lled a
young trump for his pains.

He and East, having earned it, stood now looking on. No catastrophe
happened, as all the captives were cool hands, and didn't struggle. This
didn't suit Flashman. What your real bully likes in tossing is when the
boys kick and struggle, or hold on to one side of the blanket, and so
get pitched bodily on to the floor; it's no fun to him when no one is
hurt or frightened.

"Let's toss two of them together, Walker," suggested he.

"What a cursed bully you are, Flashey!" rejoined the other. "Up with
another one."

And so now two boys were tossed together, the peculiar hardship of which
is, that it's too much for human nature to lie still then and share
troubles; and so the wretched pair of small boys struggle in the air
which shall fall a-top in the descent, to the no small risk of both
falling out of the blanket, and the huge delight of brutes like
Flashman.

But now there's a cry that the prepostor of the room is coming; so the
tossing stops, and all scatter to their different rooms; and Tom is
left to turn in, with the first day's experience of a public school to
meditate upon.

CHAPTER VII--SETTLING TO THE COLLAR.

"Says Giles, ''Tis mortal hard to go,
But if so be's I must
I means to follow arter he
As goes hisself the fust.'"--Ballad.

Everybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy, delicious state in which one
lies, half asleep, half awake, while consciousness begins to return
after a sound night's rest in a new place which we are glad to be in,
following upon a day of unwonted excitement and exertion. There are
few pleasanter pieces of life. The worst of it is that they last such
a short time; for nurse them as you will, by lying perfectly passive
in mind and body, you can't make more than five minutes or so of them.
After which time the stupid, obtrusive, wakeful entity which we call
"I", as impatient as he is stiff-necked, spite of our teeth will force
himself back again, and take possession of us down to our very toes.

It was in this state that Master Tom lay at half-past seven on the
morning following the day of his arrival, and from his clean little
white bed watched the movements of Bogle (the generic name by which the
successive shoeblacks of the School-house were known), as he marched
round from bed to bed, collecting the dirty shoes and boots, and
depositing clean ones in their places.

There he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in the