When we went out into the green, Old Hawkins was there--the great Hawkins, the cock of the school. I have never seen the man since, but still think of him as of something awful, gigantic, mysterious: he who could thrash everybody, who could beat all the masters; how we longed for him to put in his hand and lick Buckle! He was a dull boy, not very high in the school, and had all his exercises written for him. Buckle knew this, but respected him; never called him up to read Greek plays; passed over all his blunders, which were many; let him go out of half-holidays into the town as he pleased: how should any man dare to stop him--the great calm magnanimous silent Strength! They say he licked a Life-Guardsman: I wonder whether it was Shaw, who killed all those Frenchmen? No, it could not be Shaw, for he was dead au champ d'honneur; but he WOULD have licked Shaw if he had been alive. A bargeman I know he licked, at Jack Randall's in Slaughter House Lane. Old Hawkins was too lazy to play at cricket; he sauntered all day in the sunshine about the green, accompanied by little Tippins, who was in the sixth form, laughed and joked at Hawkins eternally, and was the person who wrote all his exercises. Instead of going into town this afternoon, Hawkins remained at Slaughter House, to see the great fight between the second and third cocks. The different masters of the school kept boarding-houses (such as Potky's, Chip's, Wickens's, Pinney's, and so on), and the playground, or “green” as it was called, although the only thing green about the place was the broken glass on the walls that separate Slaughter House from Wilderness Row and Goswell Street--(many a time have I seen Mr. Pickwick look out of his window in that street, though we did not know him then)--the playground, or green, was common to all. But if any stray boy from Potky's was found, for instance, in, or entering into, Chip's house, the most dreadful tortures were practised upon him: as I can answer in my own case. Fancy, then, our astonishment at seeing a little three-foot wretch, of the name of Wills, one of Hawkins's fags (they were both in Potky's), walk undismayed amongst us lions at Chip's house, as the “rich and rare” young lady did in Ireland. We were going to set upon him and devour or otherwise maltreat him, when he cried out in a little shrill impertinent voice, “TELL BERRY I WANT HIM!” We all roared with laughter. Berry was in the sixth form, and Wills or any under-boy would as soon have thought of “wanting” him, as I should of wanting the Duke of Wellington. Little Wills looked round in an imperious kind of way. “Well,” says he, stamping his foot, “do you hear? TELL BERRY THAT HAWKINS WANTS HIM!”