that he thought himself as good as he was. And he stood up straight
and looked him in the face, till we hardly could think he was the same man
that was so bent and shambling and broken-down-looking most times.
He used to live in a little hut in the township all by himself.
It was just big enough to hold him and us at our lessons.
He had his dinner at the inn, along with Mr. and Mrs. Lammerby.
She was always kind to him, and made him puddings and things when he was ill.
He was pretty often ill, and then he'd hear us our lessons at the bedside,
and make a short day of it.

Mostly he drank nothing but tea. He used to smoke a good deal
out of a big meerschaum pipe with figures on it that he used to show us
when he was in a good humour. But two or three times a year
he used to set-to and drink for a week, and then school was left off
till he was right. We didn't think much of that. Everybody, almost,
that we knew did the same -- all the men -- nearly all, that is --
and some of the women -- not mother, though; she wouldn't have touched
a drop of wine or spirits to save her life, and never did to her dying day.
We just thought of it as if they'd got a touch of fever or sunstroke,
or broke a rib or something. They'd get over it in a week or two,
and be all right again.

All the same, poor old Mr. Howard wasn't always on the booze,
not by any manner of means. He never touched a drop of anything,
not even ginger-beer, while he was straight, and he kept us all going
from nine o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon,
summer and winter, for more than six years. Then he died, poor old chap --
found dead in his bed one morning. Many a basting he gave me and Jim
with an old malacca cane he had with a silver knob to it. We were all
pretty frightened of him. He'd say to me and Jim and the other boys,