Page:Tom Brown's School Days (6th ed).djvu/258

 I can't make him out a bit. He ain't a bit like anything I've ever seen or heard of—he seems all over nerves; anything you say seems to hurt him like a cut or a blow."

"That sort of boy's no use here," said East, "he'll only spoil. Now, I'll tell you what to do, Tommy. Go and get a nice large band-box made, and put him in with plenty of cotton wool, and a pap-bottle, labelled 'With care—this side up,' and send him back to mamma."

"I think I shall make a hand of him, though," said Tom, smiling, "say what you will. There's something about him, every now and then, which shows me he's got pluck somewhere in him. That's the only thing after all that 'll wash, ain't it, old Scud? But how to get at it and bring it out?"

Tom took one hand out of his breeches-pocket and stuck it in his back hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, his one method of invoking wisdom. He stared at the ground with a ludicrously puzzled look, and presently looked up and met East's eyes. That young gentleman slapped him on the back, and then put his arm round his shoulder, as they strolled through the quadrangle together. "Tom," said he, "blest if you ain't the best old fellow ever was—I do like to see you go into a thing. Hang it, I wish I could take things as you do—but I never can get higher than a joke. Everything's a joke. If I was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk, but I couldn't help laughing at it for the life of me."

"Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on the great fives'-court."

"Hullo, though, that's past a joke," broke out East, springing at the young gentleman who addressed them, and catching him by the collar. "Here, Tommy, catch hold of him t'other side before he can holla." The youth was seized, and dragged struggling out of the quadrangle into the School-house hall. He was one of the miserable little, pretty, white-handed, curly-headed boys, petted and pampered