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The golden curls fair curls that his mother had so often played with! fell under the shears and round the lad's knees, until he looked as if he was sitting in a bath of sunbeams. When the frightful act had been performed, Otto, who entered the little chamber in the tower ringleted like Apollo, issued from it as cropped as a charity-boy. See how melancholy he looks, now that the operation is over!
The head charity-boy blows the bellows; the master canes the other boys in the organ-loft; the clerk sings out Amen from the desk; and the beadle with the staff opens the door for his Reverence, who rustles in silk up to the cushion.
I only hope this'll teach master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. Poor Noah! He was all but killed, ma'am, when I come in. 'Poor fellow! said Mrs. Sowerberry: looking piteously on the charity-boy.
Intent upon this innocent amusement, Noah put his feet on the table-cloth; and pulled Oliver's hair; and twitched his ears; and expressed his opinion that he was a 'sneak'; and furthermore announced his intention of coming to see him hanged, whenever that desirable event should take place; and entered upon various topics of petty annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was.
But to make a piece of work about three thousand three hundred lashes, what every poor little charity-boy gets every month it is enough to amaze, astonish, astound the compassionate bowels of all who hear it, nay, all who come to hear it in the course of time.
How have I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus, or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pindar while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents of the inspired charity-boy!"
But to make a piece of work about three thousand three hundred lashes, what every poor little charity-boy gets every month it is enough to amaze, astonish, astound the compassionate bowels of all who hear it, nay, all who come to hear it in the course of time.
They consist of letters written by Matthew Haygarth, and distinguished by a most abominable orthography; but I remember my own father's epistolary composition to have been somewhat deficient in this respect; nor is it singular that the humble citizen should have been a poor hand at spelling in an age when royal personages indulged in a phonetic style of orthography which would provoke the laughter of a modern charity-boy.
He does not disguise his own origin, but brags of it with considerable self-gratulation: 'I was a Charity-boy, says he; 'see what I am now; the greatest Greek scholar of the greatest College of the greatest University of the greatest Empire in the world. The argument being, that this is a capital world, for beggars, because he, being a beggar, has managed to get on horseback.
And when the fall comes, will it not be flat on thy face, instead of to the common height of men? You may fall miles below her measure of you, and be safe: nothing is damaged save an overgrown charity-boy; but if you fall below the common height of men, you must make up your mind to see her rustle her gown, spy at the looking-glass, and transfer her allegiance.
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