y things that you buy that you care
about, only of course you don't like to be the only fellow who can't buy
'em. So then he came round, and said I should have an allowance, but I
must do with a very small one. So I said, Very well, then I mustn't go
in for the games. Then he wouldn't have that; so then I made out a list
of what the subscriptions are to cricket, and so on, and then your
flannels and shoes, and it came to double what he offered me. He said it
was simply disgraceful that boys shouldn't be able to be properly
educated, and have an honest game at cricket for the huge price he paid,
without the parents being fleeced for all sorts of extravagances at
exorbitant prices. And I know well enough it's disgraceful, what we have
to pay for school books and for things of all sorts you have to get in
the town; but, as I said to the governor, why don't you kick up a dust
with the head master, or write to the papers--what's the good of rowing
us? One must have what other fellows have, and get 'em where other
fellows get 'em. But he never did--I wish he would. I should enjoy
fighting old Pompous if I were in his place. But they're as civil as
butter to each other, and then old Pompous goes on feathering his nest,
and backing up the tradespeople, and the governor pitches into the
young men of the present day."

"He did give you the bigger allowance, didn't he?" said I, at this pause
in Jem's rhetoric.

"Yes, he did. He's awfully good to me. But you know, Jack, he never paid
it quite all, and he never paid it quite in time. I found out from my
mother he did it on purpose to make me value it more, and be more
careful. Doesn't it seem odd he shouldn't see that I can't pay the
subscriptions a few shillings short or a few days late? One must find
the money somehow, and then one has to pay for that, and then you're
short, and go on tick, and it runs up, and then they dun you, and you're
cleaned out, and there you are!"

At which climax old Jem laid his curly head on his arms, and I began to
think very seriously.

"How much do you owe?"

Jem couldn't say. He thought he could reckon up, so I got a pencil and
made a list from his dictation, and from his memory, which was rather
vague. When it was done (and there seemed to be a misty margin beyond),
I was horrified. "Why, my dear fellow!" I exclaimed, "if you'd had your
allowance ever so regularly, it wouldn't have covered this sort of
thing."

"I know, I know," said poor J