United States or Algeria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Rippenger for the address of little Gus Temple's father, to invite my schoolfellow to stay a month at Riversley. Temple came, everybody liked him; as for me my delight was unbounded, and in spite of a feeling of superiority due to my penetrative capacity, and the suspicion it originated, that Temple might be acting the plain well- bred schoolboy he was, I soon preferred his pattern to my own.
Not a boy in the school missed seeing how Boddy's flat head perpetually had a side-eye on him. All this came to an end. John Salter's father lived on the other side of the downs, and invited three of us to spend a day at his house. The selection included Heriot, Saddlebank, and me. Mr. Rippenger, not liking to refuse Mr. Salter, consented to our going, but pretended that I was too young.
Julia's kisses were showered on me for almost anything I said or did, but her admiration of heroism and daring was so fervent that I was in no greater danger of becoming effeminate than Achilles when he wore girl's clothes. She was seventeen, an age bewitching for boys to look up to and men to look down on. The puzzle of the school was how to account for her close relationship to old Rippenger.
I went off to the French dictionary. 'Is Julia Rippenger a coquette, Heriot? I asked him. 'Keep girls out of your heads, you little fellows, said he, dealing me a smart thump. 'Is a coquette a nasty girl? I persisted. 'No, a nice one, as it happens, was his answer.
'To Miss Rippenger, I replied. 'What have you there? 'A book, sir. 'Show me the book. I stood fast. 'It 's a book I have lent him, sir, said Heriot, rising. 'I shall see if it's a fit book for a young boy, said Boddy; and before Heriot could interpose, he had knocked the book on the floor, and out fell the letter.
My anxiety was relieved by my writing letters to my father, addressed to the care of Miss Julia Rippenger, and posting them in her work-basket. She favoured me with very funny replies, signed, 'Your own ever-loving Papa, about his being engaged killing Bengal tigers and capturing white elephants, a noble occupation that gave me exciting and consolatory dreams of him.
Rippenger concluded his observations by remarking that the sharpest punishment he could inflict upon Heriot was to leave him to his own conscience; which he did for three days, and then asked him if he was in a fit state of mind to beg Mr. Boddy's pardon publicly. 'I'm quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir, said Heriot. A murmur of exultation passed through the school. Mr.
Rippenger receiving them like a pliant hodman; for the result of it was that two days later, without seeing my kings of England, my home again, or London, I was Julia Rippenger's intimate friend and the youngest pupil of the school. My father told me subsequently that we slept at an hotel those two nights intervening.
The gipsies had made an appointment to deliver me over to my aunt; Farmer Eckerthy had spoken of me to my grandfather; the tramp had fetched Mr. Rippenger on the scene.
On my return into the school, I found it in a convulsion of excitement, owing to Heriot's sending Boddy a challenge to fight a duel with pistols. Mr. Rippenger preached a sermon to the boys concerning the unChristian spirit and hideous moral perversity of one who would even consent to fight a duel.
Word Of The Day