He had made but a short stay at school--not because he was tormented, for
he thought it so fine to be at school at all that he held his tongue at
home about the sufferings incurred through the medicine-bottle, but
because his father thought he was learning bad manners. This he imparted
to me in confidence at the time, and I remember how it increased my
oppressive awe of Mr. Pickering, who had appeared to me in glimpses as a
sort of high priest of the proprieties. Mr. Pickering was a widower--a
fact which seemed to produce in him a sort of preternatural concentration
of parental dignity. He was a majestic man, with a hooked nose, a keen
dark eye, very large whiskers, and notions of his own as to how a boy--or
his boy, at any rate--should be brought up. First and foremost, he was
to be a "gentleman"; which seemed to mean, chiefly, that he was always to
wear a muffler and gloves, and be sent to bed, after a supper of bread
and milk, at eight o'clock. School-life, on experiment, seemed hostile
to these observances, and Eugene was taken home again, to be moulded into
urbanity beneath the parental eye. A tutor was provided for him, and a
single select companion was prescribed. The choice, mysteriously, fell
on me, born as I was under quite another star; my parents were appealed
to, and I was allowed for a few months to have my lessons with Eugene.
The tutor, I think, must have been rather a snob, for Eugene was treated
like a prince, while I got all the questions and the raps with the ruler.
And yet I remember never being jealous of my happier comrade, and
striking up, for the time, one of those friendships of childhood. He had
a watch and a pony and a great store of picture-books, but my envy of
these luxuries was tempered by a vague compassion which left me free to
be generous. I could go out to play alone, I could button my jacket
myself, and sit up till I was sleepy. Poor Pickering could never take a
step without asking leave, or spend half an hour in the garden without a
formal report of it when he came in. My parents, who had no desire to
see me inoculated with importunate virtues, sent me back to school at the