for it in a year or two.  Now come down to the housekeeper’s room, and let us see if you are hurt.’  And away went the two, and we all stayed and had a regular turn-out of the den, till Martin came back with his hand bandaged and turned us out.  However, I’ll go and see what he’s after, and tell him to come in after prayers to supper.”  And away went Tom to find the boy in question, who dwelt in a little study by himself, in New Row.

The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken such a fancy for, was one of those unfortunates who were at that time of day (and are, I fear, still) quite out of their places at a public school.  If we knew how to use our boys, Martin would have been seized upon and educated as a natural philosopher.  He had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects, and knew more of them and their habits than any one in Rugby—­except perhaps the Doctor, who knew everything.  He was also an experimental chemist on a small scale, and had made unto himself an electric machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and glory to administer small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough to venture into his study.  And this was by no means an adventure free from excitement; for besides the probability of a snake dropping on to your head or twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat getting into your breeches-pocket in search of food, there was the animal and chemical odour to be faced, which always hung about the den, and the chance of being blown up in some of the many experiments which Martin was always trying, with the most wondrous results in the shape of explosions and smells that mortal boy ever heard of.  Of course, poor Martin, in consequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite in the house.  In the first place, he half-poisoned all his neighbours, and they in turn were always on the lookout to pounce upon any of his numerous live-stock, and drive him frantic by enticing his pet old magpie out of his window into a neighbouring study, and making the disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked in beer and sugar.  Then Martin, for his sins, inhabited a study looking into a small court some ten feet across, the window of which was completely commanded by those of the studies opposite in the Sick-room Row, these latter being at a slightly higher elevation.  East, and another boy of an equally tormenting and ingenious turn of mind, now lived exactly opposite, and had expended huge pains and time in the preparation of instruments of annoyance for the behoof of Martin and his live colony.  One morning an old basket made its appearance, suspended by a short cord outside Martin’s window, in which were deposited an amateur nest containing four young hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of Martin’s life, for the time being, and which he was currently asserted to have hatched upon his own person.  Early in the morning and late at night he was to be seen half out of window, administering to the varied wants of his callow brood.