," he went on, gi"sdng
 
 BOOKED. 205 
 
 a smiling glance at my mother's face ; " what 
 is his name ?" 
 
 '^ Johnny Robinson^ sir/' 
 
 "And his age V he asked when he had 
 entered the name in a large book that lay before 
 him. 
 
 " Just turned eight.-" 
 
 " And what is his religion ?" 
 
 My mother was rather taken aback by this 
 question_, and hesitatingly answered, " Well, he 
 aint any religion particular yet, sir.'' 
 
 " Well, I suppose not," said the master, with 
 a quiet, good-humoured laugh. " I ought to 
 have asked you if you or his father had any 
 objection to his being brought up to the Church 
 of England." 
 
 " Oh, no objection whatever ; we want him to 
 be brought up a good lad, and to go to church 
 regular." 
 
 " Then I suppose I may put him down for 
 our Sunday-school; come at half-past nine in 
 the morning, read and have prayers till half-
 
 206 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 past ten^ and then raarcli to St. Jude^s^ and 
 come to school again in the afternoon from half- 
 past two till four.^^ 
 
 " Oh, yes ; you may put him down, sir ; it^ll 
 suit us very well, especially the half-hour later 
 in the morning ; for what with having to put 
 the children's Sunday things on, and the master 
 being at home, and one thing and another, you 
 want more time on that day than any other/'' 
 
 ^( Very well, then,'' said the master, who had 
 been completing the entry in his books while my 
 mother was speaking, '' I need not detain you 
 any longer, Mrs. Robinson, as I've only got to 
 hear your son read, and set him a class." 
 
 Thus released from further attendance, my 
 mother bid the master good morning, kissed me, 
 and hastened home — to find not only that the 
 meat was done to rags, but also that my brother, 
 who had not set out for school when we left the 
 house, had nearly emptied the sugar-basin, and 
 broken into a pot of preserves ; depredations for 
 which, I am happy to relate, he at dinner-time
 
 CLASSED. 207 
 
 underwent the righteous penalty of a good 
 hiding, his attempt to persuade his mother that 
 '' Johnny made him do it/-* having upon this 
 occasion proved an utter failure. 
 
 When my mother had taken her departure 
 the master called me to his side^ and placing a 
 small book in my hand^ and pointing to a para- 
 graph^ asked me to read it. The paragraph 
 being a simple one^ part of a "^ moral lesson in 
 two syllables/^ I read it fluently _, and without 
 mistake^ a performance which elicited from the 
 master a commendatory, " Now come, that's 
 very well; well be able to make something of 
 you_, I see V 
 
 Having taken the book from me, he con- 
 sidered for a few moments, and then said — 
 
 '' "Well, my little highlander, I dare say you 
 would do for the fifth class, but I think you had 
 better go into the sixth for the present ; it will 
 be easier for you till you get into the ways of 
 the school, as the boys in it are more about 
 your own age, and you can be shifted to a
 
 208 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 higlier class after a time ; do you understand, 
 Johnny ?" 
 
 ^' Yes, sir/^ I replied; though beyond a vague 
 idea, gathered more from his looks than his 
 words, that in what he proposed he meant to be 
 kind to me, I did not then understand him. 
 
 My position in my new school being thus 
 determined, the master rapped on the table, and 
 calling out " sixth " to the guardian of the 
 waiting-room who opened the door in answer to 
 his signal, that individual conducted me through 
 his gloomy chamber, and opening a door that 
 led into the school, at the same time repeating 
 the word " sixth,^^ handed me over to the 
 teacher who was stationed at the door to receive 
 the new boys. This youth led me across the 
 school to one of several classes that were 
 ranged along the far-side, and handed me over 
 to the teacher of it, at the same time observing 
 to him, " this is the fifth for you this morning ; 
 you^ll have a fine big class after a while/^ 
 
 The teacher to the enlargement of whose class
 
 MY TEACHER. 209 
 
 I was thus contributed, was a chubby-faced, 
 curly-headed, good-humoured boy, of about fif- 
 teen, the expression of whose countenance, more 
 than his occasional forgetfulness, was the cause 
 of the failure of his attempts to look severe and 
 dignified. When I was left standing before him he 
 eyed me all over, with a lowering of the brows and 
 general severity of aspect that might have 
 stamped him a descendant, in a direct line, of 
 the great Simon Tappertit ; but the smile with 
 which he answered my bow entirely swept away 
 the Tappertitish mask, and left him the genial, 
 light-hearted boy that he really was. 
 
 " What^s your name, little ''un,^^ he asked, 
 coming up to me and laying his hand on my 
 shoulder in a kindly, big-brotherly sort of way. 
 
 ^' Johnny Robinson, sir,^^ I answered. 
 
 ^' Oh, you mustn^t say sir to me, you know, 
 it^s to the masters you must say that; you must 
 say ' yes, teacher,' and ' no, teacher,' to mc ; do 
 you see ?" 
 
 " Yes, teacher,'' I repUed. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 '' kje, that^s it/^ said he ; " now Fll show 
 you the lesson; here you are^ see/"* and giving 
 me the book he held in his hand^ he pointed out 
 the place to which the lesson had progressed at 
 the moment of my entering the class. " Each 
 one/^ he continued^ '''reads a sentence in his turn, 
 and if he makes any mistakes, the one below him 
 who corrects him takes his place; so you see, if you 
 keep your eye on your book, and look sharp, you 
 soon get up; but you must go to the bottom 
 now, you know, that^s fair, last come go to the 
 bottom, so take your place ; but mind you don''t 
 get talking or making a noise^ or else Fll have 
 to put you on the line, and then you''ll get the 
 cane.'''' 
 
 This '^ inaugural address '' being concluded, I 
 took my place at the bottom of the class, and 
 the teacher turning round, resumed his suspended 
 tlignity of manner, and sternly called out 
 "•' Silence, you Smith, that^s twice V\q caught 
 you talking this morning ; but the third time 
 pays for all, mind; and if I catch you again.
 
 MY TEACHER. 211 
 
 on the line yon go, and then you know what^s 
 in store for you. Mr. Ashplant^s in charge 
 this morning, mind you.^" 
 
 The rebuked Master Smith suddenly became 
 intently interested in his book, and tried hard, 
 but unsuccessfully, to look unconscious, as it 
 was evident that the fear of Mr. Ashplant, and 
 what that gentleman might have in store for 
 youths who should be placed upon the line, was 
 upon him. Turning from the now- blushing 
 Smith, the teacher, still in his Simon Tappertit 
 manner, called out " Go on -," and in obedience 
 to this command, one of the boys a little on the 
 bottom side of the middle of the class, resumed 
 the reading lesson at the point at which it had 
 been broken off by my entrance upon the 
 scene. 
 
 For a few minutes I obeyed the teacher's 
 
 « 
 
 injunction to keep my eye on my book ; but 
 the desire to take stock of my situation proving 
 stronger than the feeling of obedience, I soon 
 began to look around me, at first furtively, and 
 
 p 2
 
 212 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 tlien, ill the forgetfulness engendered by tlie 
 novelty of the scene^ undisguisedly and staringly. 
 My first half- concealed glances, stolen over the 
 top of the book, were naturally directed to my 
 class-mates, many of whom I found were returning 
 the compliment, by directing their critical glances 
 on me. What their imj^ressions regarding me 
 might have been I cannot say ; but the general 
 result of my survey of them was by no means 
 satisfactory or reassuring. We were formed 
 into three sides of a square ; the teacher occupy- 
 ing the fourth side, and wdth the wall at his 
 back, had all his scholars pretty well under his 
 eye. The class consisted of about forty boys, 
 ranging from a big, overgrown, gawky youth of 
 fourteen, who was head and shoulders taller than 
 the teacher, to stunted, sickly children of seven. 
 Some of them were cleanly and neatly dressed, 
 and Avere evidently the children of tidily-inclined, 
 thrifty, and probably comparatively well-to-do 
 parents ; but the appearance of the majority 
 of them was slovenlv and unwholesome, com-
 
 MY CLASS-MATES. 213 
 
 pared with that of the well- car ed-for children 
 with whom I had been accustomed to associate 
 at Mrs. Wilson^s. The looped and windowed, 
 and at the same time dirty raggedness of some 
 of them, and their clonted shoon, and in two or 
 three instances bare feet^ grated terribly upon 
 my sense of juvenile gentility; while their 
 streety, self-possessed air was unpleasantly sug- 
 gestive of my case being that of the proverbial 
 weak pitcher,, should I happen to be brought 
 into collision with them. My cursory examina- 
 tion of my class-mates being concluded^ I allowed 
 my gaze to wander farther afield. The school- 
 room was a large and lofty building, flag-floored 
 and heavy -roofed, but still bright and cheerful, 
 owing to the flood of light that poured into it 
 through the numerous large w^indows with which 
 on both sides, and throughout its entire length, 
 it was fitted. At the upper end a raised plat- 
 form stretched across the room. On this plat- 
 form were three desks, the large centre one being 
 that of Mr. Mayfield, the head master, who
 
 214 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 being one of those men to whom children 
 naturally take, was a universal favourite with 
 the boys_, who — an unparalleled circumstance in 
 my experience— always spoke of him, even 
 among themselves, as Mr. His general kind- 
 ness, his patient investigation, and even-handed 
 justice in cases of appeal, and his understood 
 aversion to corporal punishment, except as a 
 last resource, had gained the respect of the 
 scholars, who were wont to enthusiastically 
 declare that lie was something like a master, Jie 
 was the sort, and so forth. And sometimes in 
 their fervour, forgetting his interests, they would 
 wish that he was a second or third master, that 
 he might be in a more direct connexion with 
 them than he was in his present position, which 
 was that of a general superintendent of the 
 whole establishment. The desk to the right 
 belonged to the second master, Mr., otherwise 
 " Cockey Handy '^ Ashplant, a gentleman solely 
 remarkable for the severity and gusto with which 
 he used the cane, without which he was rarely
 
 THE MASTERS. 215 
 
 seen in school, and wliich, it was pojmlarly said^ 
 lie was in the habit of taking to bed with him. 
 The left-hand desk was apportioned to the junior 
 master, Mr. Eeeves, commonly spoken of as 
 Napoleon Reeves, from his frequently under- 
 taking the character of the great Corsican, in 
 the popular playground performance of French 
 and English. He was immensely popular with 
 the boys, not only because he spared the cane, 
 and often took an active part in French and 
 English, Prison Bars, and other favourite sports 
 of the playground, but also because he was a 
 capital story-teller, and would, when taking a 
 class, largely, illustrate his theme by tales and 
 anecdotes, which though in many instances — as 
 I know now — apocryphal, were none the less 
 charming or instructive. And lastly, though 
 not leastly, because it was generally supposed 
 that the pedantic and abhorred Ashplant was 
 envious of his popularity among the boys, whom 
 he could keep in order more effectually than 
 could Ashplant, flog he never so vigorously..
 
 216 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 Down the centre of the school-room ran the 
 writing-desks_, each capable of accommodating 
 about twenty scholars^ the spaces between the 
 desks and the walls on either side being occupied 
 by the classes that were receiving such lessons 
 as were given standing. Eight classes were 
 formed in these spaces, the class of which I 
 was a unit being the bottom one on the left side. 
 Outside their respective classes stood the 
 unfortunate beings who for various high crimes 
 and misdemeanours had been " put on the line.''^ 
 While gazing upon those of them on our side of 
 the school, I observed a sudden change for the 
 worse come over their already Avoe-begone 
 visages, and following the direction of their 
 appalled glances, I beheld descending a flight 
 of stairs that led from the class-rooms a long- 
 haired, puffy-faced, heavy-browcd individual, 
 carrying a long cane, who, from the significant 
 manner in which the teacher had mentioned his 
 name, I immediately and rightly guessed to be 
 the redoubted Mr. Ashplant. On catching
 
 ASHPLAiNT AT WORK. 217 
 
 sight of Ills victims, several of whom were 
 already whining, he began to flourish his cane 
 in an ominous manner, and seeing the first 
 unfortunate about to speak as he swept down 
 upon him, he roared out, 
 
 " Oh, none of your excuses, sir, hold out 
 your handj^^ and immediately brought the 
 cane down on the extended hand with a stinging 
 crack that sent a sympathetic and simultaneous 
 thrill of horror throughout the line of the doomed. 
 
 '^ Come, hold it out again,'''' shouted Ashplant, 
 waxing wrath at what he evidently considered a 
 most ungrateful hesitation upon the part of the 
 boy to hold out his now tingling palm to receive 
 the remaining cuts that were to make up the 
 tale of his punishment ; and in obedience to 
 this command, supplemented by an intimation 
 that it would be worse for him if he was any 
 longer about it, the victim once more extended his 
 hand and received two more cracking strokes, 
 the sound of which sent another visible thrill 
 through many of those who were to suffer, while 
 
 >*
 
 218 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 their smart sent their recipient to his class 
 howling and wringing his hand. 
 
 Having thus got a fair starts Mr. Ashplant, 
 with the ease and rapidity that constant practice 
 gives, disposed of the remainder of his victims, 
 who took their punishment with various degrees 
 of fortitude. Some who w^ere either case- 
 hardened or who had resolved to suffer and be 
 strong, in order to deprive their enemy of the 
 pleasure which any expression of suffering upon 
 their part evidently afforded him, bore it un- 
 murmuringly and unflinchingly, while others 
 howled and writhed most dismally. 
 
 "While I had been observing these details of 
 structure and discipline I had entirely forgotten 
 my book, but at this point I was abruptly re- 
 called to a sense of my position by the teacher 
 calling out in his sternest voice, "Now, then, 
 you new boy, Robinson ! it's your turn ; go on.'^ 
 I glanced helplessly and confusedly at the book, 
 without having the remotest idea at what point 
 of the lesson I ought toi' on, and was about to
 
 CAUGHT NAPPING. 219 
 
 confess as mucli when the boy next to me kindly 
 whispered, '' And thus the long summer days f 
 and happening- at the same instant to get my 
 eye on the sentence beginning with those words, 
 I was happily enabled to go on and save myself 
 from a confession that might have led to my 
 being handed over to the tender mercies of Mr. 
 Ashplant. 
 
 " That'll do/' said the teacher, when I had 
 read my sentence ; " but mind you don't get 
 staring about you again and losing the place, or 
 else you'll have to go on the line, and then 
 you'll get what you saw those boys getting just 
 now, and you wont like that, I fancy." 
 
 Thus admonished, I took care to be as atten- 
 tive as possible to the progress of the lesson, 
 and soon perceived that I could read as well as 
 any and better than many of my classmates. 
 Before the lesson had got quite half way round 
 I had an opportunity of correcting one of the 
 readers, and the correction being duly verified I 
 was ordered to " take him down ;" that was, to
 
 220 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 take the place in the class next above him. 
 When the little stir caused by the change of 
 places had subsided, my taken-down classmate, — 
 a bare-footed, scantily-clad, sallow-complexioned, 
 and decidedly cheeky-looking boy, a little taller 
 and a year older than myself, — holding his book 
 so as to screen his face, asked me in a fierce 
 whisper what I had got taking him down for. 
 
 I whispered back that teacher had told me to 
 correct anybody that made a mistake, if I saw a 
 chance. 
 
