ey fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. So Cuff is now Only
Second Cock. The fight was about me. Cuff was licking me for breaking
a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn't stand it. We call him Figs
because his father is a Grocer--Figs & Rudge, Thames St., City. I
think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his
father's. Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can't this, because he has
2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom
and livery on a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony,
and I am

Your dutiful Son,

GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE.

P.S.--Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a Coach in
card-board. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.

* * * * *

In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose prodigiously in
the estimation of all his school fellows, and the name of Figs, which had
been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and popular a nickname
as any other in use in the school. "After all, it's not his fault that
his father's a grocer," George Osborne said, who, though a little chap,
had a very high popularity among the Swishtail youth; and his opinion was
received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about
this accident of birth. "Old Figs" grew to be a name of kindness and
endearment, and the sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer.

And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made
wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The superb Cuff himself, at
whose condenscension Dobbin could only blush and wonder, helped him on
with his Latin verses, "coached" him in play-hours, carried him
triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-sized form, and
even there got a fair place for him. It was discovered that, although
dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. To
the contentment of all he passed third in Algebra, and got a French
prize-book at the public Midsummer examination. You should have seen his
mother's face when Telemaque (that delicious romance) was presented to
him by the Doctor in the face of the whole school and the parents and
company, with an inscription to Guielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped
hands in token of applause and sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his
awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to
his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his father, who
now respe