The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's: A School StoryReed, Talbot Baines
History
The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's: A School Story
Reed, Talbot Baines
Boarding schools -- England -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
Saint Dominic's flourishes still, and only last season beat the County
by five wickets! The captain on that occasion was a fellow called
Stephen Greenfield, who carried his bat for forty-eight in the first
innings. He is a big fellow, is the captain, and has got a moustache.
Though he is the oldest boy at Saint Dominic's, every one talks of him
as "Greenfield junior." He is vastly popular, and fellows say there
never was such a good Sixth at the school since the days of his brother,
Greenfield senior, five years ago. The captain is an object of special
awe among the youngsters of the Fourth Junior, who positively quake in
their shoes whenever his manly form appears in the upper corridor.
These youngsters, by the way, are still the liveliest section of Saint
Dominic's. The names Guinea-pig and Tadpole have died out, and left
behind them only the Buttercups and Daisies, who, however, are as fierce
rivals and as inky scamps as even their predecessors were. There is a
lout of a fellow in the Fourth Senior called Bramble, who is extremely
"down" on these juveniles, always snubbing them, and, along with one
Padger, a friend of his, plotting to get them into trouble. But somehow
they are not much afraid of Bramble, whereat Bramble is particularly
furious, and summons Padger to a "meeting" about once a week in his
study, there to take counsel against these irreverent Buttercups and
Daisies.
About the only other fellow the reader will recollect is Paul, now in
the Sixth, a steady-going sort of fellow, who, by the way, has just won
the Nightingale Scholarship, greatly to the delight of his particular
friend the captain.
Last year the Fifth tried to revive an old institution of their Form, in
the shape of a newspaper entitled the _Dominican_, directed chiefly
against the members of the Sixth. But somehow the undertaking did not
come off. The _Dominican_ was a very mild affair for one thing, and
there was nothing amusing about it for another thing, and there was a
good deal offensive about it for another thing; and for another thing,
the captain ordered it to be taken down off the wall on the first day of
its appearance, and announced that if he had any more of this nonsense
he would thrash one or two whose names he mentioned, and knock one or
two others out of the first eleven.
The _Dominican_ has not appeared since.
The big cricket match against the County I spoke of just now was a
famous event for more reasons than one. The chief reason, of course,
was the glorious victory of the old school; but another reason, almost
as notable, was the strange muster of old boys who turned up to witness
the exploits of the "youngsters."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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