Various

“ If it was all a kind of every-day affair to Pete, it was not so to his friend, and Sam's eyes were glistening with excitement. "Ain't I glad I met you!" seemed to almost burst from him; but Pete's reply was uttered in a very matter-of-fact tone.
"You'd better be glad that Captain Kroom came. We wanted a boat, too, but it's the best kind of luck to have a man that knows fish. I've known lots of fellows like you come out here to fish, and that didn't catch a thing."
"Up with her!" shouted the Captain, and in a moment the sail was full. ”

“ Peele, who was an admirable boxer for his age, regarded Gough with particular contempt.
"Squinnige would be at us before I'd blackened the other eye," he said to Gough. "Name your weapons. We'll fight this thing out like gentlemen."
Gough was staggered. If he did not assert himself his ascendency was gone forever.
"I'd like to punch your head," he said; "but, as you say, when gentlemen fight about a woman they don't do it with fists. Swords and pistols are common. I'd like something worse."
Gough's followers crowded to the support of their chief with a thrill of delight. ”

“ And he had need; for before he could push off and point his boat homeward, he saw the crocodile up the river, and coming nearer every moment.
When the crocodile had reached the shore, the canoe was well out in the river. If the animal had not stopped to crawl out on the land and look around for his victim, the boy's devotion would probably have cost him his life. As it was, the crocodile had nearly overtaken the canoe, when the boy's cries brought the villagers to the shore, and the shouts and missiles frightened the angry pursuer away. ”

“ Still, there are plenty left for shade, and though one always grudges an old and beautiful landmark, perhaps the football and cricket fields are better. To an American, the Rugby close will always be of interest as the birthplace and original home of that form of football which gave rise to our own familiar game; but if he has read Tom Brown in his boyhood, he will think of it rather as the place where Tom made his entry to Rugby life in the big-side football game, and where, with Arthur on his eleven, he played his final game of cricket. ”

“ Polyhymnia declined to carve for the forty young gentlemen, but devoted herself to the distribution of potatoes, boiled in their skins—the potatoes' skins, not the young gentlemen's. On the first day of her doing so each boy was about to devour his potato, when the Tadpole noticed that Peele gracefully removed his from his plate, wrapped it up in his handkerchief, bowed to Polyhymnia, and put it in his pocket—his breast pocket. ”

“ If you can hit on a way of working it without making asses of ourselves I'm game."
"All right," said Peele, loftily; "I'll work it out. The Tadpole acts for me. I suppose the Guinea-Pig will do the same for you?"
"Yes," said Gough, sulkily, creeping away to his end of the school-room.
Peele's followers gathered round him again and began to worship.
"Of course it's all guff," said the Tadpole. "Nothing but a stork could fight on one leg." ”

“ Certainly it is not well for an American boy to be sent to school in England. Yet granted the strictness with which English parents bring up their children, and the careful watch which is kept on young men at the universities, the public-school system seems to me the best that could possibly be devised. Independence of character and the power of using opportunities are perhaps not to be looked for among English schoolboys; but from their stricter rules they learn obedience and self-restraint, while from the exercise of power the older boys learn to govern justly and with decision. ”

“ That was what Pete had done, for he had the basket of tackle on his side of the boat. She was dashing along now, right out into the bay, and she rode the waves capitally. The sail swung away out and the boat leaned over, but for all Sam could see, the stern with Captain Kroom in it sat almost square on the water. No boat bends in the middle, but it had that look.
"She's going!" exclaimed Pete. "Tell you what, Sam, the Elephant can outsail some of the fastest boats along shore. She's a ripper!" ”

“ I wish you wouldn't speak to that beast Gough."
"Gough is full of good points," said Polyhymnia, angrily.
"So are a lot of other beasts," retorted Peele, more than ever decided that the combat should be waged to the death.
A bogus match was played under the Doctor's nose one afternoon, in which Peele's followers got decidedly the worst of it. Gough, emboldened by triumph, proposed that Peele and himself should settle their differences in Homeric combat then and there.
"I fight," retorted Peele, "when there is no chance of interruption." ”

“ He was a very large man, and very heavy. The three-cornered boat hardly seemed to feel the weight of Pete and Sam when they went into it with the bait and fishing-tackle and the other things. It rocked, of course, but it was steady enough, as if it were accustomed to boys, and did not mind having them on board. When, however, Captain Kroom finished his observations of the sea and the sky, and very deliberately put one foot into the boat at the stern, that end began to go down. ”

“ Many of them were slaves, and some of them had been brutally treated and even wounded by cruel slave-dealers. To-day they have good homes, and the world is doing all it can to make them intelligent and honorable men and women.
There are "street arabs," or homeless boys, in the Congo villages, just as there are in New York city. They live on what they can pick up, and it sharpens their wits to have to hustle for a living. It would take a smart Yankee boy to beat some of these Congo youngsters in a trade. Even a five-year-old will sometimes amass a little capital. ”

“ They both whirled around instantly.
"We weren't touching it, Captain Kroom," said Pete. "I met him up in the village, and he wants to go fishing. He says his name is Sam Williams. We've bought some clams and some sand-worms."
"Both of you get right in," commanded Captain Kroom. "I guess he's a city fellow. We'll show him some fishing. Pete, put in that pail of live bait. They're prime minnows. Sam, take the sail and boom and lay them forward, ready for me. Jump, now! the tide's turning. If we don't get right out across the bay we won't catch a bite." ”

