My Friend Smith | Page 8

at it like a horse
when I and my conductress entered.
The latter very nearly came in for one of the kicks.
"Flanagan," said she, "that is not allowed. I shall give you a bad mark
for it."
Flanagan went on kicking till the end of the sentence, and then
subsided ruefully, and said, "The bothering thing won't come on or off,
please, ma'am. It won't come on with shoving."
"If your boots are too small," replied the lady, solemnly, begging the
question, "you must write home for new ones."
"But the bothering things--"
"Batchelor," said Miss Henniker, turning to me, "this is the boot-room,
where you will have to put on and take off your boots whenever you go
out or come in. This boy is going out, and will take you into the
playground with him," and away she went, leaving me in the hands of

the volatile Flanagan.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
It was a horribly dark place, this boot-room, and I could scarcely see
who it was who was questioning me. He seemed to be a big boy, a year
or two older than myself, with a face which, as far as I could make it
out, was not altogether unpleasant. He continued stamping with his
refractory boots all the time he was talking to me, letting out
occasionally behind, in spite of Miss Henniker.
"Who are you? What's your name?" he said.
"Fred Batchelor," I replied, deferentially.
"Batchelor, eh? Are you a backward or a troublesome, eh?"
This was a poser. I had never put the question to myself, and was
wholly at a loss how to answer. I told Flanagan so.
"Oh, but you're bound to know!" he exclaimed. "What did they send
you here for, eh?"
Whereupon I was drawn out to narrate, greatly to Flanagan's
satisfaction, the affair of Cad Prog and his baby sister.
"Hurrah!" said he, when I had done. "Hurrah, you're a troublesome!
That makes seven troublesomes, and only two backwards!" and in his
jubilation he gave a specially vigorous kick out behind, and finally
drove the obstinate boot home.
"Yes," said he, "there was no end of discussion about it. I was afraid
you were a backward, that I was! If the other new fellow's only a
troublesome too, we shall have it all to ourselves. Philpot, you know,"
added he confidentially, "is a backward by rights, but he calls himself
one of us because of the Tuesday night jams."
"Is there another new boy too?" I inquired, plucking up heart with this
friendly comrade.

"Oh! he's coming to-morrow. Never mind! Even if he's a `back' it don't
matter, except for the glory of the thing! The `troubs' were always
ahead all Ladislaw's time, and he's no chicken. I say, come in the
playground, can't you?"
I followed rather nervously. A new boy never takes all at once to his
first walk in the playground; but with Flanagan as my protector--who
was "Hail fellow, well met," with every one, even the backwards--I got
through the ordeal pretty easily.
There were eight boys altogether at Stonebridge House, and I was
introduced--or rather exhibited--to most of them that afternoon. Some
received me roughly and others indifferently. The verdict, on the whole,
seemed to be that there was plenty of time to see what sort of a fellow I
was, and for the present the less I was made to think of myself the
better. So they all talked rather loud in my presence, and showed off, as
boys will do; and each expected--or, at any rate, attempted--to impress
me with a sense of his particular importance.
This treatment gave me time to make observations as well as them, and
before the afternoon ended I had a pretty good idea whom I liked and
whom I did not like at Stonebridge House.
Presently we were summoned in to a bread-and-cheese supper, with
cold water, and shortly afterwards ordered off to bed. I said my prayers
before I went to sleep, as I had promised good Mrs Hudson, and, except
for being shouted at to mind I did not snore or talk in my sleep--the
punishment for which crimes was something terrific--I was allowed to
go to sleep in peace, very lonely at heart, and with a good deal of secret
trepidation as I looked forward and wondered what would be my lot at
Stonebridge House.
CHAPTER THREE.
HOW A MYSTERIOUS NEW BOY CAME TO STONEBRIDGE
HOUSE.
When I rose next morning, and proceeded to take my turn at the

washstand, and array my person in the travel-stained garments of the
previous day, it seemed ages since I had parted with Brownstroke and
entered the gloomy precincts of Stonebridge House.
Everything and everybody around me was gloomy. Even Flanagan
seemed not yet to have