Page:Once a Week Volume 5.djvu/125

115 dodging and bobbing round the aquarium. "That—way, Odger. Then we've got him."

And Mr. Odger, in an ill-fated moment, took his friend's advice, and went that way. In their too eager haste they overturned the aquarium, without catching the boy.

"Oh, n-a-s-t-y!" said the Dominie, as fearful and trembling he surveyed the animal and vegetable contents of the tank on the carpet before him.

"Oh! Heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Odger, wiping the perspiration from his brow. "What have we done? What will Jemima say? They're her fish."

"Jemima, Jemima!" shrieked Miss Jane up the stairs to her sister.

"What was that awful crash?" responded her sister from above.

"Oh come," replied Miss Jane, in a faint voice; "all your gold fish are floundering about in helpless agony on the floor, and the smell is awful; I'm sure. I can't go into the room any more."

FTER the catastrophe at the party at the Misses Odger's the evening before, the "breaking-up" at the Dominie's was a very tame affair. What was the smashing of a few inkstands or slates compared with the destruction of Miss Jemima's aquarium?

In the holidays the Doctor began to think of removing Reginald, now in his thirteenth year, to some other and better disciplined school. One evening, when Mr. Strongi'th'arm, having called after dinner, stopped to drink some whiskey-and-water and smoke a pipe, while Dr. Gasc sat sipping his claret and listening to the Dominie's converse, he took occasion to hint his intention in his quiet and polite way.

"What!" said the Dominie, in blank astonishment. "What! take him away—you don't mean it? Why, we're just beginning to get on."

"I think, Mr. Strongi'th'arm," said the Doctor, in a hesitating way, "I think per-haps the discipline of your school is hardly strict enough for a boy of Reginald's age."

"Discipline!" exclaimed the Dominie; "Strict!—why I often tell 'em I'll thrash them till they can't crawl. Now, I should like to know, what a man can do more in the way of discipline, eh?"

"Moral suasion and gentle force—perhaps also, a more regular routine," Dr. Gasc suggested, feeling all the while that he was treading on delicate ground.

"Pooh! stuff!" replied Mr. Strongi'th'arm, "I've tried everything. But," he said, suddenly, "no man in this world ever had such a lot to deal with as I have at this instant. They drive me mad. They do indeed."

"You have been telling me the same sad story for some years, Dominie," said the Doctor.

"Ah! ah! I'm deaf, you see—deaf, and they take advantage of me."

"Not very deaf."

"Yes, worse since I saw you; that's really what I came about now. This one," he continued, tapping his left ear with the extremity of his pipe, "all on one side."

Here he paused for a moment or two, then added—

"No, I shouldn't like to lose that boy. Rather lose any boy in the school."

Dr. Gasc promised to reconsider the matter, and the next time he met the Dominie he told him his intention.

"Well, well," said Mr. Strongi'th'arm; "You'll send him to a public school, of course, if you take him away from me. Eton now?"

The Doctor announced his intention of sending him to a private tutor, who "received into his house one or two sons of gentlemen" on very remunerative terms.

"Ah! I've made him what he is. He's a fine fellow. I'm sorry to lose him. So will Mrs. Strongi'th'arm be when I tell her. She'll hardly believe it; she won't, really."

The Dominie had lamented the loss of many a pupil in a similar doleful strain.

Although, when at the Academy he had generally told Reginald he was "impidence and ignorance com-bined," yet whenever he met him afterwards he used to pat his head—or his shoulder when he grew tall—and say to him, "Ah, Erie, how do. Ah! you were the best boy I ever had. I was the making of you. They never ought to have taken you away. My compliments to the Doctor." And then he would trudge on his way.

Now, under the Reverend Samuel Walker, M.A., at Hampstead, Reginald made very capital progress in his reading, and grew greatly into favour with his tutor, who delighted the Doctor on many occasions by the accounts he gave of the young gentleman's application and industry. And upon all these, and many other opportunities, the Doctor, in a few simple but eloquent words, would impress upon Reginald