 ''' Well, never you mind what teacher told 
 you,^^ he said, in the same low tone ; '' if you 
 get taking me down any more, Fll tell you 
 something you wont like, with a peg on the 
 nose. You aint agoin to come it over me, mind 
 you, if you have got your Sunday clothes on.^^ 
 
 " They arn't my Sunday clothes,'' I proudly 
 replied ; " I shall have a new suit on Sunday.'' 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! they aint your Sunday clothes, 
 not at all ! I suppose I haven't seen you with 
 'em on of a Sunday ; oh dear a-me, no !"
 
 A WHISPERED CONVERSATION. 221 
 
 Either awed by the teacher^s cry of '' silence 
 there V or imagining that it would not be 
 possible for me to bear more of such biting 
 sarcasm and survive,, he became silent for a brief 
 space^ after giving expression to the ironical 
 allusions to my clothes, and when he resumed 
 his whispering it was in a more friendly tone. 
 
 " Don^t you know me ?^^ he asked. 
 
 " No/" I answered. 
 
 " Oh, I know you/' he said ; " I live next 
 street to you, and I see you when I come to the 
 bakehouse at the top of your street."" 
 
 Oh/" I said, and then thinking that these 
 monosyllabic replies might be considered un- 
 courteous, I asked, " Why do you come to 
 school in your bare feet ?"" 
 
 '' Why, because I"ve only got one pair of 
 shoes, and they"re at the mending this week ; 
 that"s why, soft head,"" was the answer. 
 
 " Don"t you wash them when you go to bed?"" 
 I asked, looking down at the dirt-engrained 
 appearance of his feet.
 
 222 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 " Oil; sometimes/^ he replied,, carelessly ; " but 
 what^s the use of washing ''em when it^s only 
 dry dirt T' 
 
 Here our whispered conversation was brought 
 to a close by the teacher coming round to collect 
 the books previous to questioning us on the 
 lessons we had been reading. In the course of 
 the questioning; Mickey Bryan — for such I found 
 was the name of the boy with whom I had been 
 whispering — was still further taken down^ and 
 seemed in a fair way of reaching the bottom of 
 the clasS; when the questioning was brought to 
 an abrupt termination by the ringing of a bell. 
 This bell was the summons to the playground^ 
 the signal of liberty for the next quarter of an 
 hour; and at its first tinkle all became confusion. 
 The classes in the schoolroom broke up^ those 
 who had been occupying the class-rooms came 
 whooping downstairs; with Ashplant in their 
 midst shouting silencC; and slashing right and 
 left with his canC; and all joined in a rush 
 through the doors that led into the playground.
 
 IN THE PLAYGROUND. 223 
 
 Shrinking from this to me appalling stampede, 
 I Tvas one of the last to reach the playground, 
 and the scene which it presented when I got 
 into it seemed to me perfectly demoniac. Two 
 large revolving swings with twelve ropes each 
 were fully occupied, some of the ropes being 
 manned by two boys, and were going round at 
 a pace that made me dizzy to behold. Prison 
 bars and leap frog were already in active 
 operation ; and the school having, in company 
 with a number of other schools, been treated to 
 a large circus that had been visiting the town 
 the previous week, acrobatic performances were 
 for the time being in great favour. Numbers 
 of the boys were standing on their heads, climb- 
 ing on to each other^s shoulders, turning wheels, 
 and indulging in other exercises that seemed to 
 me to be certain to end fatally, and to be the 
 sport of demons rather than boys. Boys singly 
 or in bodies were rushing wildly about with no 
 apparent object, whilst others were struggling 
 upon the ground, a seemingly inextricable mass
 
 224 JOHXNY ROBINSON. 
 
 of arms and legs^ and all^ however otherwise 
 engaged^ were shouting and yelling at the top 
 of their voices, the whole combining to make a 
 scene of Babel-like noise and confusion that 
 caused me to shrinkingly take up my position 
 in an obscure angle of the wall at what appeared 
 to be the least frequented end of the play- 
 ground. For a minute or two I remained un- 
 observed in my comparatively calm retreat, and 
 began to hope that I would find peace where 
 there w^as no peace. But presently, while I was 
 gazing with a sort of dizzy admiration at the 
 performers on the nearest swing, a cap fell at 
 my feet, and was instantly followed by the 
 appearance of Mickey Bryan, attended by a 
 howling band, who had been using the cap as a 
 football. 
 
 " Oh, my V cried Mickey, in a voice of ecstacy, 
 as his eye fell upon me, " if here aint mammy 
 daddy sugar baby as took me down this morn- 
 ing. Aint we fine in our Sunday clothes ! He 
 says they aint his Sunday ^ms, as if I hadn^t
 
 IN THE PLAYGROUND. 225 
 
 seen him with ^em on many a time. Have a 
 look at him, lads/^ he continued, laying hold of 
 me by the scrufF of the neck, and turning me 
 round in order to give his followers a proper 
 look at the curiosity he had discovered for 
 them. " I dare say he thinks to come it over 
 us with his white collars and fancy cap, 
 but he^ll find himself mistaken; wont he, 
 lads ?" 
 
 The lads unanimously and emphatically ex- 
 pressed their opinion that he just would, and 
 one of them at that moment happening to notice 
 that, while they had been engaged with me, the 
 owner of the cap that they had been kicking had 
 managed to regain it, Mickey instantly snatched 
 mine off my head, and, followed by his friends, 
 set off, kicking it before them. I ran after them 
 for some time, asking them to give me back my 
 cap, and trying to snatch it from among them, 
 but finding all my efforts fruitless, and having 
 been twice knocked down by coming into colli- 
 sion with other boys, I retired in despair to my 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 corner, where, after a while, Mickey brought the 
 cap back to me. 
 
 " It aint much worse/^ he said, placing it 
 on my head ; '' so mind you don^t get telling 
 teacher.''^ 
 
 " Ah! but I will tell him,'' I replied. 
 
 " Well, you'd better not/' said Mickey, " for 
 if you do, look here," and brandishing his fists 
 in my face, he intoned, with great solemnity of 
 voice and manner — 
 
 " That's iron, and that's steel, 
 And that's the fist that'll make you feel." 
 
 " Now will you tell teacher ?" 
 
 " No," I faintly answered. 
 
 Only half convinced by this answer. Master 
 Bryan observed : ^' Well, it wont be good for 
 your health if you do ; it'll be sudden death or a 
 long sickness for you, I can tell you. For," he 
 continued, resuming his incantatory strain, and 
 again shaking his fists in my face, 
 
 " That's iron, and that's lead, 
 And that's the fist that'll knock yon dead."
 
 IN BODILY TEAR. 227 
 
 " But I wont tellj" I said,, appalled by these 
 terrible threats. 
 
 Still Mickey^ who was evidently hard of belief, 
 was not quite convineed, and was opening his 
 mouth probably with the intention of threatening 
 me with some punishment compared with which 
 knocking me dead would be a mild proceeding, 
 in case of my telling teacher, when at that 
 instant the bell rang for re-entering the school, 
 and he left me. But during the geography 
 lesson that occupied our class for the remainder 
 of the morning, I several times caught his eye 
 ominously fixed upon me, and directing me to 
 observe his pantomimic performance of the 
 cabalistic rites embodying the threat to annihilate 
 me should I be guilty of telling tales in school. 
 At twelve o^ clock the bell releasing us for the 
 hour and a half set apart as dinner-time was 
 rung, and with a noise and confusion greater, if 
 possible, than that which had characterized their 
 rush to the playground, the scholars cleared 
 out of the school. 
 
 q2
 
 228 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 " Well;, Johnny, my dear, and how do you 
 like your new school ?" eagerly asked my mother, 
 pausing in her cooking operations as I walked 
 into the house. 
 
 '^ I don't like it at all," I answered petu- 
 lantly, ^' and I shan't go back to it any more ;'* 
 and then I recounted, with a little heightening of 
 colour, the occurrences in the playground. 
 
 " Well, I'm sure," exclaimed my mother, 
 '' the nasty, dirty little wretches, to go and knock 
 you down and take your cap and kick it about 
 — that is coming it. I wonder what next. But 
 they shan't do it for nothing — that they shan't. 
 I'll go straight to the master about it to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 " Don't send mc back again ; that'll be the 
 best," I suggested. 
 
 '' Oh, you must go back for to-day out any- 
 way," said my mother ; " but I'll see how you 
 get on in the afternoon, and what your father 
 says about it at night." 
 
 And so having had my dinner I set out on
 
 A WRITING LESSON. 229 
 
 my return for school, heavy at lieart, the gift 
 of an extra piece of tart and a halfpenny 
 wherewith to get myself something on the road 
 nothwithstanding. 
 
 On the ringing of the bell at half-past one 
 the classes were formed in the playground, 
 and, headed by their respective teachers, marched 
 into school in Indian file. Ours was one of 
 the half-dozen classes stationed in the desks 
 for a writing lesson. The desks and the forms, 
 which served as the seats to them, were secured 
 from shaldng by their iron legs being firmly 
 leaded into the stone floor, and were conse- 
 quently fixtures. The flat surface of the desks 
 were abundantly ornamented with initials, 
 names, and pictorial designs done in the well- 
 known pocket-knife style of engraving generally 
 afffected by schoolboys. There being no taking 
 down in the writing lessons, many of the boys 
 claimed those parts of the desks on which they 
 had placed their mark, a circumstance that led 
 to some wrangling, and such whisperings as
 
 230 JOHNNY KOBINSON. 
 
 " ni give you a peg in the ear if you don^t 
 shift '," " V\\ let you know who^s place it is f* 
 " ril give you a good warming when we get 
 into the playground/^ But Mr. Ashplant hav- 
 ing detected a couple of these ^'^ junior wrang- 
 lers^^ kicking each other's shins under the desks, 
 administered condign punishment to them in a 
 style that struck terror into and silenced the 
 rest. When all Avere seated, the teachers 
 brought round books, copy slips, and pens to 
 those who were in copy-books. The inkstands 
 were let into the desks, and when not in use the 
 frameless slates were also let down into slits, 
 their bottom ends resting on a ledge rimning 
 under the desks. At a word of command from 
 Ashplant, those " on slates'^ — of whom I was one 
 — drew their slates from their slits, and, being 
 supplied with pencil-cases, prepared for action. 
 The slate copies were set by the teachers, my 
 exercise being to multiply large-hand copies of 
 the word " And '' all down both sides of the 
 slate. The boy on my right hand, who, like
 
 RIDDLE PROPOUNDING. 231 
 
 myself, was on slates, being an expeditious writer, 
 had filled both sides of his slate while I had yet 
 several lines of my first side to fill, and finding 
 Mmself at liberty, and anxious to improve the 
 occasion, he whispered to me — 
 
 " I say, let^s have a talk/'' 
 
 " I have not half filled my slate yet,"*^ I whis- 
 peringly replied. 
 
 '^ Oh, never mind, you^re a new boy ; they^ll 
 say nothing to you the first day. Do you know 
 any riddles V 
 
 "No,^^ I answered, going on with my 
 writing. ^- 
 
 '' Oh, I do, lots,^^ he said, heedless of the 
 coldness of my reply ; '^ 1^11 give you one. 
 
 " There was a man of Adam's race, 
 He had a certain dwelling-place, 
 Neither in heaven, or earth, or heU. 
 Can you tell me where that man could dwell, 
 Sheltered in, and covered o'er, 
 Where never man had been before ?" 
 
 There, can you tell me that T' 
 " No,^' I answered.
 
 232 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 ^' Will you give it up^ then If'' 
 " Yes/^ 
 
 ^^ Why, it^s Jonah in the whalers belly^ to be 
 sure. Don^t you see?" 
 '^ Ay_, I see/' I answered. 
 '' Well, 1^11 give you another. 
 
 *' There was a man rode through, this town, 
 Great Grissel was his name ; 
 His saddle-bow was gilt with gold : 
 Three times I've told you his name." 
 
 You can guess that, can't you ?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 '' What ! can^t guess that ; well, you are a 
 softy. Why, that^s a regular easy one. His 
 name was TVas, don^t you see; he rode through 
 the town of Great Grissel TFas his name. Now, 
 V\l give you a hard one ?'' 
 
 But before he could proceed to do so he was 
 seized from behind by the ever-vigilant Ashplant, 
 and there being several former convictions against 
 him for talking, he was condemned to receive 
 three cuts on each hand. The cuts were given in
 
 AFTERNOON PLAY. 233 
 
 Ashplant^s best style^ and sent my companion 
 back to liis seat crying and with his liands 
 squeezed between his knees^ and all desire for 
 riddle-propounding effectually driven out of his 
 head for the time being. The writing lesson lasted 
 an hour, and then Mr. Ashplant went round to 
 examine the copy-books and administer his uni- 
 versal remedy — the cane — to all whose books 
 showed blots, mistakes, or other imperfections. 
 Those on slates were, happily, not subjected to 
 this ordeal, their work being examined by the 
 teachers. 
 
 The inspection being concluded, the copy- 
 books, copy slips, pens, and pencils were col- 
 lected, and the slates returned to their slits at 
 the w^ord of command, and then all being in 
 readiness, the play-bell was rung, and the usual 
 pell-mell rush into the playground ensued. 
 Again the ground seemed to me a pandemonium, 
 and again I shrank into a corner, from which I 
 was again speedily unearthed by Mickey Bryan 
 and his demon crew.
 
 234 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 " Here he is_, lads/"* shouted Mickey, whose 
 quick eye was the first to discover my where- 
 abouts. " Come along, mammy-daddy/^ he 
 shouted, jerking me into the midst of his fol- 
 lowers. " I suppose you think you're to be 
 above playing with us, do you? But we^ll 
 show you different.^^ 
 
 " Oh_, my eye ! what^s them ?'^ cried one of the 
 gang, breaking in unceremoniously upon his 
 leader^s speech, and pointing to the polished 
 buckles in my shoes ; and in an instant half-a- 
 dozen of them were on their knees and strug- 
 gling to get at the buckles. 
 
 In the thick of the struggle one of the tartan 
 leggings slightly attached to my drawers came 
 off, leaving my bare calf exposed to view. This 
 incident was received with delighted yells of 
 laughter, and, springing to their feet, the gang 
 started to chevy me round the gi'ound, and 
 others joining them on seeing the capital nature 
 of the sport, I was soon chased by a large mob, 
 joyously singing as a hunting chorus : —
 
 AFTERNOON PLAY. 235 
 
 " Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John, 
 One legging off, and one legging on." 
 
 This sport was continued till within a minute or 
 two of the time for going into school,, and then 
 Mickey^ who^ with the legging stuck on his cap^ 
 was acting as hunt sman-in- chiefs brought it to 
 a closC;, and having collected a number of pins 
 from his followers^ proceeded^ with the aid of two 
 assistant dressers^ to attach the legging to my 
 drawers again^ at the same time threatening me 
 with the most terrific vengeance should I tell 
 teacher. Our lesson, on re-assembling in school, 
 was arithmetic, the sums being chalked on a black 
 board by teacher and copied by us on to our 
 slates. During the lesson Mickey Bryan, having 
 been repeatedly detected, and in vain reproved, 
 for trying to copy the answers from his neigh- 
 bours' slates, Avas at last put on the line, where 
 he was speedily pounced upon by Ashplant, who 
 recognising him as an old offender, gave him a 
 stinging half-dozen on the hands, and then call- 
 ing him back as he was returning to his class.
 
