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Old Champion’s chief friend and attendant is Young Jack Hall, whom he saved, when drowning, out of the Miller’s Pool. The attachment of the two is curious to witness. The smaller lad gambolling, playing tricks round the bigger one, and perpetually making fun of his protector. They are never far apart, and of holidays you may meet them miles away from the school,–George sauntering heavily down the lanes with his big stick, and little Jack larking with the pretty girls in the cottage-windows.

George has a boat on the river, in which, however, he commonly lies smoking, whilst Jack sculls him. He does not play at cricket, except when the school plays the county, or at Lord’s in the holidays. The boys can’t stand his bowling, and when he hits, it is like trying to catch a cannon-ball. I have seen him at tennis. It is a splendid sight to behold the young fellow bounding over the court with streaming yellow hair, like young Apollo in a flannel jacket.

The other head boys are Lawrence the captain, Bunce, famous chiefly for his magnificent appetite, and Pitman, surnamed Roscius, for his love of the drama. Add to these Swanky, called Macassar, from his partiality to that condiment, and who has varnished boots, wears white gloves on Sundays, and looks out for Miss Pinkerton’s school (transferred from Chiswick to Rodwell Regis, and conducted by the nieces of the late Miss Barbara Pinkerton, the friend of our great lexicographer, upon the principles approved by him, and practised by that admirable woman,) as it passes into church.

Representations have been made concerning Mr. Horace Swanky’s behavior; rumors have been uttered about notes in verse, conveyed in three-cornered puffs, by Mrs. Ruggles, who serves Miss Pinkerton’s young ladies on Fridays,–and how Miss Didow, to whom the tart and enclosure were addressed, tried to make away with herself by swallowing a ball of cotton. But I pass over these absurd reports, as likely to affect the reputation of an admirable seminary conducted by irreproachable females. As they go into church Miss P. driving in her flock of lambkins with the crook of her parasol, how can it be helped if her forces and ours sometimes collide, as the boys are on their way up to the organ-loft? And I don’t believe a word about the three-cornered puff, but rather that it was the invention of that jealous Miss Birch, who is jealous of Miss Raby, jealous of everybody who is good and handsome, and who has HER OWN ENDS in view, or I am very much in error.

THE DEAR BROTHERS.

A MELODRAMA IN SEVERAL ROUNDS.

THE DOCTOR.

MR. TIPPER, Uncle to the Masters Boxall.

BOXALL MAJOR, BOXALL MINOR, BROWN, JONES, SMITH, ROBINSON, TIFFIN MINIMUS.

B. Go it, old Boxall!

J. Give it him, young Boxall!

R. Pitch into him, old Boxall!

S. Two to one on young Boxall!

[Enter TIFFIN MINIMUS, running.

Tiffin Minimus.–Boxalls! you’re wanted. (The Doctor to Mr. Tipper.)–Every boy in the school loves them, my dear sir; your nephews are a credit to my establishment. They are orderly, well-conducted, gentlemanlike boys. Let us enter and find them at their studies.

[Enter The DOCTOR and Mr. TIPPER.

GRAND TABLEAU.

THE LITTLE SCHOOL-ROOM.

What they call the little school-room is a small room at the other end of the great school; through which you go to the Doctor’s private house, and where Miss Raby sits with her pupils. She has a half-dozen very small ones over whom she presides and teaches them in her simple way, until they are big or learned enough to face the great school-room. Many of them are in a hurry for promotion, the graceless little simpletons, and know no more than their elders when they are well off.

She keeps the accounts, writes out the bills, superintends the linen, and sews on the general shirt-buttons. Think of having such a woman at home to sew on one’s shirt-buttons! But peace, peace, thou foolish heart!

Miss Raby is the Doctor’s niece. Her mother was a beauty (quite unlike old Zoe therefore); and she married a pupil in the old Doctor’s time who was killed afterwards, a captain in the East India service, at the siege of Bhurtpore. Hence a number of Indian children come to the Doctor’s; for Raby was very much liked, and the uncle’s kind reception of the orphan has been a good speculation for the school-keeper.