“ It is a rule of cavalry fighting that no force of horsemen ever meet another force while standing still, for with the impetus of quick movement those in motion have force that would make up greatly for lack of numbers. Unfortunately for the Confederates their regiment that had charged the Union skirmishers, halted and broke before the main body of troopers as they came flying up the hill, and now ensued one of the strangest happenings of the war—the Southern line, stampeded and broken, was mingled with the horsemen of the North. Sabre blows and pistol-shots rang on every hand. ”

“ The time came when France sent Crampel back to Africa on a very difficult mission. He needed an interpreter among the widely spread Pahuin tribe, who are believed to number a million people. Niarinze was one of these people, and it was decided that she should go back with the explorer as his interpreter. A great crowd on the wharf saw them waving their handkerchiefs as the steamer bore them away, and that was the last that their friends in France ever saw of them. A few months later they were in an unknown country north of the Congo, and there Crampel was stabbed to death by treacherous men. ”

“ Squinnige at evening preparation.
Peele glanced ruefully at the blackboard. His look of disgust gradually gave way to a broad grin of delight. Gough (he was pressing a metal inkpot against a black eye) intercepted the grin, and looked more rueful still.
"It seems to me," said Peele, again addressing his followers, "we're going to have a jolly row."
"And all because of a few potatoes," said the Tadpole.
"And a girl," added Bates.
"Girls always do let a man in for rows," observed a youthful pessimist.
Peele checked his followers with a lordly wave of his hand. ”

“ But a mile below lived a farmer named Tanner, who managed by hard labor to gain his living from the ground. But I was not waiting for him, nor for my uncle, nor for Gaston, who, by-the-way, had been constituted, or had appointed himself, my guardian to such an extent that I might at times, with no stretching of the imagination, consider myself a prisoner. ”

“ Arnold ruled that all fights should take place within the close—that is, in the great playing-field just behind the school—every part of which his study windows overlooked. The penalty for the breach of this rule was the expulsion of all parties concerned. The fight between Tom Brown and Slogger Williams, which took place in the close behind the chapel, was no child's play; but the appearance of the Doctor at least cut it off short of manslaughter. Once fighting was put under rules, it was in the plain road toward being suppressed altogether. ”

“ The Chicago High-School Football-Players seem to have little pride in making any kind of a showing against out-of-town teams, if we may judge from the performance of Englewood against Elgin, and of Hyde Park against Madison. The Englewood High-School had a game scheduled with Elgin for Thanksgiving day, but as soon as they had won the Cook County championship the eleven disbanded. Manager Knox was at his wits' end to get a team to go to Elgin, and only succeeded in enlisting the services of three of the regular players, filling the other positions as best he could. ”

“ It would be a capital joke, I often think, to make a born reformer live in a place that was just as he liked it.
All the dearest associations at Rugby, at any rate, have to do with the fight that was fought in Arnold's time, and the most sacred landmarks and customs are those which are mentioned in Tom Brown. As you are shown through the school-house your guide points out the "double study"—fully five feet by six—which is said to have been occupied by Tom and Arthur. The boys who use it now, I am certain, never doubt that an actual Tom Brown once lived in it. ”

“ Rugby was founded in 1567, almost two hundred years later than Winchester. Its founder was not a great bishop and statesman, like Wykeham, and much less a King, like the founder of Eton, but plain Lawrence Sheriff, one of the gentlemen of the Princess Elizabeth (afterward Queen Bess) , and a warden of the Grocers' Company. At first Rugby was a mere grammar-school; and it never ranked high as a public school until Dr. Thomas Arnold, "The Doctor" of Tom Brown's School-Days, became head master. To-day Rugby holds firmly to its middle-class traditions. There is not a title in the whole place. ”

“ The little boys who sit at the side tables have to go out through the long passage; only the big boys at the middle table can go out directly. For a little boy to go out through the big boys' door would be unheard-of arrogance. This, Rugbeians think, is an excellent custom, both because it existed in Tom Brown's time, and because it teaches boys their places. ”

“ Her blushes were succeeded by others when the whole of Peele's faction proceeded to follow their chief's example, each boy enfolding the precious potato in a more or less dirty pocket-handkerchief. But after about three days' persistent accumulation of potatoes, Nature asserted itself, and Peele's followers felt that it was rather ridiculous to carry about a pound and a half of uneaten vegetables in their pockets. On the fourth day, Gough, with a vigorous sneer at Peele, had, as Peele explained, ostentatiously pitched his extra potato into the fireplace. ”

“ The Doctor looked round and saw half of his pupils reclining in various involuntary attitudes on the ground, whilst ten or twelve others put their stilts against the wall and tried in vain to get on them.
"Oh, very well, Peele," he said; "don't let your zeal carry you too far. It will be awkward if half of you are laid up with broken arms and legs." And the Doctor continued his way to a neighboring wood, there to meditate on particles.
Polyhymnia could not understand this sudden craze for stilts. She pressed Peele for an explanation. ”

“ He will probably change his mind, and, at any rate, France will give him no opportunity to make her any trouble.
Professor Drummond, after his visit to Africa, said he would like to get inside an African for an afternoon, and see how he looked at different things. Wouldn't we like to know just how these boys and girls feel, and what they think, when they are suddenly landed, fresh from the depths of a savage land, in the streets of Paris, Brussels, or Berlin, and see more things in a day they never heard of than we do in a year? They learn many things, as a baby does, by stern experience. ”