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Updated: May 19, 2025
One morning, soon after the last visit of Uncle Seaborough, Lomax came to the schoolroom door, just as Mr Hasnip was giving me a terrible bullying about the results of a problem in algebra, on to which he had hurried me before I had more than the faintest idea of the meaning of the rules I had been struggling through.
For there before me were the Doctor and his lady, Mr Hasnip, and Mercer, Burr major, and Dicksee. I saw them at a glance, my eyes hardly resting upon them, for there were three strangers in the room, and I divined now why it was that I had not been fetched before.
But the meal-time did come, and as soon as tea was over, instead of going into the play-field with the others, I sat down alone, sore, aching, and disconsolate, to try and master some of the things Mr Hasnip had said I was behindhand in. I had just taken up my book, with my head feeling more hazy than ever, and the shouts of the boys floating in at the open window, when Mercer came in hurriedly.
"Certainly, sir," and Mr Hasnip looked at me, showing his teeth in a hungry kind of smile, as if a nice morsel were being snatched from him, and I stood with my heart beating, and the warm blood tingling in my cheeks, conscious that all the boys were looking at me. "Here, take your book, Burr junior," said my tutor. "Very glad to go, I daresay. Now aren't you?"
I must have been very stupid in some things, sharp as I was in others, and I have often thought since that Mr Rebble's irritability was due to the constant trouble we gave him; that Mr Hasnip was at heart a thorough gentleman; and as for "Old Browne," as we called him, he was a ripe scholar and a genuine loveable old Englishman, with the health and welfare of his boys thoroughly at heart.
"Oh, I'm ever so much better, sir!" I cried hastily, for I had a keen recollection of one of the good lady's doses which she had prescribed, and whose taste I seemed to distinguish then. "Oh yes, you'll be all right in the morning," said Mr Hasnip. "Well, Mercer, how are we getting on?"
"Haven't you two got any lessons to get ready?" he said. "Yes," I replied. "Then go in and get them ready before I report you both to Mr Hasnip. Do you hear?" "Yes," I said; "but I'm going to have my riding lesson." "Your riding lesson!" he sneered; "you're always going to have your riding lesson. I never saw such a school as it's getting to be. It's shameful!
I saw him descend slowly, and Mr Hasnip sign to the boys to follow, after which, giving me a sad look, he too descended, leaving me alone with Mr Rebble, whose first words were so stern and harsh that I could not turn to him and confide and ask his sympathy and help.
We went right up to the loft, and a search was made, and the floor stamped upon, and the boards tapped. But there was no sign of the ferret, and we gave up the search at last in despair, as it was rapidly approaching the time when the bell would ring for breakfast, and we had our lessons to look up ready for Mr Hasnip, who now had us, as he called it, thoroughly in hand.
Mr Hasnip was, I found, looking at me, and I felt a choking sensation as he shook his head at me sadly. Then I glanced at Mercer, and found he was looking at me in a horrified way, and I let my eyes drop as I said to myself, "Poor fellow! I shall not have to speak; he'll confess it all. I wish I could save him."
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