"Oh, I must!" said Cotton, with a half-sneer at Todd's anxiety to pick up
a small sum. "Clear the table, and we'll make a snug evening of it."

Todd's method of clearing a table was novel, if not original. He carried
it bodily into Cotton's room, and then returned with his friend's
mahogany, which was undoubtedly more ornamental than his own.

Acton was absolutely right when he sneeringly called Gus "Cotton's
jackal." Todd was exactly of the material which makes a good jackal,
though he never became quite Jim Cotton's toady. He was a sharp, selfish
individual, good-looking in an aimless kind of way, with a slack, feeble
mouth, and a wandering, indecisive glance. He had a quick, shallow
cleverness, which could get up pretty easily enough of inexact knowledge
to pass muster in the schools. Old Corker knew his capabilities to a hair,
and would now and then, when Gus offered up some hazy, specious
guess-work, blister him with a little biting sarcasm. Todd feared the
Doctor as he feared no one else. Todd's chief private moan was that he
never had any money. His father was a rich man, but had some ideas which
were rather rough on his weak-kneed son. He tipped poor Gus as though he
were some thrifty hairdresser's son, and Todd had to try to ruffle it with
young Amorians on as many shillings as they had crowns. Not a lad who ever
had naturally any large amount of self-respect, the little he had soon
went, and he became, while still a fag, a hewer of wood and drawer of
water to his better-tipped cronies. His destiny finished when, on his
entry into the Fifth, Jim Cotton claimed him, and subsidized him as his
man.

At the beginning of the term his father had told him that if he could make
a good show in the Perry Exhibition there need not be any more grumbling
about his tip. Gus came back to St. Amory's hysterically anxious to cut