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. He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected
- self stand face to face.
133 ozmzaws DICKENS’ WORKS-
well us I can make Out) Prettxmuch ‘he Same “5 if 119
‘oine it. , '
hag 111f1‘;:,1i;,J through Which the warriors of poetry and
history march on in stately hosts that seem to have no
end-and what comes next! I am the head-1-103'. HOW;
and look down on the line of boys below me. with a con-
descending interest in such of them us bring to my mind
the boy I was myself‘, VVIIGnIItfl;'St canlie there-i) Tiliat
little fellow seems to be no pa 0 me ; remem er im
as something left behind upon the road of Ilfe-115 some.
thing I have passed, rather than have actually been-
and almost think of him as of some one else. N -
And the little girl I saw on that first do at Mr. IV ick.
I field's, where is she? Gone also.‘ In. er stead,-' the
oung ladies, and shouldn’t dote on any of them, if they l perfect likeness of the picture, a child likeness noniore,
acre twice as many, and twenty times as beautiful. I : moves about tI1v(3tI1l0l1S(i),"si1nl% Acg0I:1G:S:111I:))l“ :2 (fl3(3ftri5e1:E191'hXliS
think the dancing-school a. tiresome 1).lIi1ll‘, and wonder Icall her in in) 1”“ , ’ fynu who come wmlixp be
why the girls c:in’t dance by themselves, and leave us better angel of t ie IVES. 011 e-is um) :1 ‘mm er
alone. I am growing great in Latin verses, and neglect calm’; : good. S91f"1CU5'1“E1‘3 “en” u mgme be id ’”:'h‘
the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me in pub- ' W hat other changes 21391 0012116 pd -n t1.e hsl 0:3 d 6
he as apromising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with ‘ changes in my growth on 00 S, M1 1 1 x 0W e ge
joy, and my aunt reinits me a uinca by the next post. I I have garnered all this
The shade of a young butc er rises, like the appari- , chain, a ring upon my 1 1 f b Y Q 11.
tion of an armed head in Macbeth. VVlio is this young ; coat; and I ‘use at great I 0121! Q 0131': g11")‘3‘(11s9“:i‘V 1131;
butcher‘? lie is the terror of the youth of Canterbury. i taken 111. COIIJIIIICIIOII with the rilngy 130 EM? - L in
There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suct with love again? I rim. I wors up '6 ie er 0!? .1513 11% ins.
which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, The eldest Miss Lnrkins is not It 1? e gir . S‘ e is :1
and that hcisamatch for ainan. IIe- is abroad-faced, tall, dark, black-eyed. fine ii uro 0. in xvtcliman. The
bull-necked, young butcher, with rough red checks, on eldest Miss Larkius IS not I1 C lick‘-‘Di 01‘ 10 wungcst
ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue, His main Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must be three or
use of this tongue, is, to dis arage Doctor Strong-’s young four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may
gentlemen. He says publicly, that if they want any- be about thirty. My p11SS10I1 501‘ 1191‘ 15 1>0)'0I1l1 All
thing he'll give it ‘em. Ile names individuals among bounds. '
them (myself included), whom he could undertake to
settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him.
I can't conceive. And yet a coolness grows between
Miss Shepherd and myself. ' I‘Vhispers reach me of Miss
Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn t stare so, and
havincr avowed a preference for Master Jones--for Jones l
a boylhf no merit whatever I The gulf between me and
Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I‘ meet the
Misses Nettingalls’ establishment out walkin . Miss
Shepherd makes is. face as she goes by, ‘and laug slto her
companion. All is over. The devotion of it life-it
seems it life, it is all the same-is at an end ; Miss Shep-
herd comes out of the morning service, and the Royal
Family know her no more.
I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace.’
I am not at all polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls
little finger, and ii. long-tailed
The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers.
ful thing to hear. I see them speaking to her-in the
street. I see them cross the way to meet her, when her
bonnet (she has a bright taste in honnets) is seen coming
down the pavement, accompanied by her sister's bonnet.
She laughs and talks, and seems to like it. I spends.
good deal of my own spare time in walking up and down
to meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I know
her to bow to, knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I
deserve a how new and then. The raging agouies I suf-
fer on the night of the Race Ball, where 1 know the
eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the military,
l
I
heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets.
For these suilicient reasons I resolve to fight the
butcher.
It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the
corner of ii. wall. Imeet the butcher by appointment.
I am attended by a select body of our boys; the butcher,
by two other butchers, a young publican, and a. sweep.
The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and my-
Iii a moment the butcher lights
ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In another
moment, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am,
or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself
and which the butcher, we are always in such 0. tangle
and tustle, lmocking about upon the trodden grass.
Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident; some-
times I see nothing, and sit gasping on mysecond’s knee ;
sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my
knuckles open against his face, without appearing to dis-
com ose him at all. At last I awake, very queer about
the end, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher
walking off, congratulated by the two other butchers and
the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat’ as he
goes ; from whichl augur, justly, that the victory is his.
I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-
steaks put to my‘eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and
brandy, and find a great white pull ' place bursting out of
my upper lip, which swells inimo erately. For three or
four daysl remain at home, a very ill-looking subject,
with a green shade over my eyes ; and I should be very
dull, but that Agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with
me, and reads to me, and makes the time light and happv.
Agnes has my confidence completely, always ; I tell her
all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped
upon me ; and she thinks I couldn‘t have done otherwise
than fight the butcher, while she shrinks and trembles
at my aving fought him. .
Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the
head-boy in the days that are come now, nor has he been
this many and many a day. Adams has left the school
so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor
Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who
knowhim. Adams is going to be called to the bar al-
most directly, and is to be an advocate, and to wear (I.
wig. I am surprised to find him a inecker man than I
had thought, and less imposing in appearance. ' He has
not staggered the world yet, either; for it goes on (as
handed justice in the worl .
My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me
wear my newest silk-neckerchief continually. I Iizwo
no relief but in putting on my best clothes, and having
my boots cleaned over and over again. I seem, then, to
be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything
that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is precious
to me. Mr. Larkins (a grud old gentleman with a dou-
ble chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his head) is
fraught with interest to me. “’lien I can’t meet his
daughter, I go where I am likely to meet him. To say
“How do you do, Mr. Larkins? Are the youn ladies
and all the family quite well?” seems so pointc , that I
blush.
I think continually about my age. Say I am seven-
teen, and say that seventeen is youn for the eldest Miss
Larkiiis, what of that? Besides, I; shall be one-and
twenty in no time almost. I regularly take walks out-
side Mr. Larkius’s house in the evening, then h it cuts
me to the heart to see the ofiiccrs go in, or to iiear them
up in the drawing-mom, where the eldest Miss Larkins
plays the harp. I even walk, on two or three occasions,
after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the
eldest Miss Larkins’s chamber (and pitching, I dare say
now, on Mr. Larkins’s’ instead); wishing that a fire
would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand
appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder,
might rear it against her window, save her in my arms,
go back for something she had left behind, and perish in
the iiamcs. For I am generally disinterested in my love,
and think I could be content to make it figure before
Miss Iiarkins, and expire.-Generally, but not always.
Sometimes brighter visions rise before me. When
dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given
at the Larkins’s (the anticipation of three weeks), I in-
wliile? Iwear a. gold watch and .
It is anlawi
ought to have some com ensation, if there be BYCII-,
in a sickly, spoony manner, round and round the house’
mm, in