y to see the
wretches hanging at Newgate; that the scenes of cruelty to animals in
Smithfield were terrible; that books of the vilest character were
circulated in the long-room; and that both morality and religion were
ignored by the seven clergymen who reaped fortunes by neglecting five
hundred boys. If more memories are wanted of those times, here are two;
the planned famine on one occasion, when--under monitorial
inspiration--all the juniors clamoured for "more, more," seeing they had
slabbed on the underside of the tables masses of bread and butter
supposed to have been eaten-out; and on another, that lobsters,
surreptitiously obtained from out-of-bounds by the big boys were sworn
in the _debris_ of their smaller claws to be pieces of sealing-wax! and
nothing else: at least a reckless young aristocrat declared that they
were so,--and the mean-spirited Andrew, fearful of giving offence in
such high quarters, pretended to believe him.

Yet another trifle; for I find that such trivials are attractive to
homeflock readers, by whose taste I feel the more public pulse, even as
Rousseau did with his housekeeper. We, that is Knighton and Ellis and I,
used to return on Sunday night in my father's carriage by the back way
of Clerkenwell to Charterhouse in order to avoid the crowds of cattle;
and I well remember that sometimes we would utilise apples and nuts from
the dessert as missiles from our carriage window as we sped along. Alas!
on one occasion Knighton was skilful enough to smash a chemist's blue
bottle with an apple,--and on another I am aware that an oil lamp in
Carthusian Street succumbed to my only too-true cockshy: "Et hoc
meminisse _dolendum_."

Another incident was amusing in its way. Poor Mr. Irvine (who was going
to be married) mended up a very much smashed greenhouse to greet his
bride thereby with floral joy. Unluckily, the boys preferred broken
panes to whole ones, so nothing was easier than by flinging brickbats
and even mugs over the laundry wall to revel in the sweet sound of
smashed glass; moreover this would go to evidence the popular animosity
against a wretched bridegroom. Then, when he reappeared after some
temporary absence before the wedding, it was after this ridiculous
fashion. There was a wooden staircase screened off one side of the
long-room down which he would occasionally creep to listen at the door
at bottom to the tattle of the boys about him. He was heard creaking
downstairs, and some