‘Was any name mentioned?’ she asked, with her mouth working, and to my ‘No,’ said ‘No, she knew there was none,’ and seemed to drink and choke, and was one minute calm, all but a trembling hanging underlip, next smiling on me, and next having her face carved in grimaces by the jerking little tugs of her mouth, which I disliked to see, for she would say nothing of what she thought of Heriot, and I thought to myself, though I forbore to speak unkindly, ’It’s no use your making yourself look ugly, Julia.’  If she had talked of Heriot, I should have thought that crying persons’ kisses were agreeable.

On my return into the school, I found it in a convulsion of excitement, owing to Heriot’s sending Boddy a challenge to fight a duel with pistols.  Mr. Rippenger preached a sermon to the boys concerning the unChristian spirit and hideous moral perversity of one who would even consent to fight a duel.  How much more reprehensible, then, was one that could bring himself to defy a fellow-creature to mortal combat!  We were not of his opinion; and as these questions are carried by majorities, we decided that Boddy was a coward, and approved the idea that Heriot would have to shoot or scourge him when the holidays came.  Mr. Rippenger concluded his observations by remarking that the sharpest punishment he could inflict upon Heriot was to leave him to his own conscience; which he did for three days, and then asked him if he was in a fit state of mind to beg Mr. Boddy’s pardon publicly.

‘I’m quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir,’ said Heriot.

A murmur of exultation passed through the school.  Mr. Rippenger seized little Temple, and flogged him.  Far from dreading the rod, now that Heriot and Temple had tasted it, I thought of punishment as a mad pleasure, not a bit more awful than the burning furze-bush plunged into by our fellows in a follow-my-leader scamper on the common; so I caught Temple’s hand as he went by me, and said, eagerly, ’Shall I sing out hurrah?’

‘Bother it!’ was Temple’s answer, for he had taken a stinging dozen, and had a tender skin.

Mr. Rippenger called me up to him, to inform me, that whoever I was, and whatever I was, and I might be a little impostor foisted on his benevolence, yet he would bring me to a knowledge of myself:  he gave me warning of it; and if my father objected to his method, my father must write word to that effect, and attend punctually to business duties, for Surrey House was not an almshouse, either for the sons of gentlemen of high connection, or for the sons of vagabonds.  Mr. Rippenger added a spurning shove on my shoulder to his recommendation to me to resume my seat.  I did not understand him at all.  I was, in fact, indebted to a boy named Drew, a known sneak, for the explanation, in itself difficult to comprehend.  It was, that Mr. Rippenger was losing patience because he had received no money on account of my boarding and schooling.  The intelligence filled my head like the buzz of a fly, occupying my meditations without leading them anywhere.  I spoke on the subject to Heriot.