I had a hard, a cruel life at that school. When I lived with my nurse, the boys in the street used to beat me because I was too much of the gentleman, and now the young gentlemen thrashed me for not coming up to their standard of gentility. I saw a tyrant in every urchin that was stronger than myself, and a derider in him that was weaker. The next morning after my arrival, a fellow a little bigger than myself, came up, and standing before me, gave me very deliberately as hard a slap in the face as his strength would permit. Half crying with the pain, and yet not wishing to be thought quarrelsome, I asked, with good-natured humility, whether that was done in jest or in earnest. The little insolent replied, in his school-boy wit, "Betwixt and between." I couldn't stand that; my passion and my fist rose together, and hitting my oppressor midway between the eyes, "There's my betwixt and between," said I. His nose began to bleed, and when I went down into the school-room, the "new boy" had his hands well warmed with the ruler for fighting. Alas! the first year of my academic life was one of unqualified wretchedness. For the two or three initiatory months, uncouth in speech, and vulgar in mien, with no gilded toy, rich plum-cake, or mint-new shilling to conciliate, I was despised and ridiculed; and when it was ascertained by my own confession that I was the son of a day-labourer, I was shunned by the aristocratic progeny of butchers, linen-drapers, and hatters. It took, at least, a half-dozen floggings to cure me of the belief that Joseph Brandon and his wife were my parents. It was the shortest road to conviction, and Mr Root prided himself upon short _cuts_ in imparting knowledge. I assure my readers they were severe ones.