Fatal Boots | Page 7

was a
present from one of the boys for my kindness to him. Well, what does
she do but writes back to Dr. Swishtail, when I went to school,
thanking him for his attention to her dear son, and sending a shilling to

the good and grateful little boy who had given me the waistcoat!
"What waistcoat is it," says the Doctor to me, "and who gave it to
you?"
"Bunting gave it me, sir," says I.
"Call Bunting!" and up the little ungrateful chap came. Would you
believe it, he burst into tears,--told that the waistcoat had been given
him by his mother, and that he had been forced to give it for a debt to
Copper-Merchant, as the nasty little blackguard called me? He then
said how, for three-halfpence, he had been compelled to pay me three
shillings (the sneak! as if he had been OBLIGED to borrow the
three-halfpence!)--how all the other boys had been swindled (swindled!)
by me in like manner,--and how, with only twelve shillings, I had
managed to scrape together four guineas. . . . .
My courage almost fails me as I describe the shameful scene that
followed. The boys were called in, my own little account-book was
dragged out of my cupboard, to prove how much I had received from
each, and every farthing of my money was paid back to them. The
tyrant took the thirty shillings that my dear parents had given me, and
said he should put them into the poor-box at church; and, after having
made a long discourse to the boys about meanness and usury, he said,
"Take off your coat, Mr. Stubbs, and restore Bunting his waistcoat." I
did, and stood without coat and waistcoat in the midst of the nasty
grinning boys. I was going to put on my coat,--
"Stop!" says he. "TAKE DOWN HIS BREECHES!"
Ruthless, brutal villain! Sam Hopkins, the biggest boy, took them
down--horsed me--and I WAS FLOGGED, SIR: yes, flogged! O
revenge! I, Robert Stubbs, who had done nothing but what was right,
was brutally flogged at ten years of age!--Though February was the
shortest month, I remembered it long.
MARCH.--SHOWERY.
When my mamma heard of the treatment of her darling she was for
bringing an action against the schoolmaster, or else for tearing his eyes
out (when, dear soul! she would not have torn the eyes out of a flea,
had it been her own injury), and, at the very least, for having me
removed from the school where I had been so shamefully treated. But
papa was stern for once, and vowed that I had been served quite right,
declared that I should not be removed from school, and sent old

Swishtail a brace of pheasants for what he called his kindness to me. Of
these the old gentleman invited me to partake, and made a very queer
speech at dinner, as he was cutting them up, about the excellence of my
parents, and his own determination to be KINDER STILL to me, if
ever I ventured on such practices again. So I was obliged to give up my
old trade of lending: for the Doctor declared that any boy who
borrowed should be flogged, and any one who PAID should be flogged
twice as much. There was no standing against such a prohibition as this,
and my little commerce was ruined.
I was not very high in the school: not having been able to get farther
than that dreadful Propria quae maribus in the Latin grammar, of which,
though I have it by heart even now, I never could understand a syllable:
but, on account of my size, my age, and the prayers of my mother, was
allowed to have the privilege of the bigger boys, and on holidays to
walk about in the town. Great dandies we were, too, when we thus went
out. I recollect my costume very well: a thunder-and-lightning coat, a
white waistcoat embroidered neatly at the pockets, a lace frill, a pair of
knee- breeches, and elegant white cotton or silk stockings. This did
very well, but still I was dissatisfied: I wanted A PAIR OF BOOTS.
Three boys in the school had boots--I was mad to have them too.
But my papa, when I wrote to him, would not hear of it; and three
pounds, the price of a pair, was too large a sum for my mother to take
from the housekeeping, or for me to pay, in the present impoverished
state of my exchequer; but the desire for the boots was so strong, that
have them I must at any rate.
There was a German bootmaker who had just set up in OUR town in
those days, who afterwards made his fortune in London. I determined
to have the boots from