 236 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 gave him three additional cuts for muttering to 
 himself. But notwithstanding that_, Mickey, 
 who took his punishment without a w^himper, 
 pretty audibly muttered, as he passed to his 
 place, " V\\ be one in for Cocky yet, see if I 
 don^t.^' At the conclusion of the lesson Ashplant 
 mounted the platform and gave out the words of 
 a hymn, which was sung by the boys with very 
 good effect. He then read a prayer, at the 
 conclusion of which, it being then four o'clock, 
 we were dismissed ; and so ended my first, and, 
 upon the whole, unpleasant day in the Borough 
 School.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I FIND A FRIEND AND PllOTECTOK, AND DISCOVER THAT 
 MICKEY BRYAN IS NOT SO BAD AS I WAS INCLINED TO 
 PAINT HIM — I TAKE PART IN THE BATTLE OF "WATERLOO 
 AND OTHER PLAYGROUND GAMES, AND ALTOGETHER CHANGE 
 MY OPINION RESPECTING THE SCHOOL. 
 
 T night I related all that had befallen 
 me to my father^ and again suggested 
 that I should not be sent back to the school, a 
 suggestion which, on hearing the adventure of 
 the legging, my mother strongly seconded, ob- 
 serving that such a lot of young racapelts would 
 be the death of me. But to this proposition my 
 father would not listen. He couldn^t see that 
 there w^as anything particular the matter with 
 mc; lads would be lads, and I must learn to 
 rough it out like the rest and take my own part ; 
 we should only see how apprentices got served 
 out when they first went to work and then we
 
 238 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 might talk. At any rate^ I mustn't leave till I^d 
 given it a fair trial_, and in the meantime he^d 
 see about getting some of his mates^ sons who 
 were used to the school to look after me a bit. 
 My staying at the school being thus decided 
 upon I was sent disconsolately to bed^ where I 
 fell asleep and dreamt of Mickey Bryan and his 
 satellites^ Mickey himself appearing in the shape 
 of a tremendously enlarged copy of the three- 
 headed giant_, whose highly coloured likeness 
 formed the frontispiece to my penny edition of 
 " Jack the Giant-killer.''^ Suffering under the 
 depressing effects of this unwelcome visitation, I 
 again on the following morning objected to being 
 sent to school, but was informed that my father 
 had left strict injunctions that I was to be 
 packed off, and accordingly packed off I was. 
 
 There was a tacitly understood arrangement 
 between the second and third masters to " take 
 charge '' on alternate days. Taking charge con- 
 sisted in exercising a general supervision over 
 the classes in the large school-room, dealing
 
 TAKING CHARGE. 239 
 
 with those who were put on the line, arbitrating 
 between teachers and pupils, and attending to 
 others matters of that hind. The master not 
 in charge devoted himself more especially 
 to the two or three classes in the class-rooms, 
 testing their progress, deciding whether or not 
 they were to be advanced to higher rules or 
 lessons, or whether any of the boys were fit to be 
 promoted to higher classes. In accordance with 
 this arrangement, Mr. Reeves was in charge on 
 this second morning, and it was he who mar- 
 shalled us in the playground, marched us into 
 school, and gave out the hymn, and read 
 the prayer which opened the proceediugs of 
 the day. 
 
 At the conclusion of the prayer the school- 
 room door, which during these devotional 
 exercises had been closed and guarded, was 
 opened, and the late comers to the number of 
 about a score, were admitted and marshalled in 
 front of the platform. The few of them who 
 had brought notes of excuse or apology from
 
 240 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 their parents presented tliem, while the rest 
 nerved themselves to receive the two cuts which 
 were the regulation wages of the sin of this the 
 earlier stage of late coming, the punishment 
 being increased according to the enormity of the 
 offence in the cases of those who came still later. 
 The punishment of the late arrivals was pro- 
 perly the work of the master in charge, but Mr. 
 Ashplant had broken down this arrangement by 
 regularly volunteering his valuable services on 
 the days when he was not in charge. And Mr. 
 Reeves having subsequently imitated the example 
 of his colleague on this point, with tlie humane 
 intention, as the boys readily divined, of giving 
 some of the condemned the opportunity of pro- 
 fiting by his avowedly milder style of punish- 
 ment, the caning of those who from creeping 
 like snails unwillingly to school or some other 
 cause, in explanation of which no note from 
 parents or guardians was forthcoming, had got 
 too late, had become the joint work of Messrs. 
 Ashplant and Reeves.
 
 THE LATE AFxRIVALS. 24 L 
 
 Having read the notes of excuse and passed 
 their fortunate bearers^ the masters brought out 
 their canes and prepared for the work of castiga- 
 tion. In the meantime the boys were struggling 
 and scrambling to get to Mr. Reeves' end of the 
 platform, but the efforts of many of them were 
 of no avail, for when a line of victims were to be 
 operated upon, Ashplant was a terrifically expedi- 
 tious performer, and flogged at nearly double the 
 rate of the milder-mannerecl Reeves. On this 
 occasion his sharp stinging cuts and the howl 
 by which they were almost invariably followed 
 were heard with a frequency that must have 
 sounded ominous to those who were in the habit 
 of getting late. Among those who passed 
 through his hands on this morning was Mickey 
 Bryan, who came into the class wringing his 
 hands and again threatening vengeance against 
 " Cocky.'' 
 
 The flogging being over, Ashplant betook him- 
 self and his cane to the class-room, and a calmer 
 and happier aspect reigned over the schoolroom 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 Tinder the benignant charge of the younger and 
 more genial master. There were certainly a 
 greater number of boys put on the Kne than had 
 been the case on the previous day^ as the 
 teachers had now less hesitation about making 
 a boy " stand out " than they had when they 
 knew that by doing so they consigned him to 
 the merciless Ashplant, and the boys themselves 
 begged less hard, and consequently less success- 
 fully_, not to be put out than they did when 
 the fear of their terrible foe was before their 
 eyes. But though the number of boys placed on 
 the line was greater than it had been the day 
 before,, the punishment administered was less. 
 
 Excuses were now listened to, and some of 
 the boys were acquitted of the offences laid to 
 their charge, and others dismissed with a caution, 
 while the punishment given was of a light kind ; 
 so light, indeed, that Mickey Bryan, who received 
 two doses during the time of the first lesson, 
 seemed to consider it rather a good joke than 
 otherwise. But still Reeves showed that he could
 
 AGAIN IN THE PLAYGROUND. 243 
 
 flog in a style that speedily would take all notions 
 of joking out of those who were receiving the 
 castigation,, for it having been proved that a boy 
 who strongly accused another of having stolen 
 some sticks of slate pencil from a cupboard in 
 which they were kept,, was himself the thief, he 
 thrashed him in a style that Ashplant might 
 have envied^ but could scarcely hope to have 
 excelled. 
 
 With the painful recollections of the treat- 
 ment I had experienced the day before fresh in 
 my memory^ it was with great reluctance that I 
 entered the playground on the ringing of the 
 bell at eleven o^clock. On entering the ground, 
 however, I was cheered by seeing Mickey Bryan 
 engaged on one of the swings and hearing him 
 emphatically telling a boy who asked him how 
 long he was going to be with the rope, that he 
 intended to stick to it all the time. Having 
 heard this welcome intelligence I retired into a 
 corner, hoping to be left in peace. But the 
 hope was a vain one, for I had not been many 
 
 R 2
 
 244 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 minutes in my retreat before I was discovered by 
 a portion of the band who had persecuted me 
 the day before. 
 
 " Why here^s mammy-daddy again, lads/^ said 
 one of them, a vicious-looking customer with a 
 cast in his eyes, dragging me out of the corner ; 
 " let^s pull his legging off and chase him 
 again."" 
 
 " O, don't do that, please,'' I urged ; " I shall 
 be knocked down and hurt if you do." 
 
 '^ Well, then, what will you give us to let you 
 alone?" he asked, shaking me. 
 
 " I haven't got anything," I meekly an- 
 swered. 
 
 '' O, that be blowed," he said, giving me 
 another shake ; " turn your pockets out." 
 
 I obeyed this command, and produced two 
 pieces of twine, some marbles, a piece of toffee, 
 and the peg of a peg-top, the wooden part of 
 which had been demolished at the favourite peg- 
 top game of " conquerors." 
 
 " Hand over," said my enemy, anticipating
 
 A RESCUE. 245 
 
 obedience to his command by abruptly seizing 
 these sundries. 
 
 But there is many a slip between the cup 
 and the lip, and before this school brigand 
 could complete the act of possession by pocket- 
 ing his booty, his ring of followers was broken 
 through, he was seized by the collar, a clenched 
 fist was shaken under his nose, and a voice 
 exclaimed in a threatening tone, ^^ And just 
 you hand over again, Mr. Morris, or I''ll 
 hand you one in the mouth as "11 make you 
 jump."" 
 
 And it was only by extraordinary promptness 
 in handing over again that Mr. Morris saved him- 
 self from the ^'^ one in the mouth"" which was 
 about to follow, or rather conclude the command. 
 
 " Now cut it, the lot of you,"" said my cham- 
 pion, turning upon those of the group who had 
 not slunk off while their leader was being 
 tackled ; " cut it, or it"ll be worse for you, for I 
 can lick any of you lot, I fancy ; or if I can't, I 
 can soon get some one that can, so you hadn't
 
 246 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 better get putting on him any more none of 
 you, or else you'll get wax for it, so I tell 
 -jou/' 
 
 At the conclusion of this address, which 
 was delivered in a very warlike manner, all save 
 one of my persecutors took themselves off, and 
 this last one after muttering something about 
 some people being too fast and thinking themselves 
 everybody, but that such people would perhaps 
 find themselves mistaken when it came to the 
 put to, followed his companions on my protector 
 turning up his cuffs and asking him, with an 
 unmistakable significance of manner, ^^ whether 
 he wanted anything/-' 
 
 My gallant rescuer was a stout, well-developed 
 boy, about ten years of age. He had a broad, 
 fat, rosy face, with a nose and mouth plump but 
 disproportionately small, and black, beady, 
 sparkling eyes, and his irregularity of features, 
 the merry twinkle of his eyes, and a joyous grin 
 hovering about the corners of his mouth, ready 
 sX the slightest provocation to expand into a
 
 MY PRESERVER. 247 
 
 boisterously mirthful laugh, gave a pleasantly- 
 comic expression to his countenance. 
 
 '' Come on, Johnny/^ he said, taking me by 
 the hand, when he had got rid of my assailants ,• 
 " let us walk about a bit.^' 
 
 '• Do you know me, then V I asked, be- 
 ginning to walk down the playground by his 
 side. 
 
 '' Yes,^' he answered ; " but I expect you don^t 
 know me. I^m Billy Butcher ; I live in the 
 same street as you, two courts lower down, and 
 my father works in the same shop as yours. I 
 know your father,^^ he went on, ^^ ^cos he mended 
 my hoop for me one Saturday, when I was 
 taking father^s dinner to the shop; and last 
 night he comes to our house just as I was 
 a-going to bed, and he says to me, ' Billy,^ he 
 says, ' my lad went to your school yesterday, 
 and it seems some of themes been mauling him a 
 bit. I wish you would just keep your eye on 
 him till he gets into the ways of the school ; he 
 doesn't know anyone there yet.' And I said I
 
 248 JOHNNT ROBINSON. 
 
 would; and I will too^ Johnny; watch if I 
 don't/^ And then^ lowering his tone,, which he 
 had considerably heightened when giving me the 
 last assurance^ he added, " he gave me sixpence 
 all for myself, and I^m going to buy bamboo 
 with it, to make bows and arrows with, and 111 
 give you one when theyl^e made/^ 
 
 1 thanked him for his intended present, and 
 then he went on, 
 
 '' But you mustn^t get being soft, and sticking 
 up in corners by yourself, and being frightened 
 of everybody. You must join in the games ; and 
 of course youll get knocked about a bit some- 
 times, ^cos we all do, but you mustn^t mind that. 
 Though if any of them gets regular putting on 
 you — prigging your things, you know, or the like 
 of that — just you come and tell me, and if I 
 don^t warm them as does it, it aint no matter ; or 
 if theyl'e aboA^e my match, Fll get somebody 
 else to do it, so it^s all the same. Only mind 
 you, Johnny ,^^ he said, emphasizing his remark 
 by shaking his forefinger, " the more pluckier
 
 FRIENDLY COUNSEL. 249 
 
 you are, the more they wont put upon 
 you." 
 
 To this advice I replied in effect that I would 
 be very glad to play with any of my schoolmates 
 who would let me play with them, that for such 
 rough usage as came fairly in the way of play I 
 did not care, that I would ^' fight my own size " 
 if he would see me fair play, and that in case I 
 was put upon by those who were more than 
 my size, I would appeal to him for advice or 
 assistance. 
 
 " That's youi' sort, Johnny V he exclaimed, 
 when I had finished speaking ; ^' you'll do after 
 a while. And now tell us what class you're 
 in." 
 
 " The sixth," I answered. 
 
 " O, my ! are you though ?" he exclaimed, 
 evidently surprised. " ^Vhy, I'm only in the 
 fifth." 
 
 " Well," I said, '' I think I ought to have 
 been put in the fi.fth class, too, by rights. Mr. 
 May field said he thought I might have done for
 
 250 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 it, and I know I can read better than a good 
 many in the sixth/^ 
 
 " Ahj you see_, Johnny, you don^t know what's 
 good for you jet/' observed Billy, philosophically. 
 " Mr. Mayfield never puts a new lad in the fifth 
 without he's a big 'un or a regular hard 'un ; 
 'cos why ? Why, just that our teacher's a 
 regular crabbed 'un. You can see he walks 
 lame, from one leg being shorter than the other, 
 and he's always a-poking that stick of his into 
 your ribs, or a-hitting you over the knuckles 
 with it, and a-bullying of you all day long. And 
 then, if you tells any of the masters — 'cos, you 
 know, no teacher is allowed to hit a boy — he 
 says, quite innocent like, ' Why, sir, I merely 
 touched him ;' and then he has it in for you, 
 and puts you on the line when you aint done 
 nothing. So, you see, there's no getting any 
 hold of him ; but Mr. Mayfield knows him, and 
 is down on him, for all that, and that's why he 
 don't care about putting new lads into our 
 class."
 
 FRIENDLY COUNSEL. 251 
 
 In reply to this, I stated that now the matter 
 was explained, I was thankful for a kindness that 
 I had been beginning to consider an act of 
 injustice ; and then Billy, pointing to a knot of 
 those from whose clutches he had rescued me, 
 and whom he had observed watching us, said, — 
 
 " If any of them gets on with you again, tell 
 me, that^s alV 
 
 '' I wilV^ I said ; " but there^s a worse than 
 any of them — Mickey Bryan, in our class/"* 
 
 ^' O no, he aint,-*^ said Billy, rather sharply. 
 ^^ Mickey is a great pal of mine, and a regular 
 stunner he is too. There aint no gammon about 
 him ; he might have a bit of a lark with you, 
 but you wouldn^t catch him a-trying to prig 
 your things off you ; or do anything else that^s 
 shabby. You'll be all right with Mickey, when 
 I tell him that you know me. I'll wait for you 
 when we go out,'' he hastily added, as the bell 
 sounded for returning into school, " and we'll 
 go home along with Mickey, and then you'll see 
 he's a first-rater."
 
