is time, however, the Doctor was not so
terrible. A few days before, they had been fagged at fives to fetch the
balls that went off the court. While standing watching the game, they
saw five or six nearly new balls hit on the top of the School. "I say,
Tom," said East, when they were dismissed, "couldn't we get those balls
somehow?"

"Let's try, anyhow."

So they reconnoitred the walls carefully, borrowed a coal-hammer from
old Stumps, bought some big nails, and after one or two attempts, scaled
the Schools, and possessed themselves of huge quantities of
fives'-balls. The place pleased them so much that they spent all their
spare time there, scratching and cutting their names on the top of every
tower; and at last, having exhausted all other places, finished up with
inscribing H. EAST, T. BROWN, on the minute-hand of the great clock. In
the doing of which they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the clock's
economy. So next morning, when masters and boys came trooping down to
prayers, and entered the quadrangle, the injured minute-hand was
indicating three minutes to the hour. They all pulled up, and took their
time. When the hour struck, doors were closed, and half the school late.
Thomas being sent to make inquiry, discovers their names on the
minute-hand, and reports accordingly; and they are sent for, a knot of
their friends making derisive and pantomimic allusions to what their
fate will be, as they walk off.

But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much of it, and
only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by heart, and a lecture
on the likelihood of such exploits ending in broken bones.

Alas! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the town; and as
several rows and other disagreeable accidents had of late taken place on
these occasions, the Doctor gives out, after prayers in the morning,
that no boy is to go down into the town. Wherefore East and Tom, for no
earthly pleasure except that of doing what they are told not to do,
start away, after second lesson, and making a short circuit through the
fields, strike a back lane which leads into the town, go down it, and
run plump upon one of the masters as they emerge into the High Street.
The master in question, though a very clever, is not a righteous man: he
has already caught several of his own pupils, and gives them lines to
learn, while he sends East and Tom, who are not his pupils, up to the
Doctor; who, on learning that they h