hould have thought
that crying persons' kisses were agreeable.

On my return into the school, I found it in a convulsion of excitement,
owing to Heriot's sending Boddy a challenge to fight a duel with
pistols. Mr. Rippenger preached a sermon to the boys concerning the
unChristian spirit and hideous moral perversity of one who would even
consent to fight a duel. How much more reprehensible, then, was one that
could bring himself to defy a fellow-creature to mortal combat! We were
not of his opinion; and as these questions are carried by majorities, we
decided that Boddy was a coward, and approved the idea that Heriot
would have to shoot or scourge him when the holidays came. Mr. Rippenger
concluded his observations by remarking that the sharpest punishment he
could inflict upon Heriot was to leave him to his own conscience; which
he did for three days, and then asked him if he was in a fit state of
mind to beg Mr. Boddy's pardon publicly.

'I'm quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir,' said
Heriot.

A murmur of exultation passed through the school. Mr. Rippenger seized
little Temple, and flogged him. Far from dreading the rod, now that
Heriot and Temple had tasted it, I thought of punishment as a mad
pleasure, not a bit more awful than the burning furze-bush plunged into
by our fellows in a follow-my-leader scamper on the common; so I caught
Temple's hand as he went by me, and said, eagerly, 'Shall I sing out
hurrah?'

'Bother it!' was Temple's answer, for he had taken a stinging dozen, and
had a tender skin.

Mr. Rippenger called me up to him, to inform me, that whoever I was,
and whatever I was, and I might be a little impostor foisted on his
benevolence, yet he would bring me to a knowledge of myself: he gave me
warning of it; and if my father objected to his method, my father must
write word to that effect, and attend punctually to business duties, for
Surrey House was not an almshouse, either for the sons of gentlemen of
high connection, or for the sons of vagabonds. Mr. Rippenger added a
spurning shove on my shoulder to his recommendation to me to resume my
seat. I did not understand him at all. I was, in fact, indebted to a boy
named Drew, a known sneak, for the explanation, in itself difficult to
comprehend. It was, that Mr. Rippenger was losing patience because
he had received no money on account of my boarding and schooling.
The intelligence filled my head like the buzz of a fly, occu