myself
with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off.
The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and violent
boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor. His constant remark was,
"When are you going to pay me that three-and-sixpence? What sneaks your
relations must be? They come to see you. You go out to them on Saturdays
and Sundays, and they never give you anything! Don't tell ME, you little
humbug!" and so forth. The truth is that my relations were respectable;
but my parents were making a tour in Scotland; and my friends in London,
whom I used to go and see, were most kind to me, certainly, but somehow
never tipped me. That term, of May to August, 1823, passed in agonies
then, in consequence of my debt to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a
calendar pencil-case in comparison with the doubt and torture of mind
occasioned by the sense of the debt, and the constant reproach of that
fellow's scowling eyes and gloomy, coarse reminders? How was I to pay
off such a debt out of sixpence a week? ludicrous! Why did not some
one come to see me, and tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little
friends at school, go and see them, and do the natural thing by them.
You won't miss the sovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will be
to them. Don't fancy they are too old--try 'em. And they will remember
you, and bless you in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany
your dreary after life; and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for
kindness are scant. O mercy! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave
me, Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that very
term, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetched from
school in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawker of this
circumstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving me a pound. A
pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affected at parting
from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to the dear fellow!
. . . There was Hawker when I came back--of course there he was. As
he looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. He muttered
curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My relation, about
to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment, asked me with much
interest about my progress at school, heard me construe a passage of
Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which I was then engaged; gave
me a God bless you, and sent me back to schoo