 252 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 In accordance with this arrangement, I found 
 Billy waiting outside the gate at twelve o^clock. 
 
 " Come along, Johnny/" he said ; ^' let us look 
 sharp ; Mickey^s always out among the first, and 
 he^s gone on/'' And taking hold of me by the 
 arm as we spoke, we started off on the trot, 
 Billy glancing at the various groups of our 
 schoolmates that we overtook, until, coming up 
 to one in which there were several of those who 
 had been most active in persecuting me, he 
 stopped, and asked, " Whereas !Mickey V 
 
 " O, he's snacked a ring,"-* answered one of 
 them, carelessly ; " and he's run on ahead/' 
 
 '' Well, we wont see him now,'" said Billy to 
 me, slackening his pace so as to fall behind the 
 group ; " but never mind, we'll see him in the 
 playground/'' 
 
 " What's snacking a ring, Billy T' I asked. 
 
 " Why, don't you know ^" he exclaimed, in a 
 tone of surprise. " It's nailing the marbles off 
 a ring as other chaps is playing in." 
 
 " But isn't that stealing ?" I said.
 
 SNACKING. 253 
 
 ^' Stealing V eclioed Butclier_, in a voice made 
 shrill with mingled astonishment and indignation. 
 " Stealing ! well^ I should say not. Not when 
 you call out ^ snacks/ anyway/^ he added, after 
 a pause_, during which he had evidently been 
 considering the matter in this, to him, novel 
 light. "Why/^ he went on, changing his 
 voice, — the flexibility and expressiveness of which 
 enabled him to show those shades of thought and 
 feeling of which, from its chronic and unchange- 
 ably comic expression, his countenance was in- 
 capable of giving any indication, — to a tone that 
 combined a sense of injury with a desii-e to 
 expostulate, /^^ Why, when a fellow^s skinned, and 
 aint got any money to buy more with, what^s he 
 to do ? Snack, to be sure ; what else ? Why,^' 
 he added, as a clincher, and as though the asser- 
 tion at once and for ever decided that snacking 
 a ring was a perfectly honest and indeed highly 
 commendable performance, " I often snack.^^ 
 
 " But what do the boys say, that you snack 
 from r
 
 254 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 " Well, you see, it^s no catcliing, no having, at 
 snacks ; but if they do catch you, they don't say 
 much. They give you a good hammering, and 
 take the marbles from you again, that's all.'' 
 
 " Did you ever get caught ?" I asked, begin- 
 ning to take a deeper interest in Billy's dis- 
 closures. 
 
 " Twice," he answered briefly. 
 
 " And did you catch it ?" I questioned per- 
 sistently. 
 
 ^' Oh, didn't I just ; my poor head and ribs 
 know all about that ; but that was when I first 
 began, they don't catch me now, I'm too 
 downy for that. I'll show you how it's done 
 before we get home," he continued, after a 
 moment's reflection, ^' for I got skinned of all but 
 my taw last night ; and you know, I told you, I 
 want that sixpence as your father gave me to 
 buy bamboo, so I must snack from somebody." 
 
 The desired opportunity for snacking was not 
 long in presenting itself. 
 
 " You see them," said my companion, as a
 
 SNACKING. 255 
 
 turn in the road brought us in sight of a num- 
 ber of boys engaged in that particular game of 
 marbles known as ring-taw. 
 
 *^'Yes/^ I answered. 
 
 '^ Well/^ said Billy^ " you watch if they^^e got 
 a tidy stake on ; I'll snack their ring when I 
 get up to them^ so I'll leave you now^ ''cos^ don^t 
 you see^ if they thought you was with me they 
 would hammer you when they couldn^t catch me. 
 But get back soon from dinner^ and 1^11 see you 
 in the playground before we go into school, and 
 let you know how I got on.^' 
 
 So saying he went in advance,, gliding quickly 
 and quietly along, and keeping well under the 
 shadow of the dead wall which bordered that part 
 of the road. He was right among the players 
 before they were conscious of his unwelcome 
 presence, and though when they did become 
 aware of it they knew him, and more than sus- 
 pected his predatory design, their attempt to 
 save their marbles was made too late. Uttering 
 his war-cry, '' Snacks,'' Billy, with a hawk-like
 
 256 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 swiftness^ darted at the ring, and clearing it at 
 one fell swoop, took to his heels, and got such a 
 start, owing to the confusion caused by his sudden 
 appearance and evil proceedings, that when his 
 despoiled victims, recovering from their surprise^ 
 did start in pursuit, they had no chance of 
 capturing him. 
 
 They were returning from their fruitless 
 chase, threatening to " lay in wait for and warm 
 that there Billy Butcher,^^ when I passed them ; 
 and I may mention that they did lay in wait for 
 him, but had no opportunity of warming him, as 
 for some days afterwards Billy w^ent to and from 
 school accompanied by a strong body-guard, 
 under the command of the bold Mickey Bryan. 
 I got back to school about a quarter past one 
 — ^half-past being the time at which the bell 
 rang for reassembling — and met Butcher in the 
 playground. He informed me that the ring that 
 he had snacked w^as a pretty good one, as he had 
 got five " stonies " and eight " clayies '' out of 
 it, a number which he said would be sufficient
 
 AT PLAY. 257 
 
 to set liim up again, as he found snacked 
 marbles very lucky. He also informed me that 
 in the afternoon play- time it was intended to 
 have a great game of French and English,, in 
 order to fight out the battle of Waterloo, that 
 had been left unfinished on the previous Tuesday. 
 Napoleon Reeves was to sustain his previous 
 character, and the Duke of Wellington was to be 
 impersonated by John Perkins, alias '' Long-legged 
 John/^ the teacher of the first class. Billy 
 himself was going to be a Frenchman, and offered 
 to look after me if I chose to fight on their side, 
 or to warm me if I liked to fight for the English. 
 At this point our conversation was broken off 
 by a boy coming to ask Billy to have a game at 
 " Pillar the Fox out of his Den,^^ a proposition 
 to which he acceded, on condition that I too 
 should play. The condition was immediately 
 granted ; and under the guidance of my friend 
 and protector, I proudly proceeded to play my 
 first game with my new schoolmates. 
 
 In this game the players place their caps on 
 VOL. T. . S
 
 258 JOHNNY EOBINSON. 
 
 the ground^ with about a yard and a half between 
 each cap. Up and down this line each player in 
 his turn has to hop once^ twice^ or thrice^ ac- 
 cording to the length of the line^ and then back 
 to his own cap^ which^ without putting down the 
 raised foot or touching the ground with his 
 knees,, he must pick up with his teeth^ and jerk 
 right over his head behind him. Any who in 
 trying to do this brings both his feet to the 
 ground, touches any of the caps with either foot, 
 fails to pick up his cap in the prescribed man- 
 ner, or to fairly and clearly jerk it behind, is 
 '^ foxed." He is then pillared — that is, thrashed 
 by the other players with their caps — to some 
 mark fixed upon as a den, generally from fifty 
 to eighty yards off, and back again to the start- 
 ing place. On reaching the den the fox is 
 allowed a minute law, in order to take breath 
 and prepare for the run back. But if, as 
 generally happens, he shows a reluctance to 
 leave his city of refuge after the minute of grace 
 has expired, the pillarers sing in chorus —
 
 AT PLAY. 259 
 
 " Two, four, six, eight, ten. 
 Pillar the fox out of his den." 
 
 If he then fails to start they sing — 
 
 " One, two, three, four, five. 
 Kill a fox alive, kill a fox alive !" 
 
 and set to work to pillar him, whether he runs 
 or not. As the fox usually gets a bit of a 
 start while the others are picking up their caps, 
 he will, if he be a good runner, sometimes be 
 able to reach the den untouched, and may even 
 get over the return journey with a comparatively 
 slight dusting. But if once fairly overtaken, it is 
 woe betide him ; for surrounded and half blinded 
 with a dozen or a score of well-plied caps slash- 
 ing about his face, his journey becomes a long 
 and painful one, and it is no wonder that he 
 should be unwilling to leave the temporary 
 shelter of the den. There were fifteen players 
 on this occasion, and it was not long before one 
 clumsy-footed lad was foxed. Trying to show 
 off by hopping down the line at a greater pace 
 than the other players, he lost command of his
 
 260 . JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 movements^ and hopped on to^ instead of over^ 
 one of the caps. He was partly on the run 
 when he thus came to grief^ and without pausing, 
 made right away^ with a clear start. But 
 unfortunately for himself, he was not one of the 
 fleet of foot ; and before he had got thirty yards 
 he was caught by the pack,, and the pillaring 
 began in grand style, and was vigorously kept 
 up to the den, amid a string of such cries from 
 the victim as, '' Now then, Jones, you^re hitting 
 with the peak.^^ " V\\ warm you when I get 
 loose \" " Oh, blow it, lads, give us a chance ; 
 don^t get before me '/^ " Oh, none of that. Tommy 
 Welsh, you^re hitting me in the eyes on pur- 
 pose V " That's you, Mr. Butcher ; you^T got 
 something hard in your cap, I can tell ; none of 
 that, you know V' 
 
 We had finished pillaring this one, and were 
 in active pursuit of another, when the bell rang 
 for forming classes, and our game was broken 
 up. I entered school flushed and excited, but 
 feeling much more comfortable in my mind than
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 261 
 
 I had done on the previous day ; and now, in- 
 stead of looking forward to the play-time with 
 horror, I awaited it with impatience, for was I 
 not to take part in the great battle which it was 
 to witness ? 
 
 At the first sound of the bell I made the best 
 of my way into the playground, where I found 
 many of those who were going to fight their 
 battles o^er again already actively engaged in 
 forming sides. I was met at the bottom of 
 the steps that led into the playground by Billy 
 Butcher, Mickey Bryan, and another boy named 
 Jemmy Edwards, but who both in school and 
 out was invariably called Dick Turpin. 
 
 " Hullo, Johnny, here you are !^^ shouted 
 Mickey ; '■ I didn^t know you was a friend of 
 Butcher^s, or I wouldn^t have plagued you. 
 Come along. You^re French, you know, and 
 we^rc going to be your horses. Billyhs going to 
 be bearer, and we^ll be front horses. ^^ 
 
 Saying this, he and Turpin ranged themselves 
 side by side and threw their arms over each
 
 '2G2 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 others shoulders^ and Billy putting his head 
 between them just above their hips, and placing 
 his arms round their waists so as to make a 
 back_, called to me to jump up. As soon as I 
 was seated away we went at a gallop, and took 
 up our position in Napoleon Reeves' heavy 
 horse, the forces consisting entirely of cavalry. 
 
 The order of battle was the same on both sides. 
 Each army was drawn up in three lines, the front 
 consisting of about twenty heavy or three-horse 
 cavalry, and the second and rear ranks of about 
 the same number of light or single horse, each. 
 The armies, headed by their respective com- 
 manders on foot, faced each other at a distance 
 of about forty yards, and everything being in 
 readiness. Long-legged John, as the Duke of 
 Wellington, gave the command, " Advance,''^ and, 
 headed by their tall general, the whole British 
 army commenced to move down upon us at a 
 walking pace. Seeing this. Napoleon Reeves, 
 coming in front of his troops, briefly addressed 
 them thus —
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 263 
 
 '^ When I give tlie command ^ Advance/ all 
 advance. But when I give the word to charge, 
 only the front rank will charge, the other two 
 immediately halting. Now, advance \" 
 
 We moved forward at a walk, and were 
 speedily within about twenty yards of the ap- 
 proaching enemy, and then the opposing com- 
 manders simultaneously gave the word to charge, 
 and away we of the front rank of the French 
 galloped to meet the charge of the whole 
 British army. Some of our number, I fancy, 
 hardly liked the odds, but there was no time for 
 hesitation, and on we dashed to join in the 
 shock of battle. When fairly engaged with the 
 enemy we saw the superior generalship which 
 our commander had displayed in only detaching 
 his front rank to encounter the first onset of the 
 foe. Though we had to encounter the charge 
 of the whole of their force, massed as they were 
 only their front rank could at once act effectively 
 against us ; and the efforts of this rank were for 
 a time greatly impeded by those behind strug-
 
 264 JOHNNY llOBINSON. 
 
 gling to get forward. The shock of meeting 
 sent our rank staggering back^ but most of us 
 having at the moment of contact grappled with 
 a foe, we_, by continuing the backward movement, 
 when we saw that they were being borne un- 
 willingly forward by the weight of their rear 
 ranks, were enabled to drag down more than 
 half of the enemy^s heavy cavalry, while our 
 own line w^as as yet almost unbroken. Clearing 
 themselves of the fallen enemy, my horses dashed 
 with me at one of our three-horse foes, who having 
 freed himself from the ruck, calmly avraited our 
 onset. Steeds and riders fiercely grappled, and 
 in an instant I felt myself half choked, and 
 being dragged over the shoulders of my leading 
 horses, and was just giving myself up for lost 
 when the fastening of my collar suddenly gave 
 way. This caused my enemy to fall backward 
 a little, and rapidly following up this advantage, 
 I got a grip of him that made mc master of the 
 situation, and with the skilful aid of my leaders 
 bore him and his horses to the ground. "While
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 2G5 
 
 we were still hurrahing over this personal 
 triumph^ I was seized by the hair of the head, 
 and nearly dragged from my seat sideways by 
 one of the enemy^s light cavalry ; but my ready 
 leaders swinging round when they felt my 
 convulsive grasp on their shoulders swept the 
 attacking horse and rider to the ground, the 
 latter, however, taking a handful of my hair 
 with him as he went down. The pain attending 
 this performance was happily almost instantly 
 forgotten in the excitement of defending myself 
 from the simultaneous attack of three more of 
 the British light horse. My well-trained steeds 
 turned round and round as rapidly as they could, 
 trying to keep the foemen in front, but they 
 were too nimble for us, and I soon found my- 
 self charged on both sides, when my own strength 
 had to be exerted at a disadvantage, and my 
 leading horses could lend me little aid. Under 
 these circumstances I was getting very severely 
 mauled, and had parted with another handful 
 or two of my hair, when our general gave the
 
 266 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 ■word to our second rank to chaige, and they 
 dashed into the fight. Some of them rode at 
 the two who were pressing me on the rights 
 and drove them off; and relieved from their 
 attack^ I swept rounds and soon sent the re- 
 maining one to earth. The charge of our 
 second rank had completed the defeat of the 
 already shattered British fronts and the British 
 general, advancing into the fight_, gave the com- 
 mand, " You of the front rank, follow me to 
 re-form V Those who had composed that rank 
 followed on foot out of the thick of the fight, 
 which now became pretty general and very ex- 
 citing. Once as I was dashing up to the 
 assistance of a comrade who was attacked by 
 odds, I was drawn bodily off my horse by one 
 of the enemy who was rushing in the opposite 
 direction, and Avas being dragged away captive, 
 when my capturer, being in his turn attacked, 
 was compelled to loose me, and I was enabled to 
 remount in time to make a diversion in favour 
 of my comrade just as he was on the point of
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 267 
 
 succumbing to the superior number of the enemy. 
 Another time my bearing horse was brought 
 to his knees, and twice we were thrown to the 
 ground a confused mass. But my horses always 
 clung together, and struggled to their feet_, so 
 that I was able to remount ; and after each 
 overthrow we arose, Antaeus-like — to use the stock 
 simile — refreshed by contact with our mother 
 earth. 
 
