alls at cricket
during whole summer afternoons. Figs was the fellow whom he despised
most, and with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering at him, he
scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communication.

One day in private the two young gentlemen had had a difference. Figs,
alone in the school-room, was blundering over a home letter, when Cuff,
entering, bade him go upon some message, of which tarts were probably
the subject.

"I can't," says Dobbin; "I want to finish my letter."

"You _can't?_" says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document (in which many
words were scratched out, many were misspelt, on which had been spent I
don't know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the poor fellow
was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was a
grocer's wife, and lived in a back parlour in Thames Street). "You
_can't?"_ says Mr. Cuff. "I should like to know why, pray? Can't you
write to old Mother Figs tomorrow?"

"Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench, very nervous.

"Well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school.

"Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman readth letterth."

"Well, _now_ will you go?" says the other.

"No, I won't. Don't strike, or I'll _thmash_ you," roars out Dobbin,
springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked that Mr. Cuff
paused, turned down his coat sleeves again, put his hands into his
pockets, and walked away with a sneer. But he never meddled personally
with the grocer's boy after that; though we must do him the justice to
say he always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his back.

Some time after this interview it happened that Mr. Cuff, on a sunshiny
afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William Dobbin, who was lying
under a tree in the playground, spelling over a favourite copy of the
"Arabian Nights" which he had--apart from the rest of the school, who
were pursuing their various sports--quite lonely, and almost happy.

Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away with
Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed and
the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the Prince found her,
and whither we should all like to make a tour, when shrill cries, as of a
little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie, and, looking up, he
saw Cuff before him, belabouring a little boy.

It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's cart, but h