you taken to smoking regularly, or to something worse?" You explain, or confess, as the case may be; whatever you say is believed; so of course, with a schoolboy's honour, you tell all. You are punished: no matter how: it is according to rule. You knew the penalty and willingly took the risk: you played a licking against a cigar; having enjoyed the one, you cannot draw your stakes till you have received the other; and you walk quietly back to the cricket ground, informing your smarting person, "Que le jeu ne valait pas la Chandelle." CHAPTER XIX. THE HOUSE-FAGS. "We must look within For that which makes us slaves." TALFOURD. "Miserables humains, ceci s'adresse à vous! Je n'entends résonner que des plaintes frivoles." IF I had chosen my own bedroom, I would certainly have selected one where I could be alone, or with one friend only; but I was placed in a large six-bedded room, and my fagging therefore began at a very early hour. Notices written in large round hand were posted up in various parts of the room; ex. gr:— "Silence between ten o'clock and a quarter past in the evening, and six to a quarter past in the morning." Here is another: "The fag on duty is responsible for every fellow being out of bed at half past six." This duty was taken for alternate weeks by the three fags, whose beds ranged along one side of the room. It was a pleasant, well-organized room; and every thing was done according to rule. Bolstering matches took place regularly on Saturday night, and bed-jumping whenever our præpostor was not deep in Goethe (of whom he was a great admirer), or working at his mathematics, in which he was a great proficient. Every thing depended on the state of the bedroom. Some were well managed and very pleasant rooms; others were perfect infernalia. A good præpostor would convert the most disagreeable room into the quiet dormitory it was intended for; and even a bad captain would prevent any flagrant disorder, or any very marked tyranny. In some, floggings, smotherings, tossings in blankets, and every description of disgusting bullying, were of nightly occurrence; in others readings aloud of Byron, Walter Scott, or Molière, were the regular thing. There was one * room in my "house" where Cæsar, robed in a white night gown and long scarf composed of six pink silk handkerchiefs, was stabbed with a tooth-brush by Brutus in a blue silk dressinggown, and after falling under the white dimity bed with the "Et tu, Brute!" groan, rejoined the mob in most classical nudity, and led them on to assault Brutus with sponges and wet towels: the last a most efficacious weapon. It happened to be my turn as fag for the coming week; and having dozed for three minutes after the butler had called me, I rose and looked out of window, to see in what kind of weather we were to play the great Old Harbean match. The clouds were of a dull leaden hue, the trees were drooping under the weight of moisture, every blade of grass seemed weighed down by a big dew-drop, the larch trees would have been sparkling with diamonds had the sun only come out instead of sulking behind the dark heavy clouds, and there was a melancholy noise of gurgling waters forcing their way through pipes half choked up with dust and the debris of the last few weeks' dry weather. Adieu! thought I, to my precious cricket-ball, which Forster so skilfully threw up into that gutter pipe, and which will now be carried down by this flood into the great town-sewer leading to the river, a tough morsel for the rats. "Now then, get up, will you?" cried I to the alternate fag. We invariably pulled one another out of bed with greater gusto than any one else, and were on rather fierce terms in consequence. "Do let me lie one moment more, and I'll promise not to pull you out next week for five minutes after I called you." "Not a moment!" said I, remembering my disregarded entreaties last Monday; and off came all the clothes into the room, and down went the wet sponge on his face, while I skilfully avoided the well-aimed boot, which waked up the third fag by striking him full on the kneecap, and saved me the trouble of doing unto him likewise. Next came the great stumbling-block to the "pulling up fag," that curious, eccentric kind of boy, a lamb awake but a lion when roused: he had established a reputation, well deserved, and particularly well acted up to, of |