 When the Duke of Wellington had nearly 
 re-formed his heavy cavalry, our general 
 charged them with his last rank, again throwing 
 them into disorder, and then wheeling round, 
 joined in the general attack on the light division 
 of the British, who, now outnumbered and 
 charged in front and rear, were fairly broken, 
 and began to retreat. 
 
 '' Keep them on the run, you of the second 
 and third ranks,^^ shouted our commander ; 
 " you of the first rank follow me,'' and, galloping 
 after him, we made a brilliant charge on the 
 enemy's again partially re-formed heavy cavalry.
 
 268 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and once more, and finally, threw them into 
 disorder. We then wheeled round on the main 
 body, who had begun to rally again, broke them, 
 and keeping them on the retreat until they were 
 driven over the line from which they had 
 started, completed our victory, and reversed 
 history. 
 
 Having let off the superfluous triumphal 
 steam by a salvo of cheers, we formed four deep, 
 and, accompanied by such of our late antago- 
 nists as were in a position to remount, and a 
 large number of non-combatants mounted and 
 on foot, marched round the ground singing, 
 " See, the conquering hero comes,^^ and a grandly 
 simple couplet of triumph always sung by the 
 victorious party on these occasions, which runs 
 thus : — 
 
 " We've won the battle, the battle of Waterloo; 
 We've won the battle, the battle of Waterloo !" 
 
 The triumphal march past being finished, we 
 were re-formed into lines to listen to the custo- 
 mary congratulatory and commendatory address of
 
 REVERSING HISTORY. 269 
 
 our great general ; which address, as delivered by 
 Napoleon Reeves, was — although we were not 
 aware of it at the time — a fine piece of burlesque 
 acting. At the conclusion of the speech another 
 volley of cheers was given, and then we received 
 the command to disperse, and we of the gr ancle 
 armee proceeded to arrange our disordered dress 
 and look over our flagged field of Waterloo for 
 buttons, buckles, collars, caps, scarves, and other 
 articles lost, and scarcely missed in the heat of 
 battle. 
 
 We had time to cairn down a little before we 
 were summoned into school again, but I could 
 see by the light of battle that flushed the cheeks 
 and gleamed from the eyes of my comrades, that 
 they shared the feeling of elation and excitement 
 which I still experienced. It was this feeling 
 which caused us to pass to our respective places 
 with a jaimty, bounding step, look with smiling 
 defiance in the face of Ashplant the Terrible, 
 who stood scowling in the doorway, and to 
 exchange triumphant looks and wreathed smiles
 
 270 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 — which^ being interpreted, signified "we arc 
 the boys for them '^ — with any bon comerado 
 whose victory-gleaming and sympathetic eye we 
 happened to catch at any time during the 
 remainder of the afternoon. 
 
 Our concluding lesson for the day was a sing- 
 ing one, which, in company with another class 
 assembled in one of the class-rooms, we received 
 from Ashplant. The first part of the lesson con- 
 sisted in our singing the scale and beating time 
 with our hands. From this we proceeded to 
 singing a number of such songs as " Whither 
 shall I follow," and " A boat, a boat imto the 
 ferry,"'^ and then in chanting parts of the Church 
 service. Just as this last part of the lesson was 
 about to commence, Dick Turpin, who was seated 
 on my right, and next to whom were his 
 friends, Messrs. Butcher and Bryan, whispered 
 to me, " Just you listen to what we sing." When 
 the chanting commenced I did listen, and in a 
 short time made out that this worthy trio, 
 although singing the proper tunc, were substitut-
 
 A SINGING LESSON, 271 
 
 ing for tlie right words a sort of doggerel war 
 chant of their own composition, which ran some- 
 thing in this strain : — 
 
 " Old cocky handy Ashplant, hi, ho ! 
 I should like to punch your big, ugly head, I know ! 
 Shut up that big moutli of yours, hi, ho ! 
 Or else it'U be shut up for you, I know !" 
 
 The excitement created by the battle in the 
 playground had not qnite died out by four 
 o'clock, and under the influence of its smoulder- 
 ing remains we rushed out, stamping and shout- 
 ing in a most uproarious manner, utterly 
 regardless of the outraged and incensed Ashplant, 
 who dashed into our midst,roaring out " Silence!^' 
 and slashing about him in all directions with his 
 ever-ready cane, a proceeding which elicited sharp 
 yells from those on whom the random cuts 
 descended, and those parliamentary sounds, 
 " Laughter,^' and cries of '' Oh ! oh !" from the 
 others. 
 
 Outside I was met by Bryan and Butcher, 
 who were attended by '^ troops of friends,^' who
 
 272 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 were going to accompany them on their way 
 home lest they should be attacked by those whose 
 marbles they had snacked in the dinner-time. 
 When a sufficient body-guard had been mar- 
 shalled,, we set off homeward^ making afternoon 
 hideous to the quiet inhabitants of the streets 
 through which we passed by whooping and rat- 
 tling on area railings as we went along. Those 
 whom Mickey had despoiled made no sign, but 
 Butcher^s victims and a number of their friends 
 were waiting for him ; but our party being the 
 strongest^ we charged and chased them, and then 
 went on our victorious way rejoicing, and assur- 
 ing each other that it was no use of any other lot 
 trying to tackle us, and that we were the boys. 
 
 ^' Well, Johnny, my dear,^^ said my mother, 
 meeting me at the door, " and how did you get 
 on amongst them to-day ?" 
 
 " Oh, fine V I burst out enthusiastically. 
 '' It Avas because T didn''t know ^em yesterday 
 that they got on to me. That ]\lickey Bryan, 
 as I said was a bad ^un, is a regular stunner.
 
 AN UNPLEASANT RECEPTION. 273 
 
 and so is Billy Butcher, as lives in our street ; 
 he knows me, and it was him that put me right 
 with the others ; and we had the battle of 
 Waterloo, and all sorts of games. It was 
 stunning." 
 
 " Well, I don^t know about stunning," said 
 my mother. " You look to me as if youM been 
 almost pulled to pieces. Look what a state your 
 clothes are in. Where is your collar ?" 
 
 " In my pocket," I answered. " It fell off." 
 
 '^ Oh ! it fell off, did it ? and I suppose them 
 
 two buttons fell off, too, drat you. I shall never 
 
 have my needle out of my hand wdth you now. 
 
 I told your father how it would be, sending you 
 
 to that school. I knew you^d soon be one of 
 
 the gang, and one of the most audacious of them, 
 
 too, if you^re not watched. You always was 
 
 inclined that way, and what^s bred in the bone 
 
 ''11 come out in the flesh ; but whether or not, 
 
 you musn^t get coming home with your clothes 
 
 all torn off your back, or it^ll be worse for you." 
 
 I was rather put out at this reception, but I 
 
 YOL. I. T
 
 274 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 soon recovered my spirits, for my father received 
 my report very favourably ; and later in the 
 evening, when I recounted the story of Waterloo 
 and my own achievements therein, my mother 
 considerably modified her opinions. When mat- 
 ters were explained to her in detail, she 
 expressed herself to the effect that if for Johnny 
 not to do as the rest of the boys would cause 
 him to be set down as a softy, she would rather 
 he came home with his clothes ripped every day 
 than that he shouldn''t do like the rest. 
 
 At play-time the next morning I joined my 
 three friends in the playground, and proceeded 
 with them to join in the game of horse-racing. 
 
 " Let^s look at your shoes/'' said Turpin, 
 when it had been arranged that I was to have the 
 first mount. 
 
 " What for ?' I asked. 
 
 " What for T' said he ; " why, to fix your 
 spurs, to be sure ;'' and drawing some pins from 
 his mouth, he proceeded to fix the heads of a 
 couple of them between the welts and heels of
 
 RACING. 275 
 
 my shoes ; " and here's your whip/' he said, 
 producing a narrow strip of stiffish leather from 
 his pocket, " and don't you be afraid to lay on 
 as long as there's a chance of winning." 
 
 Thus equipped, I mounted, and, on getting 
 the signal from the starter, away we went at full 
 gallop, and after a close and severe race throughout 
 the distance, I came in an excellent second in a 
 field of ten, though my horses somewhat indig- 
 nantly declared that had I whipped and spurred 
 as I ought to have done we must have won. 
 When we had cantered back to the starting- 
 place, I dismounted, and took Mickey Bryan's 
 place as one of the front horses, he taking the 
 place of bearer, while Butcher, who had been 
 my bearing horse, took the mount. In this way 
 we changed round, each one riding in his turn ; 
 and, upon the whole, we were tolerably success- 
 ful, as we won once, ran one dead heat, and 
 were placed several times. 
 
 In the afternoon Butcher proposed that we 
 should play prison bars, but to this Mickey
 
 276 JOHNNY KOBINSON. 
 
 Bryan somewhat contemptuously objected^ saying- 
 that them soft sort of games were well enough 
 now and again, but that games in which those 
 who didn''t look sharp would get warmed were 
 the games for him. 
 
 Butcher, thinking that he was accused, by 
 implication, of entertaining a partiality for soft 
 games, promptly replied that he didn^t care what 
 they played at ; one game was the same to him 
 as another. 
 
 " Very well, then/^ said Mickey, " let us play 
 at • Buggy-my-bear.^ ^' 
 
 This was instantly agreed to, and away he 
 went to find a number of others to join us in 
 that game. 
 
 Buggy-my-bear is played by one of the 
 players, who is called ^' Buggy^^ goi^g o\\ all-fours, 
 holding in his hand one end of a string of three 
 or four yards in length, the other end being held 
 in the left hand of another boy, chosen by the 
 bear to be his keeper, and who, carrying a 
 knotted handkerchief in his right hand, walks
 
 BUGGY-MY-BEAR. 277 
 
 round the bear in the circle of the tether, and 
 opens the game by repeating, in a sing-song tone, 
 a piece of rhymed prose doggerel, which runs 
 thus : — " Buggy-my-bear, touch my bear, them 
 as dare, before I count ten — two, four, six, eight, 
 ten, go the rig again/'' As soon as the keeper 
 has said the word ten, the other players, who, 
 armed with knotted scarves and handkerchiefs, 
 stand round the bear, are at liberty to lay on 
 Buggy, subject to the hazard of being themselves 
 hit by the keeper's knot, in which case the party 
 struck has to take Buggy's place. If it was 
 getting very hot for the bear, his keeper could at 
 any period of the game give him a temporary 
 respite by calling out, " Bargs for the bear," 
 when the game ceased till he gave the signal for 
 its resumption by again repeating the opening 
 rhyme. The length of time that a bear would be 
 down, and the amount of punishment he was 
 likely to receive, depended in a great measure 
 upon the skill and activity of his keeper ; and as 
 the party of about a dozen which, in less than a
 
 278 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 minute, Mickey Bryan had assembled, were about 
 to cast lots to decide who should go down first, 
 Mickey whispered to me, — 
 
 " If you get down, take me for keeper/^ 
 The lot — which in the hands of a calculating 
 boy would have been a certainty — was decided 
 by one of the party repeating, touching a player 
 at each word as he did so, 
 
 " Hickety, i^ickety, my black hen. 
 She lays eggs for gentlemen ; 
 Sometimes one, sometimes ten,^ 
 Hickety, pickety my black hen ;" 
 
 the lot falling on the one to whose turn the last 
 word came. The boy who had to go down on 
 this occasion asked Mickey Bryan to be his 
 keeper, but he — as he was allowed by the laws of 
 the game to do — declined, and the unhappy bear 
 had to choose a more willing but less skilful 
 guardian. The last word of the opening rhyme 
 was scarcely spoken when one of the players 
 dashed in and got a blow on the back of the 
 bear, the mere sound of which made me shiver.
 
 BUGGY-MY-BEAR. 279 
 
 The keeper made a dash at this bold sharp- 
 shooter_, and then the whole body of the players 
 rushed in from the opposite side^ and there 
 immediately followed the report of a shower of 
 blows that gave me a creeping down the back. 
 The keeper made a run at the ruck^ but follow- 
 ing up one portion of them^ those who had 
 retreated in the opposite direction got in again^ 
 and he was compelled to run back to drive them 
 ofiT, and then those whom he had been previously 
 chasing got their turn. Becoming confused by 
 the rapidity of these attacks, he called,, " Bargs 
 for the bear/' and so gave Buggy a brief respite, 
 and an opportunity to rub his back, a soothing 
 operation that he had been afraid of performing 
 before, lest he should catch it on his hands. 
 After a short pause, the word was given to 
 resume play, and about half a dozen smart singles 
 were quickly scored on the back of poor Buggy. 
 Then came another general rush, and another 
 shower of blows, which, happily for the bear, 
 proved to be the last, for the players in retreating
 
 280 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 got into each other^s way, and the keeper was 
 enabled to reach one of them with his knot. 
 
 The released Buggy got up, rubbing his back, 
 and looking very rueful ; but presently he drew 
 his knotted scarf from his pocket, and putting an 
 additional round to and tightening the knot, 
 stood ready for action, muttering that now it was 
 his turn to perform. The second bear got off 
 with comparatively little punishment, the next 
 who had to go down being my friend Dick 
 Turpin, on whose behalf Mickey Bryan under- 
 took the office of keeper. Dick was down a 
 considerable length of time, but he was very little 
 hit, for Mickey, being noted for his activity as a 
 keeper, the players were remarkably cautious 
 about approaching bears under his charge. 
 
 The way in which the bears caught it had been 
 a caution to me, and though I had appeared to 
 join very enthusiastically in the charges on Buggy, 
 I had been very careful not to go near enough 
 to hit him or to get hit by his keeper. But 
 excitement is catching, and I soon began to warm
 
 BUGGY -MY-BEAR. 281 
 
 with the play; and the boy whom Mickey 
 brought down to take Turpin^s place being none 
 other than the one Avho had, on the previous day, 
 attempted to obtain possession of the contents of 
 my pocket by way of consideration for " leaving 
 me alone/^ I determined to have a hit at him at 
 all hazards. 
 
 " What sort of a keeper is that he^s got V I 
 asked of Mickey, when he and Turpin joined us 
 again. 
 
 " O, he aint up to much/' he replied ; " but 
 you must mind your eye for all that, or you'll be 
 getting down." 
 
 " O, VW. mind,'"* I said ; and joining in the 
 rush at the bear which at that instant took 
 place, landed a fair hit, and got safely away. I 
 was equally successful in two other rushes ; and 
 then I got home three swinging singles in less 
 than as many minutes. Emboldened by the 
 impunity with which I had been able to perform 
 these feats, I again, heedless of the warning cry 
 that broke from Mickey Bryan as he saw my
 
 282 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 action^ dashed at the bear single-handed, and was 
 instantly "caught on the hop ^^ by the keeper, 
 who had this time laid wait for me. 
 
