own three or four places, their verses stolen, their books inked, their
jackets whitened, and their lives otherwise made a burden to them.

The lower-fourth, and all the forms below it, were heard in the great
school, and were not trusted to prepare their lessons before coming in,
but were whipped into school three-quarters of an hour before the lesson
began by their respective masters, and there scattered about on the
benches, with dictionary and grammar, hammered out their twenty lines of
Virgil and Euripides in the midst of Babel. The masters of the lower
school walked up and down the great school together during this
three-quarters of an hour, or sat in their desks reading or looking over
copies, and keeping such order as was possible. But the lower-fourth was
just now an overgrown form, too large for any one man to attend to
properly, and consequently the elysium or ideal form of the young
scapegraces who formed the staple of it.

Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with a good character,
but the temptations of the lower-fourth soon proved too strong for him,
and he rapidly fell away; and became as unmanageable as the rest. For
some weeks, indeed, he succeeded in maintaining the appearance of
steadiness, and was looked upon favourably by his new master, whose eyes
were first opened by the following little incident.

Besides the desk which the master himself occupied, there was another
large unoccupied desk in the corner of the great school, which was
untenanted. To rush and seize upon this desk, which was ascended by
three steps, and held four boys, was the great object of ambition of the
lower fourthers; and the contentions for the occupation of it bred such
disorder, that at last the master forbade its use altogether. This of
course was a challenge to the more adventurous spirits to occupy it,
and as it was capacious enough for two boys to lie hid there completely,
it was seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding the veto. Small
holes were cut in the front, through which the occupants watched the
masters as they walked up and down, and as lesson time approached, one
boy at a time stole out and down the steps, as the masters' backs were
turned, and mingled with the general crowd on the forms below. Tom and
East had successfully occupied the desk some half-dozen times, and were
grown so reckless that they were in the habit of playing small games
with fives'-balls inside when the masters were at