getting
tired of not talking. He is too full of his destination to talk about
anything else, and so asks the guard if he knows Rugby.

"Goes through it every day of my life. Twenty minutes afore twelve
down--ten o'clock up."

"What sort of place is it, please?" says Tom.

Guard looks at him with a comical expression. "Werry out-o'-the-way
place, sir; no paving to streets, nor no lighting. 'Mazin' big horse and
cattle fair in autumn--lasts a week--just over now. Takes town a week to
get clean after it. Fairish hunting country. But slow place, sir, slow
place-off the main road, you see--only three coaches a day, and one on
'em a two-oss wan, more like a hearse nor a coach--Regulator--comes from
Oxford. Young genl'm'n at school calls her Pig and Whistle, and goes up
to college by her (six miles an hour) when they goes to enter. Belong to
school, sir?"

"Yes," says Tom, not unwilling for a moment that the guard should think
him an old boy. But then, having some qualms as to the truth of the
assertion, and seeing that if he were to assume the character of an old
boy he couldn't go on asking the questions he wanted, added--"That is to
say, I'm on my way there. I'm a new boy."

The guard looked as if he knew this quite as well as Tom.

"You're werry late, sir," says the guard; "only six weeks to-day to the
end of the half." Tom assented. "We takes up fine loads this day six
weeks, and Monday and Tuesday arter. Hopes we shall have the pleasure of
carrying you back."

Tom said he hoped they would; but he thought within himself that his
fate would probably be the Pig and Whistle.

"It pays uncommon cert'nly," continues the guard. "Werry free with their
cash is the young genl'm'n. But, Lor' bless you, we gets into such rows
all 'long the road, what wi' their pea-shooters, and long whips, and
hollering, and upsetting every one as comes by, I'd a sight sooner
carry one or two on 'em, sir, as I may be a-carryin' of you now, than a
coach-load."

"What do they do with the pea-shooters?" inquires Tom.

"Do wi' 'em! Why, peppers every one's faces as we comes near, 'cept the
young gals, and breaks windows wi' them too, some on 'em shoots so hard.
Now 'twas just here last June, as we was a-driving up the first-day
boys, they was mendin' a quarter-mile of road, and there was a lot of
Irish chaps, reg'lar roughs, a-breaking stones. As we comes up, 'Now,
boys,' says young gent on the box (smart young fellow and desper't
reckless