Lawrenceville School -- Fiction; Schools -- Fiction
5. No squab shall leave the House after lights without
express permission.
These regulations were not simply an exercise of arbitrary authority,
for in the House itself were certain elements which Dink perfectly
understood, and whose spheres of influence he was resolved to confine
to their own limits.
"How're you going to enforce, Sire, these imperial decrees?" asked the
Tennessee Shad, who, however, thoroughly approved.
"I have a method," said Stover, with an interior smile. "It's what I
call a Rogues' Gallery."
"I don't see," said the Tennessee Shad, puzzled.
"You will."
The first rebel was a Freshman, Bellefont, known as the Millionaire
Baby, who, due to a previous luxurious existence, had acquired manly
practices at an early age. Bellefont was detected with the odor of
tobacco.
"Young squab, have you been smoking?" said Stover.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" said the youngster
defiantly.
"Gutter Pup, get your camera," said Stover.
The Gutter Pup, mystified, returned. The autocrat seized the young
rebel, slung him paternally across his knee and with raised hand
spoke:
"Gutter Pup, snap a couple of good ones. We'll make this Exhibit A in
our Rogues' Gallery."
Bellefont, at the thought of this public perpetuation, set up a howl
and kicked as though mortally stung. Stover held firm. The snapshots
were taken, developed and duly posted.
From that moment, in public at least, Stover's slightest gesture was
obeyed as promptly as the lifting of an English policeman's finger.
The yoke once accepted became popular alike with the older members,
who ceased to be annoyed, and with the squabs themselves, who, finding
they were protected from bullying or unfair exactions, soon adopted
toward Stover an attitude of reverent idolatry that was not without
its embarrassments. He was called upon at all hours to render
decisions on matters political and philosophical, with the knowledge
that his opinion would instantly be adopted as religion. Before him
were brought all family quarrels, some serious, some grotesque; but
each class demanding a settlement in equity.
One afternoon Dennis maliciously piloted to his presence Pee-wee
Norris and his new roommate, a youngster named Berbacker, called
Cyclops from the fact that one eye was glass, a gift that brought him
a peculiar admiration and envy.
Stover, observing the cunning expression on Finnegan's face, scented a
trap. The matter was, indeed, very grave.
"See here, Dink," said Pee-wee indignantly; "I leave it to you. How
would you like to stumble upon a loose eye all over the room?"
"A what?"
"A loose eye. This fellow Cyclops is all the time leaving his glass
eye around in my diggin's and I don't like it. It's the deuce of a
thing to find it winking up at you from the table or the window-seat.
It gives me the creeps."
"What have you got to say, Cyclops?" said Stover, assuming a judicial
air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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