MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE. 17 



of hearing their own voices, and making a noise, which the}' know 

 no one appreciates but themselves, Hke the lemon which Jack Wilks 

 handed to Dr. Johnson, gives a zest to the discomforts they undergo 

 in the pursuit of gain. 



It is an ill wind which blows no one any good, and, so tradition 

 ran, the handsomely bound prizes, which were awarded to better 

 boys than I, were paid for, on the principle of robbing Peter to pa}' 

 Paul, from the fines imposed on the weaker brethren. And when 

 the long-looked-for Saturda}- came round, and after much hustling 

 and struggling with a crowd of other urchins, I reached the master 

 who distributed the coin, demanding my loaves and fishes, he only 

 gave me a stony stare, and curth' said, I might apply again on that 

 (lay month, for I had been fined a shilling for swarming up a tree. 



I attempted to prove an alibi in vain. But at length I demon- 

 strated to the detective who sent in my name, that it was a case of 

 mistaken identity. He declined, however, to stultif}' himself, and 

 get back m}' coppers. " It was my own fault," he said, " I should not 

 be so like the other boy." Young as I was in the ways of the world, 

 I certainly considered this proceeding hardly fair, particularl}- as 

 the numbers which were marked on our clothes formed an easy 

 clue to identification, and as a rule, those who required information 

 would not hesitate to grab our caps, and slyl}' peep inside, much to 

 our mortification, and the entertainment of strangers passing by. 



These numbers formed a never failing source of great delight to 

 forward maidens in the town, for in the gloaming, when we were all 

 locked up, they would appear in galaxies in front of the railings 

 by the broad Bath road, where, attracting our attention by various 

 antics and grimaces, they would point the finger archly, and declare 

 that although they might not know our names, they were well 

 acquainted with our numbers ; amid the ecstatic laughter of the 

 bystanders. 



My weekly allowance was so often confiscated for some 

 offence, real or pretended, that it was hardly worth a struggle 

 presenting myself at the distributing chamber as each succeeding 



c 