 The moment I was struck, the excitement that 
 had led me on to my fate died out, and the 
 horror of having to go down came full upon me, 
 sending a cold shiver through my frame. The 
 fear of being called a softy, however, speedily 
 produced a partial reaction, and I managed to 
 screw up my courage to the point of forcing a 
 smile, and asking Mickey, in a tone of affected 
 don^t-carishness, to be my keeper. He at once 
 accepted the office, and as he placed the string 
 in my hand, whispered, " Be hard, and keep your 
 head well down. TU get you up as soon as ever 
 I can.^^ 
 
 Pocketing my scarf, I knelt, and acting on 
 Mickey's advice, kept my head well under. I 
 expected to feel the cut of the knots the instant 
 the last word of the rhyme was spoken, and I 
 held my breath, and contracted the muscles of 
 my back in fearful anticipation of the coming
 
 BUGGY-MY-BEAR. 283 
 
 event. But no blow came, and for a couple of 
 minutes, which seemed to me to be at least 
 half an hour, no one was able to get within the 
 guard of the vigilant Mickey. I was beginning 
 to think that surely the blows could hardly be 
 worse to bear than this terrible state of suspense, 
 when I heard the quick patter of feet, and at 
 the same moment received the first hit, which, 
 being a stinger, at once resolved my doubts, and 
 decided me in favour of the suspense as being 
 the least of the two evils. The ball being now 
 opened, two other players followed in rapid 
 succession, and each got well home on my back, 
 my keeper, who was on guard on the side opposite 
 to that from which they charged, making no 
 attempt to follow them. Seeing this, and suffer- 
 ing under the smart of the blows, I cast a re- 
 proachful glance upon Mickey, in answer to 
 which, he came close to me, and said, in a low 
 tone, " Be hard, Johnny ; keep on never 
 heeding, l^ll have ^em on the hop next time ; 
 see if I don^t." As he walked away, one of the
 
 2S4 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 players came in at me^ and Mickey,, making a 
 run at liim^ a rush of the other players took place 
 from the opposite side. But Mickey^s run had 
 merely been a draw^ and having kept his move- 
 ments well under control, he leaped suddenly 
 back, and slinging out his knot, hit the leader of 
 the rush before he could attempt to retreat. 
 
 I was thus released very lightly and had not 
 to go down again ; but on thinking the mat- 
 ter over when we were in school, I came to 
 the conclusion that Mickey Brian^s taste in 
 games was scarcely a pleasant one, and secretly 
 resolved that when I should know my way about 
 a little better I would choose some of the 
 milder games, notwithstanding Mickey^s con- 
 temptuous condemnation of them as being soft. 
 But long before I was in a position to pick 
 and choose with whom and at what I would 
 play, I had got over this early repugnance to 
 games involving physical suffering, and become 
 as great an admirer and practiser of them as 
 Bryan himself. I soon found, as it will be
 
 ON SCHOOL SPORTS. 285 
 
 invariably found among school-boys^ that the best 
 and pluckiest boys were the ones most attached 
 to these abstractly cruel games. That this 
 should be so, that really kind-hearted and 
 generous-minded boys, boys who would share 
 their dinner with a starving street cur, or 
 cheerfully give away their highly-treasured, 
 many-bladed knife as a bribe to get a com- 
 panion out of a scrape ; who would at any 
 moment take off their jackets in defence of a 
 smaller friend, or stand to be thrashed into 
 insensibility rather than " snitch " of a school- 
 mate, should be the ones most attached to 
 these games, may at first appear strange. 
 But when it is considered that this partiality 
 arises from that disregard of danger and the 
 spirit of endurance and emulation that are fairly 
 regarded as forming part of the natural and 
 national character of Englishmen, the apparent 
 contradiction is explained. When that is con- 
 sidered, it is easy to conceive how boys with no 
 trait of cruelty in their dispositions may prefer
 
 286 JOHNNY TvOBINSON. 
 
 games wliicli to a grown-up person may seem to 
 be simply pieces of wanton cruelty, and in the 
 pursuit of such games bear with stoical in- 
 difference a degree of pain that_, if inflicted by 
 way of correction or by accident^ would set them 
 writhing and howling.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE HOLLOW — LONG-TAILED PONY — NEW CLOTHES — SUNDAY- 
 SCHOOL — A STARTLING ACCIDENT IN CHURCH. 
 
 N schools of the class of the Borough 
 school of Dockington there is no attend- 
 ance on Saturday^ and those pupils of such 
 schools who are companions and playmates out of 
 doors as well as in school, arrange the time and 
 place of their Saturday meeting while going 
 home from school on the Friday afternoon. In 
 pursuance of that plan I arranged with Butcher 
 and Bryan and their set to meet them at ten 
 o'clock on Saturday morning in '^ the Hollow/' 
 a piece of waste land used as a playground by 
 the boys of the neighbourhood. I reached the 
 try sting place exactly at the time appointed, but 
 my friends did not arrive till near an hour after-
 
 288 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 wards, having been unavoidably delayed, Mickey 
 Bryan explained, by a long and unsuccessful 
 hunt after a large rat which they had seen 
 emerge from an open drain and run under a 
 stack of timber near some houses in the coui'se 
 of building. 
 
 When Mickey, assisted by his companions as 
 a sort of chorus, had concluded his graphic and 
 detailed description of the hunt, Dick Turpin, 
 with a wink at his companions which I caught 
 but unfortunately did not understand the signi- 
 ficance of, proposed that we should play '^ Long- 
 tailed pony/^ This proposition was unanimously 
 agreed to, and Turpin advancing to mc and pull- 
 ing a roll of twine from his pocket said, " you be 
 my pony first, Johnny, and then 1^11 be yours/" 
 
 " Very well/" I said, not caring about con- 
 fessing that I did not exactly know how long- 
 tailed pony was played, and he immediately 
 proceeded to tie the ends of the string round 
 my arms close to the shoulder. 
 
 Several others had in the meantime been simi-
 
 LONG-TAILED PONY. 289 
 
 larly harnessed, and onr respective drivers taking 
 their reins in hand, and giving us a jerk as the 
 signal for starting, away we went round the 
 Hollow. 
 
 " Now, we^ll take a turn down the street and 
 back again, and then I'll be the pony,^' said 
 Turpin, when we had been twice round the 
 Hollow ; and steering me to the left, we were 
 soon in the street. 
 
 " Wo-oo V^ cried my driver, pulling me up 
 short when we had galloped about a hundred 
 yards along the flags at top speed. " Wind, 
 ho V^ he gasped, when we had come to a stop ; 
 '' we must have a rest after that.^^ After draw- 
 ing a deep breath, he went on, giving me a half 
 turn, so as to bring my back to the houses as he 
 spoke ; " You must suppose as if I was going 
 to put you into the stable, and you must hold 
 your head up, and look straight before you, and 
 prance, and be high-spirited like, and back slowly 
 when I pull the reins.^^ 
 
 In obedience to these commands, I was 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 backing and prancing, and was in the midst of 
 a high- spirited curvette, when I was startled by 
 a thundering ran-tan close behind me. Jump- 
 ing round at this sound, I made the appalling 
 discovery that I was tied fast to the door-handle 
 of a house inhabited by a notorious old shrew, 
 whom the children in the street were in the 
 habit of annoying whenever she appeared out of 
 doors, and who amply returned the compliment 
 by fiercely mauling any of her juvenile foes 
 that she could contrive to lay hold of. Tui'pin 
 had run aAvay as soon as he had given the peal 
 on the knocker, and on looking despairingly 
 around me, I beheld him and his companions 
 peeping from a court on the opposite side of the 
 street, and grinning and dancing with delight 
 at the prospect of the sport that they were 
 going to witness. I was about to shout out 
 an appeal to them, when I was suddenly and 
 violently jerked backwards ; and on looking at the 
 door, I saw it partially opened, and the inflamed 
 face and fiercely-sparkling eyes of the old woman
 
 A STRUGGLE. 291 
 
 of the house glaring in the aperture. Impelled 
 by this horror-inspiring apparition^ I made a 
 dash forward, and succeeded in closing the door,, 
 and then commenced a terrific struggle for the 
 mastery of it. My foe, enraged almost to mad- 
 ness, succeeded in getting it partially opened 
 about half-a-dozen times, and I, struggling with 
 the strength that comes of fear and despair, as 
 often succeeded in closing it again before she 
 could force herself out, the last time giving her 
 a squeeze that made her roar. After this in- 
 cident she ceased her eflbrts to open the door, 
 and I began to think that I would now escape 
 without further injury, as I could see by the 
 movements and looks of my companions that 
 they were of opinion that the joke had gone far 
 enough. But at the instant that they were 
 about to cross the road, the old woman, who 
 probably calmed by the squeeze she had under- 
 gone, had suddenly remembered that there was 
 another mode of exit from her house, rushed up 
 the cellar steps, and swooping down upon me> 
 
 u 2
 
 292 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 twisted lier one hand in my hair^ and with the 
 other cnffed my cars till I was dizzy. Seeing 
 me thus helpless in the hands of the infuriated 
 enemy, my companions ran to my rescue. 
 Bryan cut the reins, and Butcher dragged me 
 from the grasp of my foe, while Dick Turpin, 
 whoj in trying to pull the virago off me, had 
 nearly torn the skirt from the body of her dress, 
 informed her with many dire threats, that she 
 would be paid out for this, and no mistake about 
 it. I was led back to the Hollow, my com- 
 panions looking very penitent, and vicing with 
 each other in assuring me that it was only 
 meant for a lark, and that they had no idea that 
 the old pig, as Butcher called my assailant, 
 would have got on to me in the way she had. 
 
 As I was a great deal more frightened than 
 hurt, my equanimity of mind was soon restored, 
 and knowing by this time that the best plan was 
 to take these matters in good part, I, in my 
 turn, assured them that it was all right, and 
 that I knew they had not meant me any harm ; 
 
 W'
 
 THREATS OF VENGEANCE. 293 
 
 and this part of the affair being settled^ we began 
 to talk vengeance against old mother Hopwood. 
 
 "\Ye''ll pay her off somehow or other any 
 way,^' said Turpin, when several schemes of re- 
 venge had been discussed without any being 
 definitely decided upon ; " only you wait_, Johnny, 
 till the dark nights come,, and then see ^vhat a 
 life we^U lead her; that^s all." 
 
 Kevenge for my wrongs being thus postponed, 
 the long-tailed poney adventure was allowed to 
 drop, and a game of duckstone was proposed 
 and agreed to. This game lasted until dinner- 
 time, and to me it seemed to be in the nature 
 of a piece of retribution when, in the course of 
 it, Dick Turpin received a knock on the shin 
 that made him limp for a week afterwards. 
 
 On assembling in the Hollow again after din- 
 ner, marbles became the order of the day, and 
 by tea-time Billy Butcher, who had a remark- 
 able run of luck, had " skinned " us all. When 
 he had cleared out the last of our party, he gave 
 us back three marbles each to set us up again,
 
 294 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 but refused to renew play with us himself ; for 
 like the majority of gamblers^ Billy was some- 
 thing of a fatalist^, and while he regarded 
 snacked marbles as lucky^ he considered it un- 
 lucky to go on playing with those whom you had 
 skinned and set up again. After tea we unfor- 
 tunates who had been skinned^ having no marbles 
 worth playing for, proceeded to play three holes 
 for " knucklers/^ and never having played at the 
 game before, I came in for such a share of the 
 tnucklers that when we gave up play at dusk the 
 backs of my hands appeared to me to have 
 become two lumps of pain. Butcher, in the 
 meantime, more fortunate than Alexander, had 
 found more worlds to conquer. He had joined a 
 set notorious for their high play, and his run of 
 luck continuing, had broke several of them, and 
 won from them all. And now, when play was 
 stopped by the approaching darkness, his marble 
 bag and all his pockets were overflowing with 
 his winnings, some portions of which he had 
 won twice over, as he had been selling ha^porths
 
 BUTCHER IN LUCK. • 295 
 
 half as large again as those of the shops to some 
 of those whom he had skinned^ and had bartered 
 marbles for twine_, coloured glass, and the brass 
 anchor buttons which one desperate gamester had 
 cut off his jacket, the folds of which garment he 
 w^as now trying in vain to so arrange as to con- 
 ceal the loss. Followed by an envious and yet 
 admiring crowd of the skinned, Billy, carrying 
 with him a larger amount of winnings than had 
 ever been before won by a sinsjle plaver in one 
 day's play within the memory of the oldest 
 frequenter of the Hollow, walked home in 
 triumph, stray marbles dropping from his over- 
 flowing pockets, and being scrambled for in the 
 deepening twilight by us unlucky creatures. 
 And so, pausing occasionally to offer fifteen 
 stonies for a halfpenny, he went on his con- 
 quering way rejoicing, happily unconscious that 
 those marbles were to be the means of bringing 
 dire trouble upon him, and that it would have 
 been far better for him had he been one of the 
 skinned, instead of the heavy winner he was.
 
 296 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 Amid all the joy^ sorrow^ and excitement of 
 the week_, I often thought of the new suit for 
 "vvhich I had been measured, and which was to 
 replace, as a Sunday one, that which I now 
 wore on week days. A new Sunday suit was 
 a thing to be looked forward to and thought 
 about even under ordinary circumstances, but 
 this was something more than a new suit pure 
 and simple. It was my first suit of jacket and 
 trousers proper, of a jacket that could be worn 
 open, so as to display the '' man^s '' waistcoat 
 and shirt front, and trousers secured by braces, 
 and with pockets in which I could carry my hands. 
 It was, as it were, the official robe of my formal 
 and accredited installation into the ranks of 
 boyhood, on putting on Avhicli it was understood 
 I should for ever put away childish things. 
 And as I tried to picture myself in this all- 
 important suit, which was to be the outward and 
 visible sign of my having entered upon the 
 second of the seven ages of man, and thought 
 of the dignity that it was to confer upon me, I
 
 A DISAPPOINTMENT. 297 
 
 sternly resolved that when once inducted 
 into it, I would give the cut direct to some 
 of my tunic^d friends who were still at 
 school with Mrs. Wilson, and to whom I had 
 already begun to show the cold shoulder, on 
 being admitted into the brotherhood presided 
 over by Messrs. Bryan and Butcher. 
 
 The suit was to have been brought home on 
 the Friday, but as it did not arrive at the 
 stipulated time my mother called at the tailor's 
 residence on the Saturday afternoon to inquire 
 into the cause of the delay, and then ascertained 
 that it arose from the tailor's having gone off 
 on the spree on the previous Wednesday. But 
 as he had been " spent out " on the Friday, had 
 pawned his coat on the Saturday morning, and 
 had nothing else to pawn, and was denied credit 
 by the publicans of the neighbourhood, by whom 
 it appeared he was much better known than 
 respected, he would be certain, his wife said, to 
 finish the suit early in the following week. In 
 consequence of these proceedings upon the
 
 298 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 part of the spreeing tailor^ I was^ much against 
 my will and despite earnest remonstrance, 
 packed off to Sunday school in my every-day 
 clothes. 
 
