By the lower members of the school Spankie was looked up to as a perfect oracle, for he seemed to know everything, could predict who would be members of the Eleven or Eight, and tell the name and history of the latest comer, stringing on to it, if necessary, a list of all his relations, with their various achievements. One of this celebrated sock cad’s chief peculiarities was that he could scarcely utter three consecutive words without a “sir” coming at the end of them; and it was marvellous how he could change them as easily as he did into “my lord” when any of the young aristocracy came up to him. In addition to entertaining an unlimited respect for the British aristocracy, Spankie nurtured a deep contempt for trade, as the small sons of rich manufacturers, especially when they had failed to meet their liabilities, frequently had reason to know. “Good morning, sar,” Spankie would say to a scion of some house not unconnected with “cotton,” who might be rather backward in settling his debts. “Glad to see you back, sar. Bought some pocket-handkerchiefs at your establishment in the vacation, sar; cheap enough, only six shillings a dozen; but I don’t find them wash well, sar.” According to some, Spankie made quite a comfortable little sum by supplying the names of visitors to Eton to the London papers, whilst rumour also declared that on occasion the College authorities employed him to trace and recapture runaways. [SN: SOCK CADS] One of Spankie’s best-known predecessors was a sock cad named Charley Pass, who was to be seen daily stationed at the wall near the gateway with a curious tin apparatus containing pies, kept hot by a charcoal brazier. He had a peculiar cry, somewhat resembling that of the long obsolete pieman. “Ham and Veal; Mutton Eel,” he would call out as the boys were emerging from school. Young Collegers who knew his ways would drive him to fury by shouting “and dog--that’s what I want.” Trotman with his barrow was also a familiar figure in the “forties.” Another sock cad who had some pretensions to being a rival to Spankie was a hook-nosed little man known as Levi, the Jew. Spankie and he constantly indulged in verbal sparring, in which the Hebrew, who was a man of few words, as a rule got much the worst of it. On one occasion this so infuriated Levi that a battle royal ensued. Goaded to frenzy by some taunt of Spankie’s, Levi challenged him to come on, and an animated tussle ensued, speedily ended only by the appearance of one of the Masters, who, separating the combatants, thoroughly frightened both by declaring that he had a good mind to see that the two of them should be prevented from frequenting the neighbourhood of the wall. The idea of this thoroughly cowed even the irrepressible Spankie, and henceforth Levi and he lived at peace.