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Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices by Charles Dickens;Wilkie Collins
page 74 of 141 (52%)
some pernicious example of activity and industry that had been set
him by others. The trials to which he here alludes were three in
number, and may be thus reckoned up: First, the disaster of being
an unpopular and a thrashed boy at school; secondly, the disaster
of falling seriously ill; thirdly, the disaster of becoming
acquainted with a great bore.

The first disaster occurred after Thomas had been an idle and a
popular boy at school, for some happy years. One Christmas-time,
he was stimulated by the evil example of a companion, whom he had
always trusted and liked, to be untrue to himself, and to try for a
prize at the ensuing half-yearly examination. He did try, and he
got a prize--how, he did not distinctly know at the moment, and
cannot remember now. No sooner, however, had the book--Moral Hints
to the Young on the Value of Time--been placed in his hands, than
the first troubles of his life began. The idle boys deserted him,
as a traitor to their cause. The industrious boys avoided him, as
a dangerous interloper; one of their number, who had always won the
prize on previous occasions, expressing just resentment at the
invasion of his privileges by calling Thomas into the play-ground,
and then and there administering to him the first sound and genuine
thrashing that he had ever received in his life. Unpopular from
that moment, as a beaten boy, who belonged to no side and was
rejected by all parties, young Idle soon lost caste with his
masters, as he had previously lost caste with his schoolfellows.
He had forfeited the comfortable reputation of being the one lazy
member of the youthful community whom it was quite hopeless to
punish. Never again did he hear the headmaster say reproachfully
to an industrious boy who had committed a fault, 'I might have
expected this in Thomas Idle, but it is inexcusable, sir, in you,
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