Frank Fairlegh | Page 7

with much ceremony, and, covering the upper part of the page with a bit of blotting paper, pointed to a line, and desired me to write my name and age, as well as the date of my arrival, upon it. The .same ceremony was repeated with the second.
"That's all right: now let's see how it reads," said he, and, removing the blotting paper, read as follows: "'Pair of Wellingtons, ��1 15s.; satin stock, 25s.; cap ribbon for Sally Duster, 2s. 6d.; box of cigars, ��1 16s. (mem. shocking bad lot)--5th Nov., Francis Fairlegh, aged 15'.--So much for that; now, let's see the next: 'Five shirts, four pair of stockings, six pocket-handkerchiefs, two pair of white ducks--5th Nov., Francis Fairlegh, aged 15'."
Here his voice was drowned in a roar of laughter from the whole party assembled, Thomas included, during which the true state of the case dawned upon me, viz.--that I had, with much pomp and ceremony, entered my name, age, and the date of my arrival in Mr. George Lawless's private account and washing books!
My thoughts, as I laid my aching head upon my pillow that night, were not of the most enviable nature. Leaving for the first time the home where I had lived from childhood, and in which I had met with affection and kindness from all around me, had been a trial under which my fortitude would most assuredly have given way, but for the brilliant picture my imagination had very obligingly sketched of the happy family of which I was about to become a member; in the foreground of which stood a group of fellow-pupils, a united brotherhood of congenial ~12~~souls,, containing three bosom friends at the very least, anxiously awaiting my arrival with outstretched arms of welcome. Now, however, this last hope had failed me; for, innocent (or, as Coleman would have termed it, green) as I then was, I could not but perceive that the tone of mock politeness assumed towards me by Cumberland and Lawless was merely a convenient cloak for impertinence, which could be thrown aside at any moment when a more open display of their powers of tormenting should seem advisable. In fact (though I was little aware of the pleasures in store for me), I had already seen enough to prove that the life of a private pupil was not exactly "all my fancy painted it"; and, as the misery of leaving those I loved proved in its "sad reality" a much more serious affair than I had imagined, the result of my cogitations was, that I was a very unhappy boy (I did not feel the smallest inclination to boast myself man at that moment), and that, if something very much to my advantage did not turn up in the course of the next twenty-four hours, my friends would have the melancholy satisfaction of depositing a broken heart (which, on the principle of the Kilkenny cats, was all I expected would remain of me by that time) in an early grave. Hereabouts my feelings becoming too many for me at the thought of my own funeral, I fairly gave up the struggle, and, bursting into a flood of tears, cried myself to sleep, like a child.
CHAPTER II
-- LOSS AND GAIN
"And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw rheumatic day?"
"His thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer, he kept not time.... Convey, the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! a fico for the phrase!"-- Shakspeare.
"From Greenland's icy mountains."--Heber.
AMONGST the minor phenomena which are hourly occurring in the details of everyday life, although we are seldom sufficiently close observers to perceive them, there is none more remarkable than the change wrought in our feelings and ideas by a good night's rest; and never was this change more strikingly exemplified than on the present occasion. I had fallen asleep in the act of performing the character of chief-mourner at my own funeral, and I awoke ~13~~in the highest possible health and spirits, with a strong determination never to "say die" under any conceivable aspect affairs might assume. "What in the world," said I to myself, as I sprang out of bed, and began to dress,--"What in the world was there for me to make myself so miserable about last night? Suppose Cumberland and Lawless should laugh at, and tease me a little at first, what does it signify? I must take it in good part as long as I can, and if that does not do I must speak seriously to them--tell them they really annoy me and make me uncomfortable, and then, of course, they will leave off. As to Coleman, I am certain------Well, it's very odd!"--this last remark was elicited by the fact that a search I had been making for some minutes, in every