Fatal Boots | Page 7

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 him, and did not despair, before the end of a year or two, either to leave the school, when I should not mind his dunning me, or to screw the money from mamma, and so pay him.
So I called upon this man--Stiffelkind was his name--and he took my measure for a pair.
"You are a vary yong gentleman to wear dop-boots," said the shoemaker.
"I suppose, fellow," says I, "that is my business and not yours. Either make the boots or not--but when you speak to a man of my rank, speak respectfully!" And I poured out a number of oaths, in order to impress him with a notion of my respectability.
They had the desired effect. "Stay, sir," says he. "I have a