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Updated: June 4, 2025
"Do any of you know," asked the head master, "anything about this newspaper, the Dominican, which I see hanging outside the Fifth door?" "I hear a great many boys talking about it," said Mr Jellicott of the Fifth. "It is the joint production of several of the boys in my form." "Indeed! A Fifth form paper!" said the Doctor. "Has any one perused it?" "I have," said Mr Rastle.
"I suppose you wonder how I happen to be here," she said. "Now don't talk 'til you're rested, miss. This coffee is strong enough to walk on its hands, and I reckon about two cups of it'll rastle you into shape." As she raised the tin mug to her lips he waved a hand and smiled. "Drink hearty!" He set a plate of bread and bacon in her lap, then opened a glass jar of jam. "Here's the dulces.
Presently Mr Rastle steered the talk round to Stephen's home, a topic even more delightful than cricket. The boy launched out into a full account of the old house and his mother, till the tears very nearly stood in his eyes and the muffins very nearly stuck in his throat. Mr Rastle listened to it all with a sympathetic smile, throwing in questions now and then which it charmed the boy to answer.
"I'll be on him, mister, no error. I'll let the folks know the kind of young gents you turn out up at your school, so I will." Mr Rastle took no notice of all this. He admitted to himself that this man had some reason for being disagreeable, if Loman had really absconded with such a debt as he represented.
"Then," said Mr Rastle, quietly, "write me out one hundred lines of Caesar, Greenfield; and when you have recollected how to behave yourself, we will talk more about this. You can go." Mr Rastle was a queer man; he never took things as one expected. When Stephen expected him to be furious he was as mild as a lamb. There was no making him out.
"I don't know," said Stephen; "they are going to draw lots for me to-morrow." "That's a nice way of being elected! I say, have you any classes this afternoon?" "No; Mr Rastle has given us a half-holiday." "That's just the thing. I'm going to scull up the river a bit after dinner, and if you'd like you can come and steer for me." Stephen was delighted. Of all things he liked boating.
"As I can testify," said Mr Rastle, proceeding to recount the case of Stephen Greenfield and his sore cheek. The Doctor listened to it all, half gravely, half amused, and presently said: "Well, it is as well the holidays are coming. Things are sure to calm down in them; and next term I dare say we shall be all the wiser for the lessons of this.
Oliver catechised him now and then as to his progress, and received vague answers in reply, and Loman never remembered a fag that pestered him less with lessons. Stephen was, in fact, settling down into the slough of idleness, and would have become an accomplished dunce in time, had not Mr Rastle come to the rescue.
Stephen stared at his master, and the master looked very pleasantly at Stephen. "I copied it off Raddleston," said the boy, in a trembling voice, and mentally resigning himself to his fate. "Ah!" said Mr Rastle, laughing; "it's a funny thing, now, Greenfield, I knew that myself. No two boys could possibly have translated `nobody' into `nullus corpus' without making common cause!"
The tyrannical proceeding on the part of Mr Rastle provoked bitter indignation, of course, in the breasts of the culprits. Why weren't they to be allowed to express their feelings? And if Rastle did want to "pot" them, why should he give them Euclid to learn, when he knew perfectly well Euclid was the very thing not one of them could learn by heart?
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