Thus the trouble spreads, and may end in half of what answers to
the Lower Sixth of a boys' school rocking and whooping together. Given a week
of warm weather, two stately promenades per diem, a heavy mutton and rice meal
in the middle of the day, a certain amount of nagging from the teachers, and a
few other things, some amazing effects develop. At least this is what folk say
who have had experience.
Now, the Mother Superior of a Convent and the Colonel of a British Infantry
Regiment would be justly shocked at any comparison being made between their
respective charges. But it is a fact that, under certain circumstances, Thomas
in bulk can be worked up into dithering, rippling hysteria. He does not weep,
but he shows his trouble unmistakably, and the consequences get into the
newspapers, and all the good people who hardly know a Martini from a Snider
say: "Take away the brute's ammunition!"
Thomas isn't a brute, and his business, which is to look after the virtuous
people, demands that he shall have his ammunition to his hand. He doesn't wear
silk stockings, and he really ought to be supplied with a new Adjective to
help him to express his opinions; but, for all that, he is a great man. If you
call him "the heroic defender of the national honor" one day, and "a brutal
and licentious soldiery" the next, you naturally bewilder him, and he looks
upon you with suspicion.
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