Fatal Boots | Page 9

did before, but I shall send you home: you are not fit to be the companion of honest boys."
"SUPPOSE WE DUCK HIM before he goes?" piped out a very small voice. The Doctor grinned significantly, and left the school-room; and the boys knew by this they might have their will. They seized me and carried me to the playground pump: they pumped upon me until I was half dead; and the monster, Stiffelkind, stood looking on for the half-hour the operation lasted.
I suppose the Doctor, at last, thought I had had pumping enough, for he rang the school-bell, and the boys were obliged to leave me. As I got out of the trough, Stiffelkind was alone with me. "Vell, my lort," says he, "you have paid SOMETHING for dese boots, but not all. By Jubider, YOU SHALL NEVER HEAR DE END OF DEM." And I didn't.
APRIL.--FOOLING.
After this, as you may fancy, I left this disgusting establishment, and lived for some time along with pa and mamma at home. My education was finished, at least mamma and I agreed that it was; and from boyhood until hobbadyhoyhood (which I take to be about the sixteenth year of the life of a young man, and may be likened to the month of April when spring begins to bloom)--from fourteen until seventeen, I say, I remained at home, doing nothing--for which I have ever since had a great taste--the idol of my mamma, who took part in all my quarrels with father, and used regularly to rob the weekly expenses in order to find me in pocket-money. Poor soul! many and many is the guinea I have had from her in that way; and so she enabled me to cut a very pretty figure.
Papa was for having me at this time articled to a merchant, or put to some profession; but mamma and I agreed that I was born to be a gentleman and not a tradesman, and the army was the only place for me. Everybody was a soldier in those times, for the French war had just begun, and the whole country was swarming with militia regiments. "We'll get him a commission in a marching regiment," said my father. "As we have no money to purchase him up, he'll FIGHT his way, I make no doubt." And papa looked at me with a kind of air of contempt, as much as to say he doubted whether I should be very eager for such a dangerous way of bettering myself.
I wish you could have heard mamma's screech when he talked so coolly of my going out to fight! "What! send him abroad, across the horrid, horrid sea--to be wrecked and perhaps drowned, and only to land for the purpose of fighting the wicked Frenchmen,--to be wounded, and perhaps kick--kick--killed! Oh, Thomas, Thomas! would you murder me and your boy?" There was a regular scene. However, it ended--as it always did--in mother's getting the better, and it was settled that I should go into the militia. And why not? The uniform is just as handsome, and the danger not half so great. I don't think in the course of my whole military experience I ever fought anything, except an old woman, who had the impudence to hallo out, "Heads up, lobster!"--Well, I joined the North Bungays, and was fairly launched into the world.
I was not a handsome man, I know; but there was SOMETHING about me-- that's very evident--for the girls always laughed when they talked to me, and the men, though they affected to call me a poor little creature, squint-eyes, knock-knees, redhead, and so on, were evidently annoyed by my success, for they hated me so confoundedly. Even at the present time they go on, though I have given up gallivanting, as I call it. But in the April of my existence,-- that is, in anno Domini 1791, or so--it was a different case; and having nothing else to do, and being bent upon bettering my condition, I did some very pretty things in that way. But I was not hot-headed and imprudent, like most young fellows. Don't fancy I looked for beauty! Pish!--I wasn't such a fool. Nor for temper; I don't care about a bad temper: I could break any woman's heart in two years. What I wanted was to get on in the world. Of course I didn't PREFER an ugly woman, or a shrew; and when the choice offered, would certainly put up with a handsome, good-humored girl, with plenty of money, as any honest man would.
Now there were two tolerably rich girls in our parts: Miss Magdalen Crutty, with twelve thousand pounds (and, to do her justice, as plain a girl as ever I saw), and Miss Mary Waters, a fine, tall, plump, smiling, peach-cheeked, golden-haired,