hing if he didn't, and dog-tired of sitting tongue-tied.

It was hard work! But Tom had taken it up, and meant to stick to it,
and go through with it, so as to satisfy himself; in which resolution
he was much assisted by the chaffing of East and his other friends,
who began to call him "dry-nurse," and otherwise to break their small
wit on him. But when they took other ground, as they did every now and
then, Tom was sorely puzzled.

EAST'S ADVICE.

"Tell you what, Tommy," East would say, "you'll spoil young Hopeful
with too much coddling. Why can't you let him go about by himself, and
find his own level? He'll never be worth a button, if you go on
keeping him under your skirts."

"Well, but he isn't fit to fight his own way yet; I'm trying to get
him to do it every day--but he's very odd. Poor little beggar! I can't
make him out a bit. He isn't a bit like anything I've ever seen or
heard of--he seems all over nerves; anything you say seems to hurt him
like a cut or a blow."

"That sort of boy's no use here," said East; "he'll only spoil. Now,
I'll tell you what to do, Tommy. Go and get a nice large band-box
made, and put him in with plenty of cotton-wool, and a pap-bottle,[1]
labelled 'with care--this side up,' and send him back to mamma."

[1] #Pap-bottle#: a nursing-bottle.

"I think I shall make a hand of him, though," said Tom, smiling, "say
what you will. There's something about him, every now and then, which
shows me he's got pluck somewhere in him. That's the only thing, after
all, that'll wash,[2] isn't it, old Scud? But how to get at it and
bring it out?"

[2] #Wash#: stand; hold its colors.

Tom took one hand out of his breeches' pocket and stuck it in his back
hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, his one
method of invoking wisdom. He stared at the ground with a ludicrously
puzzled look, and presently looked up and met East's eyes. That young
gentleman slapped him on the back, and then put his arm around his
shoulders, as they strolled through the quadrangle together. "Tom,"
said he, "blest if you aren't the best old fellow ever was--I do like
to see you go into a thing. Hang it, I wish I could take things as you
do, but I never can get higher than a joke. Everything's a joke. If I
was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk,[3]
but I couldn't help laughing at it for the life of me."

[3] #In a blue funk#: horribly frightened.

"Brown and East