say to East, "that frightens fellows; don't you
remember, he never said anything to us my first half-year, for being
an hour late for locking up?"

[19] #A toss-up#: the merest chance; toss of a copper.

The next time Tom came before him, however, the interview was of a
very different kind. It happened just about the time at which we have
now arrived, and was the first of a series of scrapes into which our
hero now managed to tumble.

THE AVON.

The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not a very clear stream, in
which chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) plentiful
enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack,[20] but no fish
worth sixpence either for sport or food. It is, however, a capital
river for bathing, as it has many nice small pools and several good
reaches[21] for swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and
at an easy twenty minutes' walk from the School. This mile of water is
rented, or used to be rented, for bathing purposes, by the Trustees of
the School, for the boys. The foot-path to Brownsover[22] crosses the
river by "the Planks," a curious old single-plank bridge, running for
fifty or sixty yards into the flat meadows on each side of the river,
for in the winter there are frequent floods. Above the Planks were
the bathing-places for the smaller boys,--Sleath's, the first
bathing-place where all new boys had to begin, until they had proved
to the bathing-men (three steady individuals who were paid to attend
daily through the summer to prevent accidents) that they could swim
pretty decently, when they were allowed to go on to Anstey's, about
one hundred and fifty yards below. Here there was a hole about six
feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the puffing urchins
struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of
themselves for having been out of their depths. Below the Planks came
larger and deeper holes, the first of which was Wratislaw's, and the
last Swift's, a famous hole ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and
thirty yards across, from which there was a fine swimming reach right
down to the mill. Swift's was reserved for the sixth and fifth forms,
and had a spring-board[23] and two sets of steps; the others had one
set of steps each, and were used indifferently by all the lower boys,
though each House addicted itself more to one hole than to another.
The School-house at this time affected[24] Wratislaw's hole, and Tom
and East, who had le