Ernest used
to wonder how Mr Templer could be so blind, for he supposed Mr Templer
must have cribbed when he was at school, and would ask himself whether he
should forget his youth when he got old, as Mr Templer had forgotten his.
He used to think he never could possibly forget any part of it.
Then there was Mrs Jay, who was sometimes very alarming. A few days
after the half year had commenced, there being some little extra noise in
the hall, she rushed in with her spectacles on her forehead and her cap
strings flying, and called the boy whom Ernest had selected as his hero
the "rampingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest boy in the
whole school." But she used to say things that Ernest liked. If the
Doctor went out to dinner, and there were no prayers, she would come in
and say, "Young gentlemen, prayers are excused this evening"; and, take
her for all in all, she was a kindly old soul enough.
Most boys soon discover the difference between noise and actual danger,
but to others it is so unnatural to menace, unless they mean mischief,
that they are long before they leave off taking turkey-cocks and ganders
_au serieux_. Ernest was one of the latter sort, and found the
atmosphere of Roughborough so gusty that he was glad to shrink out of
sight and out of mind whenever he could.
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