d boy?" whispers East.

"Only the back of my legs," answers Tom. They are indeed badly scorched,
and part of his trousers burnt through. But soon he is in bed with cold
bandages. At first he feels broken, and thinks of writing home and
getting taken away; and the verse of a hymn he had learned years ago
sings through his head, and he goes to sleep, murmuring--

"Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest."

But after a sound night's rest the old boy-spirit comes back again.
East comes in reporting that the whole House is with him, and he forgets
everything except their old resolve, never to be beaten by that bully
Flashman.

Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of them, and though
the Doctor knew all that she knew that morning, he never knew any more.

I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at school, and
that lotteries and betting-books have gone out; but I am writing of
schools as they were in our time, and must give the evil with the good.

CHAPTER IX.

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.

"Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hairbreadth 'scapes."--_Shakspeare._

WHEN Tom came back into school after a couple of days in the sick-room,
he found matters much changed for the better, as East had led him to
expect. Flashman's brutality had disgusted most even of his intimate
friends, and his cowardice had once more been made plain to the House;
for Diggs had encountered him on the morning after the lottery, and
after high words on both sides had struck him, and the blow was not
returned. However, Flashey was not unused to this sort of thing, and had
lived through as awkward affairs before, and, as Diggs had said, fed and
toadied himself back into favour again. Two or three of the boys who had
helped to roast Tom came up and begged his pardon, and thanked him for
not telling anything. Morgan sent for him, and was inclined to take the
matter up warmly, but Tom begged him not to do it; to which he agreed,
on Tom's promising to come to him at once in future--a promise which I
regret to say he didn't keep. Tom kept Harkaway all to himself, and won
the second prize in the lottery, some thirty shillings, which he and
East contrived to spend in about three days, in the purchase of pictures
for their study, two new bats and a cricket-ball, all the best that
could