off my head, I suppose--for the mater
came and I didn't know her till I got better, and then she told me that
the doctor had said I must go to Italy for the winter, as my lungs were
very weak, and she was going with me, and we should be there till April
or May.

The Head told me he hoped I would take some books with me, and do a
little reading when I was better. You bet I did! The mater packed them,
but they weren't much, the worse for wear when I brought them back to
St. Margaret's again.

The Head also hoped I would use the opportunity to study Italian
antiquities. I did take a look at some, but didn't think much of them.
They took me at Rome to the Tarpeian Rock, but it wouldn't hurt a kid to
be chucked down there, let alone a traitor; and the Coliseum wanted
livening up with Buffalo Bill. The only antiquities I really cared for
were the old corpses and bones of the Capucini, which everybody knows
about, but has not had the luck to see as I did.

But I had a walk round so as to be able to say I'd seen the other
things, and brag about them when they turned up in Virgil or Livy, and
set old Crabtree right when he came a cropper over them, presuming on
our knowing less than he did. There was too much for a fellow to do for
him to waste time over such rot as antiquities. You can always find as
many antiquities as you want in Smith's Dictionary.

Before I went I swapped my dormouse with Jones ma. for his revolver. I
couldn't take the dormouse with me, and I knew you were bound to have a
revolver when you risked your life among foreigners and brigands, which
Italy is full of, as everybody knows. Where should I be if I fell in
with a crew of them and hadn't a revolver? Besides, I was responsible
for the mater.

Jones ma.'s revolver wouldn't shoot, but it looked all right, and no
brigand will wait to see if your revolver will go off when you present
it at his head. All you have to do is to shout "Hands up!" and he either
lets you take all the diamonds and things he has stolen from fools who
hadn't revolvers, or runs away. I cut a slit in my trousers behind, and
sewed in a pocket, and practised lugging the revolver out in a jiffy,
and getting a bead on an imaginary brigand. I was pretty spry at it, and
knew I should be all right. And it was just that revolver which saved
me, as you will see.

We travelled through Paris and a lot of other places, stopping at most
of them, for I was still rather weak, and the mater was