, and contributed similar
reminiscences of his own. It was true that the boys looked upon these
two, and upon the young sporting farmers who sometimes dropped in, and
boasted of poaching, and horse-cheating exploits in a spirit of
emulation, as "cads," who had a different code from their own; but it is
very difficult to associate with persons of any station in life who
think it clever to defraud others, and consider impunity as the only
test of right or wrong, and to laugh at their dishonourable tricks,
without blunting our own moral sense. We cannot touch pitch without
being defiled.

Another great evil was the beer-drinking, at any time, whether they were
thirsty or not, which went on. Worse still, spirits were sometimes
introduced. The frequenters of Slam's spent all their pocket-money at
that place in one way or another; and the pity of it was, that most of
them would much rather, certainly at starting, have laid it out in
oyster-patties, strawberry messes, and ices, than in forming habits
which they would very probably give their right arms to be rid of in
after-life. The best hope for them, next to being found out, was that
their course of boxing lessons would soon be over, and Mr Wobbler would
go away to walk his match and clear out of the neighbourhood, and that
then they would give up frequenting this disreputable hole before the
bad habits which they were so sedulously acquiring got a complete hold
upon them. As it was at present, Topper was the only living being that
had tried to do a good turn for them; if he had succeeded in worrying
the professor, the whole clique would have broken up.

CHAPTER FIVE.

HOSTILITIES COMMENCED.

Many Weston boys who had nothing to do with Slam, who did not care for
ratting, and saw no fun in being the proprietor of a dog that could only
be seen occasionally and by stealth, took a perfectly legitimate
interest in Wobbler as a competitor in the Somersetshire ten-miles
championship, and when it became generally known that he was training in
the neighbourhood (which was not for some time, nor until the number of
boxing lessons subscribed for by the Saurin class had been pretty well
exhausted), a good many repaired when time allowed to the nice bit of
straight highroad some two miles off where the pedestrian pounded along
daily, with his body inclined somewhat forward, his arms held in front
of his chest, a little stick in his right hand, fair heel and toe, at a
rate