“Every boy in this school knows that it is against the rules to fight.  If one boy maltreats another, within school-bounds, or within school-hours, that is a matter for me to settle.  The case should be laid before me.  I disapprove of tale-bearing, I never encourage it in the slightest degree; but when one pupil systematically persecutes a schoolmate, it is the duty of some head-boy to inform me.  No pupil has a right to take the law into his own hands.  If there is any fighting to be done, I am the person to be consulted.  I disapprove of boys’ fighting; it is unnecessary and unchristian.  In the present instance, I consider every large boy in this school at fault, but as the offence is one of omission rather than commission, my punishment must rest only on the two boys convicted of misdemeanor.  Conway loses his recess for a month, and Bailey has a page added to his Latin lessons for the next four recitations.  I now request Bailey and Conway to shake hands in the presence of the school, and acknowledge their regret at what has occurred.”

Conway and I approached each other slowly and cautiously, as if we were bent upon another hostile collision.  We clasped hands in the tamest manner imaginable, and Conway mumbled, “I’m sorry I fought with you.”

“I think you are,” I replied, drily, “and I’m sorry I had to thrash you.”

“You can go to your seats,” said Mr. Grimshaw, turning his face aside to hide a smile.  I am sure my apology was a very good one.

I never had any more trouble with Conway.  He and his shadow, Seth Rodgers, gave me a wide berth for many months.  Nor was Binny Wallace subjected to further molestation.  Miss Abigail’s sanitary stores, including a bottle of opodeldoc, were never called into requisition.  The six black silk patches, with their elastic strings, are still dangling from a beam in the garret of the Nutter House, waiting for me to get into fresh difficulties.

    (1)"Tom Brown’s School Days at Rugby”

Chapter Eleven—­All About Gypsy

This record of my life at Rivermouth would be strangely incomplete did I not devote an entire chapter to Gypsy.  I had other pets, of course; for what healthy boy could long exist without numerous friends in the animal kingdom?  I had two white mice that were forever gnawing their way out of a pasteboard chateau, and crawling over my face when I lay asleep.  I used to keep the pink-eyed little beggars in my bedroom, greatly to the annoyance of Miss Abigail, who was constantly fancying that one of the mice had secreted itself somewhere about her person.

I also owned a dog, a terrier, who managed in some inscrutable way to pick a quarrel with the moon, and on bright nights kept up such a ki-yi-ing in our back garden, that we were finally forced to dispose of him at private sale.  He was purchased by Mr. Oxford, the butcher.  I protested against the arrangement and ever afterwards, when we had sausages from Mr. Oxford’s shop, I made believe I detected in them certain evidences that Cato had been foully dealt with.