 " It donH matter me not going for one Sun- 
 day/^ I urged ; " and what^s the good of me 
 going only to be made game of. I know they^U 
 all be on to me, because when they said I bad 
 got my Sunday clothes on_, I told them I hadn't, 
 and that I would have a new suit on Sunday, 
 and now they'll say I've been telling lies, and 
 make all sorts of fun of me." 
 
 In reply to these objections, my mother began 
 to explain that the clothes I had on had only 
 been worn for every-day a week ; that they 
 were none the worse, and were probably a good 
 deal better than those of many of my school- 
 mates; that I might think myself lucky if I 
 always got as good, and so forth. But my 
 father cut the matter short by sternly calling 
 out that I must go whether or not, and that I 
 had better be ofiP pretty sharp, or he would
 
 CHAFFED. 299 
 
 help me; whereupon my mother,, slipping a penny 
 into my hand^ and whispering, " It^s only for 
 this once, Johnny, you know/^ pushed me out 
 through the door. 
 
 When about half way to school I was over- 
 taken by Mickey Bryan and a number of others, 
 and Mickey at once opened fire, by calling out, 
 " Oh, my ! lads, look here ; they ain't my Sunday 
 clothes ; I shall have a new suit on Sunday. Oh, 
 yes ; so I suppose ; over the left though. I 
 don't get bragging about my clothes. Oh, no ; 
 not at all." This speech, jerked out as he danced 
 round me, and posed me so as to give his com- 
 panions various views of my figure, was received 
 with derisive cheers, as were also my attempts to 
 explain the matter, and my efforts to escape from 
 the grasp of my tormentor, and failing that, to 
 kick his shins. This performance would probably 
 only have been the commencement of the chaff- 
 ing and mauling that I would have got, in con- 
 sequence of my unhappy bragging, but that 
 fortunately, in my struggle with Mickey, the
 
 300 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 penny that my mother had given me was shaken 
 out of the pocket of my tunic. 
 
 ^^ Oh, here^s a penny/^ cried one of the gang, 
 picking it up. 
 
 " You give that here/^ I cried out; *^4t's mine." 
 
 ''^Is it though?" said the boy, spinning the 
 penny in the air and catching it again ; " how do 
 you know now ?" 
 
 " I know very well," I said j " my mother 
 gave it me to spend." 
 
 This announcement, blurted out in a pas- 
 sion, and with no ulterior design, had a 
 decided and immediate effect upon my perse- 
 cutors. They instantly assumed a sympathetic 
 and respectful demeanor, and turning upon the 
 one of their number who had picked up the 
 penny, cried out in chorus, and in a deeply 
 injured tone, " Oh, come now, Davies, none of 
 that, you know ; a bit of a lark is all very well, 
 but when it comes to wanting to keep his money, 
 
 you know " And unable to find words 
 
 sufficiently powerful to convey an adequate idea
 
 A PENNY TO SPEND. 301 
 
 of the terrible state at ■svliicli tilings had arrived 
 ■vrhen it came to trying to keep my penny, they 
 left it to my imagination^, and the conscience of 
 Davies, to picture it to ourselves ; and Davies, 
 appalled by such a burst of virtuous indignation, 
 at once handed back the peuny, which it was 
 plainly evident he had never for a moment 
 dreamt of keeping. * 
 
 " We were only joking, you know/^ said 
 Mickey, taking my arm when my penny had 
 been restored to me ; " and you don^t care for 
 that, do you, Johnny?'"' 
 
 " I don^t mind a joke,^'' I answered, " but at 
 the same time I don^t like to be pulled about/^ 
 
 " Oh, never mind,^^ said Mickey ; " it was 
 only a bit of fun,"*^ and then seeing that I was 
 pacified, he abruptly exclaimed, as if the matter 
 had just that instant occurred to him, *' Oh, I say, 
 Johnny, are you going to spend that penny ?^^ 
 " Yes,^' I answered. 
 
 " Well, you know, you^ll catch it if you^re 
 caught running out of the ranks as we march to
 
 302 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 church; so don't you think you'd better spend it 
 now V' 
 
 Not wishing to '' catch it/' I replied^ after a 
 moment's consideration^ that I thought I better 
 had; and so^ on coming to the next sweetstuff 
 shop^ I bought an ounce of '^ Mixtures/' and 
 having given a share of them to my companions, 
 concord was fully restored among us ; even 
 DaAdes being forgiven, while I expressed the 
 firmest and friendliest belief in the repeated 
 assurances of Mickey and his friends that they 
 had only been larking, and that they knew very 
 well that I was going to have a new suit, or I 
 would not have said so. 
 
 "We entered the play-ground just as the bell 
 ceased ringing, and immediately fell into our 
 classes, which were marched into school and 
 formed in their usual places. The teaching of 
 the cane was suspended on Sundays, the rules of 
 the school forbidding the administration of cor- 
 poral punishment on that day. The names and 
 crimes of offenders were, however^ taken down.
 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 303 
 
 ill order that their cases might be adjudicated 
 upon, and their due meed of punishment 
 awarded and administered to them on the follow- 
 ing day. But my schoolmates,, it was evident, 
 were of opinion that 
 
 " Enough is the present tense of cane," 
 and so took no heed for the morrow ; for, though 
 Ashplant was moving about in all directions, 
 keeping a vigilant look-out, and frequently 
 inscribing names in his black list, there was 
 throughout the school a constant buzz of con- 
 versation, and much of the reading of the Scrip- 
 ture lesson was inarticulate, owing to the mouths 
 of the readers being filled wdth toffee. About a 
 quarter past ten we were taken into the play- 
 ground and formed two abreast, and then set out 
 on our march to church, which was about half a 
 mile distant. During the march Ashplant and 
 the teachers were on the alert to prevent any of 
 the scholars from leaving the ranks, but neither 
 this watchfulness nor the certainty of being 
 thrashed on the following morning, should they
 
 304 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 be captured in the act of running the blockade, 
 was sufficient to deter some of the more daring 
 and sweetstuff-loving of the boys from darting 
 into the open confectioners' shops on our line of 
 march ; and as the young gentleman with whom 
 I was linked was one of the venturesome few_, I 
 had thus early an opportunity of learning the 
 mode of carrying out this most useful and 
 frequently-practised branch of toffee smuggling. 
 
 " I want to get a ha'porth of sweets/' said my 
 companion soon after we had started,, " will you 
 tell if I run out of the rank ?" 
 
 I instantly answered that I would not ; but 
 this prompt and unconditional acquiescence only 
 seemed to excite suspicion in the mind of my 
 companion, for, regarding me with a distrustful 
 glance, he replied — 
 
 '^ Oh, yes, so you tell me, but will you say 
 that's wet to it ?" 
 
 I was at first inclined to resent the doubt thus 
 cast upon my honour, but seeing that he would 
 have taken such an attempt as '^ confirmation
 
 A TERRIBLE OATH. 305 
 
 strong'^ of the justice of his suspicions, I quietly 
 took the suggested cabalistic oath, which was per- 
 formed thus : — I wetted the point of the forefinger 
 of my right hand, and showing it to my unbelieving 
 classmate, asked, ^' Is that w et V On receiving 
 his reply in the affirmative, I dried the finger, 
 and then showing it to him again, asked, '^ Is 
 that dry 1'^ and being again answered in the 
 affirmative, I drew the finger across my throat, 
 saying, as I did so, ^' Cut my throat if I tell 
 a lie/' 
 
 Among the boys of our school this was con- 
 sidered the most terribly binding of all incan- 
 tatory forms of swearing, and was popularly 
 supposed to give the person before whom the 
 oath was taken a legal right to cut the throat of 
 the swearer should the latter prove false. And 
 having, by administering it, secured himself from 
 any danger of my ^' snitching,^' my smuggling 
 friend availed himself of the opportunity of 
 Ashplant going to the front to see the procession 
 over a crossing, to dart into a swcetstufF shop, from 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 ■which he speedily and safely returned with a 
 paper of mixtures, of which he gave me a pretty 
 liberal share^ for^ as he explained_, he always liked 
 to do "what was rights and it w^as only to provide 
 against my attempting to extort an unfair whack 
 of the sweets by threatening " to telF'' that he 
 had sworn me to secrecy in the impressive manner 
 described above. 
 
 The part of the church assigned to the children 
 of the Borough schools was an upper gallery, that 
 had been formed by railing off a portion of what 
 had originally been the organ loft, and here upon 
 our arrival about a quarter to eleven we were 
 duly installed, and despite Ashplant^s angry 
 hushes and liberal putting down of names, kept 
 up a most irreverent whispering and sniggering 
 until the service commenced. Most of the 
 boys were avcII acquainted -svith the prayer book, 
 and gave all the responses with great clearness 
 and regularity, and joined in the singing with 
 very pleasing effect. But children who had 
 already had a couple of liours^ religious exercise
 
 IN CHURCH. 307 
 
 in school could not of course be expected to take 
 an interest in a prosy, commonplace sermon; 
 and soon after the text had been given out some 
 of our number were asleep. Others whiled away 
 the time by reading the historical parts of the 
 Bible, and some, while pretending to do the same, 
 read tale books which they held inside their 
 Bibles ; and though this latter was certainly a 
 reprehensible proceeding, it would have been well 
 for the credit of the school generally, and for 
 Billy Butcher in particular, had it been the 
 worst adopted as an antidote to the dulness of 
 the sermon. 
 
 Butcher, not having had time to reckon his 
 winnings on Saturday night, had, it appeared, 
 brought his stock of marbles to church with the 
 intention of counting and sorting them during 
 sermon time. In a quarter of an hour after the 
 text had been given out the congregation were 
 comfortably settled, and even Ashplant had re- 
 laxed his vigilance, and with half-closed eyes 
 leaned back in the corner of the pew from which
 
 308 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 he kept watch and ward upon the boys. Avail- 
 ing himself of a state of things so suitable for 
 his design,, Billy placed his cap upon his knee, 
 and softly began to count the marbles into it. 
 For a time his evil Avork went on all well. He 
 had counted the whole of the marbles, and was 
 just about to begin to replace them in his bag, 
 which was suspended round his neck and con- 
 cealed under his jacket, when he was so startled 
 by Ashplant suddenly facing round upon him 
 that he let the cap fall from his knees. The cap 
 went down with a loud crash, and the marbles 
 tumbling out of it rolled rapidly down the in- 
 clined floor, and fell in a rattling shower into the 
 loAver gallery, from whence a lot of them went 
 bouncing into the body of the church. Had it 
 been a whiff of grapeshot instead of a bag of 
 marbles that had been thus suddenly discharged 
 among the congregation, the effect could scarcely 
 have been more startling than that produced by 
 the more harmless missiles. At the first crash 
 the minister paused in his sermon, and all eyes
 
 A STARTLING OCCURRENCE. 309 
 
 were directed to our gallery, and before the 
 nature of the disturbance could be discovered 
 the confusion and indecorum of the scene were 
 heightened by an old lady in the lower gallery, on 
 whom the first force of the shower descended, 
 giving vent to a startled exclamation of *^ God 
 bless my life \" and a gentleman in the body of 
 the church, who had been awakened by the noise, 
 and was evidently for the moment impressed with 
 the idea that the upper part of the building was 
 falling in, calling, ^' Look out V When, from 
 the marbles being scattered about the church, the 
 true nature of the accident became apparent, 
 some of the congregation sniggered audibly, 
 while the more sedate portion frowned alike at 
 the sniggerers and us. Ashplant was the first 
 to recover from the inaction into which, in com- 
 mon with the rest of the congregation, he had 
 been thrown by the surprise and horror occa- 
 sioned by so unprecedented an occurrence. We 
 were all so terrified by what had taken place, that 
 for an instant he was at a loss as to who was the
 
 310 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 culjmt ; but presently noticing Butchcr^s cap 
 lying on the ground^ lie divined that it svas that 
 unfortunate youth^ whom he had seized by the 
 collar,, and was dragging out of the church before 
 the minister had sufficiently recovered to go on 
 with his sermon. 
 
 When we got out of church Butcher^s unlucky 
 spill was of course the all-absorbing topic of con- 
 versation among us. Never had so disastrous 
 an occurrence of the kind been known to take 
 place before. Caps had occasionally fallen over 
 the railings^ and cases were cited of one boy 
 having dropped a paper of peppermints^ and 
 another a prayer book^ into the body of the 
 church. Such cases as these could not^ however, 
 be classed in the same category as Butcher's- 
 offence, which stood alone in its unmitigated 
 hideousness ; and the question arose, what penalty 
 would be inflicted upon such an offender. Some 
 thought that the minister would take the matter 
 in hand and have him sent to prison, and others 
 that he would be turned out of the school j but
 
 AFTER THE SPILL. 311 
 
 the more reflective gave it as their opinion that^ 
 as this was the first time that he had been in a 
 scrape of this kind^ he would get off with a good 
 caning, but that his sin would probably be visited 
 upon the general body, by causing the establish- 
 ment of some such restrictive law as having to 
 have our pockets searched before going into 
 church. When near home Bryan, Turpin, and 
 I were met by Butcher, who still looked pale and 
 frightened, and inquired anxiously whether Ash- 
 plant had said anything. We informed him that 
 he had not, and asked him what he intended to 
 do. He replied, that he supposed he was in for 
 it, and must face it out the best way he could,, 
 and that, at any rate, he would come to school 
 that afternoon as he couldn^t be touched then. 
 He accordingly came to school, where he was the 
 observed of all observers, being regarded with all 
 the awe and interest attached to a being known 
 to be doomed.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I GET MY :SEW SUIT, WHICH, AS WILL BE SEEX, LE.VDS TO A 
 EIGHT, IN WHICH I COME OFF VICTORIOUS — I ENCOUNTER 
 A STREET BOY, WHO ADDS INSULT TO INJURY, BY FIRST 
 STEALING MY BRE.iD AND THEN MAKING MY NOSE BLEED 
 — I "get the CANE." 
 
 ONDAY morning was always a higli car- 
 nival time with Ashplant. Mr. Mayfield 
 was engaged in the committee-room receiving 
 new pupils^ so that the check imposed by his pre- 
 sence in the school-room was removed ; more boys 
 came late on that morning than on any other, 
 and those down on the Sunday black list had to 
 be punished. These circumstances, and the forced 
 abstinence from the use of the cane on the 
 previous day, caused our redoubtable second 
 master to be in specially great flogging order on 
 Monday, and for an hour after prayers on that
 
 BUTCHER IS PUNISHED. 313 
 
 morning, there was always weeping, and wailing, 
 and gnashing of teeth among the boys. On the 
 day following the spilling of the marbles. Ash- 
 plant was in particularly high feather, even for a 
 Monday, and having got his hand thoroughly in 
 by disposing of the late comers and the minor 
 Sunday cases, he fell upon Butcher, and flogged 
 him as none but a brutal bully would have 
 flogged a defenceless boy, and it was some days 
 before Billy was himself again; so that out of 
 the apparent good of his great success at marbles 
 there came to him very considerable evil. 
 
