of these impalpable creatures, except a suspicion that the manners
of Master Mawls were susceptible of much improvement. Generally
speaking, we may observe that whenever we see a child intently
occupied with its nose, to the exclusion of all other subjects of
interest, our mind reverts, in a flash, to Master Mawls.
But, the School that was Our School before the Railroad came and
overthrew it, was quite another sort of place. We were old enough
to be put into Virgil when we went there, and to get Prizes for a
variety of polishing on which the rust has long accumulated. It
was a School of some celebrity in its neighbourhood – nobody could
have said why – and we had the honour to attain and hold the
eminent position of first boy. The master was supposed among us to
know nothing, and one of the ushers was supposed to know
everything. We are still inclined to think the first-named
supposition perfectly correct.
We have a general idea that its subject had been in the leather
trade, and had bought us – meaning Our School – of another
proprietor who was immensely learned. Whether this belief had any
real foundation, we are not likely ever to know now. The only
branches of education with which he showed the least acquaintance,
were, ruling and corporally punishing. He was always ruling
ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany ruler, or smiting the palms
of offenders with the same diabolical instrument, or viciously
drawing a pair of pantaloons tight with one of his large hands, and
caning the wearer with the other. We have no doubt whatever that
this occupation was the principal solace of his existence.
A profound respect for money pervaded Our School, which was, of
course, derived from its Chief. We remember an idiotic goggle-eyed
boy, with a big head and half-crowns without end, who suddenly
appeared as a parlour-boarder, and was rumoured to have come by sea
from some mysterious part of the earth where his parents rolled in
gold. He was usually called ‘Mr.’ by the Chief, and was said to
feed in the parlour on steaks and gravy; likewise to drink currant
wine. And he openly stated that if rolls and coffee were ever
denied him at breakfast, he would write home to that unknown part
of the globe from which he had come, and cause himself to be
recalled to the regions of gold. He was put into no form or class,
but learnt alone, as little as he liked – and he liked very little
– and there was a belief among us that this was because he was too
wealthy to be ‘taken down.’ His special treatment, and our vague
association of him with the sea, and with storms, and sharks, and
Coral Reefs occasioned the wildest legends to be circulated as his
history. A tragedy in blank verse was written on the subject – if
our memory does not deceive us, by the hand that now chronicles
these recollections – in which his father figured as a Pirate, and
was shot for a voluminous catalogue of atrocities: first imparting
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to his wife the secret of the cave in which his wealth was stored,
and from which his only son’s half-crowns now issued. Dumbledon
(the boy’s name) was represented as ‘yet unborn’ when his brave
father met his fate; and the despair and grief of Mrs. Dumbledon at
that calamity was movingly shadowed forth as having weakened the
parlour-boarder’s mind. This production was received with great
favour, and was twice performed with closed doors in the diningroom.
But, it got wind, and was seized as libellous, and brought
the unlucky poet into severe affliction. Some two years
afterwards, all of a sudden one day, Dumbledon vanished. It was
whispered that the Chief himself had taken him down to the Docks,
and re-shipped him for the Spanish Main; but nothing certain was
ever known about his disappearance. At this hour, we cannot
thoroughly disconnect him from California.
Our School was rather famous for mysterious pupils. There was
another – a heavy young man, with a large double-cased silver
watch, and a fat knife the handle of which was a perfect tool-box –