schoolroom; he sat in his library or in the dining-room in a large
morocco-covered arm-chair, holding a book in one hand whilst the other
was always ready to clasp the cane that he kept close by. Any failure of
memory would cause him to dart a severe look at the delinquent, a false
quantity made him scowl, and when he suspected real carelessness the
cane was resorted to at once. Unfortunately he could not apply it and
keep his temper at the same time. The exercise roused him to fury, and a
punishment which in his first intention was to have been mild became
cruel through the effect of his own rapidly increasing irritation. Mr.
Cape's health was not good, and no doubt this added to the natural
irritability of his temper. There was one unfortunate youngster whose
hands were covered with chilblains, and who was constantly displeasing
Mr. Cape by inattention or inaccuracy, so he incurred such perpetual
canings that his hands were pitiable to see, and must have been
extremely painful. Our head-master was no doubt laudably, or selfishly,
anxious that we should get on with our work so as to do him credit at
Cambridge, where most of us were expected to go; but he seemed almost
incapable of pity. I remember having the intense pleasure of playing him
a little trick just after he had been caning a lad who was a very good
friend of mine.

It happened in this way--but first I must describe the topography of the
place. Mr. Cape's house was a tall brick building that looked upon the
street on one side, and on our playground (which had formerly been a
garden) on the other. At the other end of the garden was a wash-house
with the schoolroom over it, and in the wash-house there was a large
copper for boiling linen. In the house the dining-room looked over the
play-ground, and it somehow happened (perhaps it was in the Easter
holidays) that there were no pupils left in the place but my friend
Brokenribs and I. [Footnote: We always called him Brokenribs, which