 The drunken tailor having, from want of funds 
 wherewith to carry on his spree, started to work 
 again, my new suit was sent home on the 
 Thursday; and the same evening I tried it on in 
 the presence of ^Mickey Bryan and Billy Butcher, 
 who, as well as my parents, assured me that I 
 looked first-rate in it. Between the Thursday 
 and Sunday my thoughts were all of my new 
 clothes, on the glories of which I confidently 
 dilated to a number of my school-mates. On
 
 314 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 the Sunday morning I was up betimes^ and 
 having been arrayed in my new garments^ set 
 out for school, feeling immensely proud, and 
 quite convinced that my mother had spoken no 
 more than the truth when she assured me, as I 
 was leaving the house, that I looked quite 
 manly. 
 
 The first person I met was one of Mrs. Wil- 
 son's scholars, a boy about a year younger than 
 myself, who on seeing me stopped, and in a 
 tone of admiration exclaimed, " Why, Johnny, 
 I scarcely knew you ! You do look nice in a 
 man^s suit.'' 
 
 ^^ Oh, do I ?" I replied, with cold haughti- 
 ness. '^ Well, never you mind." 
 
 On reaching the play-ground, a number of 
 the boys gathered round me to examine my 
 clothes, and though most of them gave \qq a 
 vigorous pinch on the leg while pretending to 
 feel the quality of the cloth, they generally ex- 
 pressed admiration at my improved appearance. 
 Among the most complimentary of these boys
 
 MY JACKET IS TORN. 315 
 
 was one named Morgan, who, after specially 
 praising the cut and texture of my jacket, asked 
 to be allowed to try it on. To this I readily 
 consented, and pulling it off handed it to him. 
 He di'cw it on, and immediately declared that 
 it was just the thing, though I could see thaif 
 it was much too tight for him; and fearing 
 that he would burst it, I hastily requested him 
 to take it off. This, however, he refused to do, 
 and on my trying to lay hold of him he ran 
 away, and while I was chasing him, he either 
 accidentally or purposely fell, bursting and 
 otherwise damaging my jacket in the fall. On 
 seeing all the proud hopes in which I had fondly 
 indulged in connexion with my new suit thus 
 rudely blighted, I fell to crying, and was still 
 sobbing bitterly when Butcher arrived upon the 
 scene. 
 
 " Holloa, Johnny,^'' he said, laying his hand 
 kindly upon my shoulder, " what's the matter ?" 
 
 As well as my sobbing would allow I told him. 
 
 " O ! it's you, is it, ^Ir. Morgan ?'' said Billy,
 
 316 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 turning upon that worthy^ who was standing by 
 holding the torn jacket, and protesting that he 
 couldn^t help it, and had only been in fun. 
 
 " Well, you^ll hear about it to-morrow, I can 
 tell you,^^ replied Billy, when some of the other 
 •boys as well as myself had assured him that 
 Morgan had " done it on purpose.^^ " Cheer up, 
 don^t cry, Johnny,^"* he went on, turning to me 
 again ; " it ain^t so very bad, and if we could only 
 get it brushed and a stitch or two in it, it would 
 do for to-day.''^ 
 
 " If he^ll come over to our house my mother ^11 
 do it up for him,^-* said one of my class-mates, 
 who lived just opposite the school. 
 
 " That^s your sort, Cheshire,^'' answered Billy, 
 accepting the offer for me, and accordingly I was 
 taken to the house, where Cheshire's mother, who 
 expressed great sympathy for my misfortune, 
 speedily made both my jacket and myself pre- 
 sentable, by brushing and sewing the former, and 
 washing my tear-stained face. 
 
 The next day Billy made inquiries among those
 
 A COUNCIL OF WAR. 317 
 
 who Lad -witnessed the affair, and finding that 
 their unanimous opinion was that Morgan had 
 damaged my jacket intentionally, and from tlic 
 generally envious motive that he did not like to 
 see any one dressed better than himself, he called 
 a sort of court of honour, consisting of himself,* 
 Mickey Bryan, Dick Turpiu, and one or two 
 others, to deliberate upon what was to be done. 
 After due discussion, the court came to the con- 
 clusion that I must fight, and this decision 
 Butcher communicated to me at dinner time. 
 '^ Oh, but he^s bigger than me,^^ I urged. 
 " Well, only a little bit,'' answered Billy ; " and 
 I don't think he's any stronger, and it's my 
 opinion he's mouse-hearted if he's stuck to, and 
 at any rate you must have a cut at him, win or 
 lose, or if you don't you'll have everybody putting 
 on you." 
 
 Having thus settled that I was to fight, Billy 
 proceeded to inform me that I must meet Morgan 
 coming out of school, challenge him, and either 
 make him fight or " give me the best," and that
 
 318 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 he and Biyan would second me and ^^see fair 
 play/' 
 
 The news that Johnny E-obinson was goiog to 
 challenge Dick Morgan was quietly circulated 
 through the school during the afternoon^ and on 
 getting outside at four o^clock_, I found a lot of 
 the boys eagerly awaiting the expected fray. A 
 few seconds after I had got out Morgan was seen 
 approaching; and Butcher whispered to me, " Now 
 then, Johnny, go on; no funking, mind/*'' 
 
 Thus encouraged, and knowing that I was the 
 observed of all observers, and that the present 
 would be an important point in my school career, 
 I walked boldly up to my foe, and touching him 
 on the shoulder, said, ^^ Now, ^Morgan, we^ll have 
 it out for you spoiling my jacket/^ 
 
 " I didn^t do it on purpose,''^ he answered, 
 trying to push past me. 
 
 '' O yes, you did,^' I said, emboldened by seeing 
 him non-combatively inclined, ^' and you must 
 fight me for it.''-' 
 
 '' I shan't figlit anything about it,-'' he replied.
 
 THE coward's blow. 319 
 
 *' Then you must give me the best/^ I said. 
 
 ^' No, I won't/' he answered. 
 
 " Thenhit him, Johnny/' called out Billy Butcher. 
 
 '' O, he don't want to fight/' I said. 
 
 " It don't matter/' shouted Billy, " hit him, or 
 I'll hit you." 
 
 " Ay, ay ! give him the cowardy blow, Johnny," 
 shouted the others. 
 
 " Here goes then/' I said, tapping my opponent 
 lightly on the cheek with my open hand, where- 
 upon my companions formed a circle by joining 
 hands, and commenced the performance of a kind 
 of war-dance, to which, as an accompanying 
 chant, they sang — 
 
 " Cowardy, Cowardy custard, 
 Eat a pound of mustard." 
 
 This public and ceremonious administration of 
 the " cowardy blow" ordeal left Morgan no 
 alternative but to acknowledge himself a coward 
 or fight, and thus forced to a decision, he chose 
 the latter with a promptness that rather chilled 
 me.
 
 320 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 " Wellj I will fight you now/^ lie said, " and 
 remember youVe only yourself to blame for what 
 you'll get/' 
 
 " O, ril chance that/' I said, as I walked off 
 -with my backers and others of my inclining, 
 towards the piece of vacant ground on which 
 most of the school fights were brought off. 
 
 On reaching the ground, Morgan and I were 
 speedily stripped, and delivered at the scratch. 
 " Keep him out, he's all for throwing," was 
 Butcher's advice to me ; but this I was unable to 
 do, for we had scarcely faced each other before 
 Morgan rushed upon me, and getting my head 
 under his arm, gave me a blow in the mouth 
 w^liich cut my lip, and then threw and fell upon 
 me. He had unmistakably the best of this 
 round, and was loudly cheered by his party, 
 while mine were ominously silent. The second 
 round was a mere repetition of the first, and at 
 the end of it his friends were calling out, " You'li 
 lick him easy, Dick ;" to which Dick, with a 
 triumphant smile, replied, '' AYell, it's his own 
 fault; he ivoidd have it."
 
 MY FIRST FIGHT. 321 
 
 The third and fourth rounds were in much the 
 same style as the first two had been, save that 
 in the last we had a rather prolonged struggle 
 for ^' the fall/^ of which, however, I ultimately- 
 got the worst. Feeling giddy from these repeated 
 falls, and finding the tide going so steadily against 
 me, I began to think of yielding to my fate, and 
 giving my antagonist '* the best." 
 
 "Fm afraid he's too much for me," I whis- 
 pered to Butcher, as he and Bryan were taking 
 me to my corner after the fourth round. 
 
 '^Well, he's had the best of it so far," said 
 Billy, to whom no idea of capitulation seemed as 
 yet to have occurred ; ^' but if you stick to him 
 you may lick him yet. Do as I tell you ; stand 
 your ground and try to catch him as he comes 
 in, and keep your head up so that he can't get it 
 under his arm." 
 
 I tried to follow out his advice in the fifth 
 round, and though I did not " land" the blow I 
 aimed at my foe as he rushed at me, the in-fight- 
 ing when we closed was more equal than it had 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 previously been, and at the end of the round my 
 friends managed to get up a faint cheer. In the 
 following round I again failed to hit him as he 
 came in, but the in-fighting was again pretty 
 equal, and Mickey Bryan expressed his opinion 
 that it was still an open fight, by observing that 
 there was ^' no cock^s eye out yet.^' In the 
 seventh round I at last managed to '^ prop" my 
 opponent. As he came rushing at me, I hit 
 straight out and caught him heavily on the nose, 
 with the two-fold effect of bringing the blood 
 freely from that organ, and effectually stopping 
 his rush. And carrying out Butcher's advice to 
 " go at him," while it was yet being expressed, I 
 got his head under my arm, and pegged away 
 at it till he got down. At the conclusion of this 
 round it was the turn of my party to be jubilant, 
 and they cheered and cried, '^ bravo Johnny," most 
 lustily, and then Mickey began to dance and 
 derisively exclaim " He'll lick him easily, will he ? 
 Just hold on a bit and you'll see which side the 
 licking '11 be on !"
 
 MY VICTORY. 323 
 
 The next four or five rounds were of a very give- 
 and-take order, but after that, Morgan, who seemed 
 to lose spirit when he had no longer the lead, began 
 to fall off. He still rushed in determinedly, but his 
 rushes lacked the dash that characterized them at 
 first, and I generally succeeded in propping him as 
 he came in, and presently I began to have the best 
 of the wrestling, which was his strong point, and 
 so after a little more than half-an-hour^s fighting, 
 he ^^ gave me the best,^^ and we shook hands. 
 My friends gave three cheers as a note of victory, 
 and then hoisting me on their shoulders, marched 
 off with me, triumphantly singing 
 
 " Hip ! hip ! hip ! hurrah ! 
 Johnny Robinson's won the day. 
 We wont go home till morning, 
 We wont go home till morning, 
 We wont go home till morning. 
 Till Dick Morgan runs away." 
 
 This victory over one who was " my own size^' 
 and something more, and the fact that I was 
 now an accredited member of the Butcher- 
 Bryan set, gave me a standing in the school ;
 
 324 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and having thus successfully got through the 
 " new boy^^ stage of it, I began to greatly enjoy 
 my school life. I now considered myself tho- 
 roughly established, but on congrati:kfeting my- 
 self to that effect one day iH the hearing of 
 Mickey Bryauy be gravely informed mc that I 
 would not be free of the school until I had ^' had 
 the cane.^'' As this crowning feature of a com- 
 plete initiation was the reverse of pleasant, I was 
 not merely content to do without it, but did all 
 in my power to avoid it, and so circumspect was 
 my conduct, that I had been at the school for 
 what was considered the surprisingly long period 
 of six weeks before I fell into the clutches of 
 Ashplant, an event that was at last brought about 
 in this wise. 
 
 Sometimes, from breakfast being a little late, 
 or my having to run on an errand, I would be 
 pressed for time in the morning, and with the 
 fear of being late before my eyes, I would, like 
 other children under the same circumstances, 
 -take the better part of my breakfast in the shape
 
 BREAD SNACKING. 325 
 
 of a great slice of bread and butter, or bread and 
 treacle, in my hand, and eat it on the road to 
 school. Of this practice on the part of school- 
 children the hungry young Arabs of Dockington 
 were aware, and turned it to profitable account. 
 They would secrete themselves in entries branch- 
 ing off thoroughfares leading to some large school, 
 until a boy with a '^ piece" in his hand came in 
 sight, when, uttering the cry of ^^ snacks,''^ they 
 rushed from their lair, snatched the piece, and 
 ran off. On several occasions I had suffered 
 from these depredations, and being of a hungry 
 disposition I felt very savagely disposed towards 
 my despoilers. And one morning, when one 
 of these brigands, a lad of about my own size, 
 who had twice before snatched my pieces, swept 
 down upon me and carried off a particularly 
 large and toothsome slice of bread and syrup, I 
 gave chase, determined to be avenged and " from 
 the robber rend his prey." I speedily overtook 
 my flying foe, and was reaching out my arm to 
 lay hold of him, when he suddenly wheeled round,
 
 326 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 and swinging out his left fist^ caught me a sting- 
 ing blow on the nose which sent me staggering 
 back and made the blood flow freely. A stable- 
 man, who had witnessed my discomfiture, took 
 me into his yard and gave me a bucket of water 
 wherewith to bathe my damaged nose, at the 
 same time observing, " I thought what he'd do 
 for you ; the likes o' you ain't no match for his 
 kind.'' 
 
 When the bleeding had ceased I went on to 
 school, where I arrived about ten minutes too 
 late, but feeling serenely confident that my 
 swollen nose, the blood on my clothes, and the 
 woful tale I had to tell, would be received as 
 ample excuse for my late appearance. In this, 
 however, I was — so far as Ashplant was con- 
 cerned — mistaken. 
 
 " Have you got a note ?" roared that gentle- 
 man, when, instead of holding out my hand, I 
 attempted to tell my story. 
 
 '^^No," I faintly gasped. 
 
 '^ Out with your hand then," he said ; " we
 
 I "get the cane." 327 
 
 want none of your lame tales here. Come^ hold 
 it out V' he shouted ferociously,, seeing me still 
 hesitate; and, appalled by his fierce manner, I 
 was about to obey, when Mr. Mayfield, who had 
 been looking on, stepped up and quietly observed, 
 " Well, really, his face shows that some one has 
 been ill-using him ; we'd perhaps better let him 
 go to his place this once.''' To this, Ashplant, by 
 a sullen silence, consented, and I walked to my 
 class inexpressibly relieved. In the play-ground 
 I gleefully related my escape from the cane to 
 Billy Butcher, who however speedily damped my 
 ardour by observing, in a very significant tone, 
 '' Wait a bit. Master Johnny, you'll see whether 
 you've got off"; you watch. Cocky '11 have it in for 
 you, and it wont be long before he gives it you 
 either." And this prediction proved but too true, 
 for that afternoon, while doing my sums and 
 muttering over them, as is often the habit of 
 boys, I was seized by Ashplant, who, having put 
 down my attempts to explain that I was not talk- 
 ing, with " None of your lies here, sir," gave me
 
 8.28 JOHNNY ROBINSON. 
 
 two cuts upon each hand, and sent me back to 
 my class crying, and with my hands squeezed be- 
 tween my knees. 
 
 Having thus '^ had the cane/"* my initiation 
 into " the ways of the schoor"* was looked upon as 
 complete, and I settled down as one of the ordi- 
 nary rank and file among the scholars, having 
 got rid of the awkward helplessness of the new 
 boy, without as yet attaining any of that not 
 altogether pleasant feature of ^' cockiness '^ which 
 distinguished some of the older boys. 
 
 END or VOL. T.