Fathers of Men. Hornung Ernest William

on the way up the hill to second school, they inquired of Rawlinson, the small fellow in his own house whom Haigh had begun reviling on the first morning of the term.

      “Who’s Abinger?” repeated Rawlinson. “You wait and see! You’ll love him, Tiger, as much as I do!”

      “Why shall I?” asked Jan, who liked Rawlinson, and only envied him his callous gaiety under oppression.

      “Because he’ll get us off two days of old Haigh,” said Rawlinson, capering as though the two days would never end.

      “Don’t hustle!”

      “I’m not hustling. I take my oath I’m not. Grand old boy, Abinger, besides being just about the biggest bug alive on elocution!”

      “Who says so?”

      “Jerry, for one! Anyhow he comes down twice a year, and takes up two whole days, barring first school and private work; that’s why Abinger’s a man to love.”

      “But what does he do? Give us readings all the time?” asked Chips, one of whose weaknesses was the inane question.

      “Give us readings? I like that!” cried Rawlinson, shouting with laughter. “It’s the other way about, my good ass!”

      “Do we have to read to him?”

      “Every mother’s son of us, before the whole school, and all the masters and the masters’ wives!”

      Chips went on asking questions, and Jan was only silent because he took a greater interest in the answers than he cared to show. The ordeal foreshadowed by Rawlinson was indeed rather alarming to a new boy with an accent which had already exposed him to some contumely. Yet his ear, sharpened by continual travesties of his speech, informed Jan that he was by no means the only boy in the school whose vowels were of eccentric breadth. It was a point on which he was not unduly sensitive, but, in his heart, only too willing to improve. He was, however, more on his guard against the outlandish word and the rustic idiom, which still cropped up in his conversation, but could not possibly affect his reading aloud. The result of the last reflection was that Jan subdued his fears, and rejoiced with Rawlinson at the prospect of a break in the term’s work.