F. Anstey

“ He had been seeking distraction in almonds and raisins, but now they only choked instead of consoling him, and he gave them up and sat brooding silently over his hard lot instead, with a dull, blank dejection which those only who have gone through the same thing in their boyhood will understand. To others, whose school life has been one unchequered course of excitement and success, it will be incomprehensible enough—and so much the better for them. ”

“ How warm and comfortable the room looked—more comfortable than it had ever seemed to him before, even on the first day of the holidays!
And his father would be sitting there in a quarter of an hour's time, just as he was now, while he himself would be lumbering along to the station through the dismal raw fog!
How unspeakably delightful it must be, thought Dick enviously, to be grown up and never worried by the thoughts of school and lesson-books ”

“ Bultitude began to feel the silence becoming once more oppressive, and roused himself with a yawn. 'Heigho!' he said, 'Boaler's an uncommonly long time fetching that cab!'
Dick felt more injured than ever, and showed it by drawing what he intended for a moving sigh.
Unfortunately it was misunderstood.
'I do wish, sir,' said his parent testily, 'you would try to break yourself of that habit of breathing hard. The society of a grampus (for it's no less) delights no one and offends many—including me—and for Heaven's sake, Dick, don't kick the leg of the table in that way ”

“ The stoutest hearted boy, returning to the most perfect of schools, cannot always escape something of this at that dark hour when the sands of the holidays have run out to their last golden grain, when the boxes are standing corded and labelled in the hall, and some one is going to fetch the fatal cab. ”

“ Bultitude, as if he considered money an object of art.
'I shan't spend it all at once, and I shall want some to put in the plate on Sundays. We always have to put in the plate when it's a collection. And there's the cab to pay.'
'Boaler has orders to pay your cab—as you know well enough,' said Paul, 'but I suppose you must have some, though you cost me enough, Heaven knows, without this additional expense.'
And at this he brought up a fistful of loose silver and gold from one of his trouser-pockets, and spread it deliberately out on the table in front of him in shining rows. ”

“ There was no one; but even if there had been such a person, Paul Bultitude was a sober prosaic individual, who would probably have treated the warning as a piece of ridiculous superstition.
As it was, no man could have put himself in a position of extreme peril with a more perfect unconsciousness of his danger. ”