Schoolboys, as well as men, can find or make a party question, and quarrel
out of any thing or out of nothing. There was a Scotch pedlar, who used to
come every Thursday evening to our school to supply our various wants and
fancies. The Scotch pedlar died, and two candidates offered to supply his
place, an English lad of the name of Dutton, and a Jew boy of the name of
Jacob. Dutton was son to a man who had lived as butler in Mowbray's family.
Lord Mowbray knew the boy to be a rogue, but thought he was attached to the
Mowbrays, and at all events was determined to support him, as being somehow
supposed to be connected with his family. Reminding me of my early
declaration at my father's table against the naturalization of the Jews,
and the _bon-mot_ I had made, and the toast I had drunk, and the pledge I
had given, Mowbray easily engaged me to join him against the Jew boy; and a
zealous partisan against Jacob I became, canvassing as if my life had
depended upon this point. But in spite of all our zeal, noise, violence,
and cabal, it was the least and the most simple child in the school who
decided the election. This youngster had in secret offered to exchange a
silver pencil-case for a top, or something of such inadequate value: Jacob,
instead of taking advantage of the child, explained to him that his
pencil-case was worth twenty tops. On the day of election, this little boy,
mounted upon the top of a step-ladder, appeared over the heads of the
crowd, and in a small clear voice, and with an eagerness which fixed
attention, related the history of his pencil-case, and ended by hoping with
all his heart that his friend Jacob, his honest Jacob, might be chosen.
Jacob was elected. Mowbray and I, and all our party, vexed and mortified,
became the more inveterate in our aversion to the successful candidate; and
from this moment we determined to plague and persecute him, till we should
force him to _give up_. Every Thursday evening, the moment he appeared in
the school-room, or on the play-ground, our party commenced the attack upon
"the Wandering Jew," as we called this poor pedlar; and with every
opprobrious nickname, and every practical jest, that mischievous and