Page:Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots.djvu/32

24 be kinder still to me, if ever I ventured on such practices again; so I was obliged to give up old trade of lending, for the doctor declared that any one who borrowed should be flogged, and any one who paid should be flogged twice as much. There was no standing against such a prohibition as this, and my little commerce was ruined.

I was not very high in the school: not having been able to get farther than that dreadful Propria quæ maribus in the Latin grammar, of which, though I have it by heart even now, I never could understand a syllable—but on account of my size, my age, and the prayers of my mother, was allowed to have the privilege of the bigger boys, and on holidays to walk about in the town; great dandies we were, too, when we thus went out. I recollect costume very well—a thunder-and-lightening coat, a while waistcoat embroidered neatly at the pockets, a lace frill, a pair of knee-breeches, and elegant white cotton or silk stockings. This did very well, but still I was dissatisfied, I wanted a pair of boots. Three boys in the school had boots—I was mad to have them too.