But this disorder is a strong dish, and we’ve talked about quite as much as is good for us.  So let us change the hour and visit another class-room, where there are no rebellions, but nevertheless arithmetic and trouble—­and Ray and Doe and Pennybet.  And here is a dear little master in charge.  It is Mr. Fillet, the housemaster of Bramhall House, where, as you know, we were paying guests—­a fat little man with a bald pate, a soft red face, a pretty little chestnut beard, and an ugly little stutter in his speech.  Bless him, the dear little man, we called him Carpet Slippers.  This was because one of his two chief attributes was to be always in carpet slippers.  The other attribute was to be always round a corner.

Fillet, or Carpet Slippers, disliked his young boarder, Rupert Ray.  The reason is soon told.  One night, when I was out of my bed and gambolling in pyjamas about the first story of his house, I looked up the well of the staircase and saw the little shadow of someone parading the landing above.  Thinking it to be a boy, I called out in a stage-whisper:  “Is that old pig, Carpet Slippers, up there?” And a dear little chestnut beard and a smile came over the balusters, accompanied by a voice:  “Yes, h-h-here he is.  Wh-what do you want with him?”

It was Fillet, in carpet slippers, and round a corner.

And then in his class-room, this day, I got a sum wrong.  I deduced that in a certain battle “point 64” of a soldier remained wounded on the field, while “point 36” escaped with the retreating army unhurt.  This did not seem a satisfactory conclusion either to the sum or to the soldier, and I was not surprised, on looking up the answer, to find that I was wrong.  There were two methods of detecting the error:  one was to work through the sum again, the other was to submit it to Fillet for revision.  The latter seemed the less irksome scheme, and in a sinister moment—­heavens! how pregnant with consequences it was—­I left my desk, approached Carpet Slippers, and laid the trouble before him.

Now Fillet was in the worst of tempers, having been just incensed by a boy who had declared that two gills equalled one pint, two pints one quart, and two quarts one rod, pole, or perch.  So, when I brought my sum up and giggled at the answer, he looked at me as if he neither liked me nor desired that I should ever like him.  Then he indulged in cheap sarcasms.  This he was wont to do, and, after emitting them through his silky beard, he would draw in his breath through parted teeth, as a child does when it has the taste of peppermint in its mouth.

“I-I-I t-tell you, a boy in a kindergarten could get it right—­a g-g-guttersnipe could.  I-I-I-I—­”

This was so much like what they yell from a fire-engine that, though I struggled hard, I could not contain a giggle.

“I-I-I’ll do it for you.”

He got it wrong, which elicited a bursting giggle from me.  Fillet turned on me like a barking dog.