The Story of a Bad Boy | Page 3

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The Story of a Bad Boy
by
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Chapter One
In Which I Introduce Myself

This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty
bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy myself.
Lest the title should mislead the reader, I hasten to assure him here that
I have no dark confessions to make. I call my story the story of a bad
boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young gentlemen
who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly because I
really was not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an amiable,
impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no hypocrite. I
didn't want to be an angel and with the angels stand; I didn't think the
missionary tracts presented to me by the Rev. Wibird Hawkins were
half so nice as Robinson Crusoe; and I didn't send my little
pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands, but spent it royally
in peppermint-drops and taffy candy. In short, I was a real human boy,
such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more like the
impossible boy in a storybook than a sound orange is like one that has
been sucked dry. But let us begin at the beginning.
Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I used to confront him at
recess with the following words: "My name's Tom Bailey; what's your
name?" If the name struck me favorably, I shook hands with the new
pupil cordially; but if it didn't, I would turn on my heel, for I was
particular on this point. Such names as Higgins, Wiggins, and
Spriggins were deadly affronts to my ear; while Langdon, Wallace,
Blake, and the like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem.

Ah me! some of those dear fellows are rather elderly boys by this
time-lawyers, merchants, sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not? Phil
Adams (a special good name that Adams) is consul at Shanghai, where
I picture him to myself with his head closely shaved-he never had too
much hair-and a long pigtail banging down behind. He is married, I
hear; and I hope he and she that was Miss Wang Wang are very happy
together, sitting cross-legged over their diminutive cups of tea in a
skyblue tower hung with bells. It is so I think of him; to me he is
henceforth a jewelled mandarin, talking nothing but broken China.
Whitcomb is a judge, sedate and wise, with spectacles balanced on the
bridge of that remarkable nose which, in former days, was so
plentifully sprinkled with freckles that the boys christened him Pepper
Whitcomb. just to think of little Pepper Whitcomb being a judge! What
would be do to me now, I wonder, if I were to sing