It may be guessed that Ernest was not the chosen friend of the more
sedate and well-conducted youths then studying at Roughborough. Some of
the less desirable boys used to go to public-houses and drink more beer
than was good for them; Ernest's inner self can hardly have told him to
ally himself to these young gentlemen, but he did so at an early age, and
was sometimes made pitiably sick by an amount of beer which would have
produced no effect upon a stronger boy. Ernest's inner self must have
interposed at this point and told him that there was not much fun in
this, for he dropped the habit ere it had taken firm hold of him, and
never resumed it; but he contracted another at the disgracefully early
age of between thirteen and fourteen which he did not relinquish, though
to the present day his conscious self keeps dinging it into him that the
less he smokes the better.
And so matters went on till my hero was nearly fourteen years old. If by
that time he was not actually a young blackguard, he belonged to a
debateable class between the sub-reputable and the upper disreputable,
with perhaps rather more leaning to the latter except so far as vices of
meanness were concerned, from which he was fairly free.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233