leasant. They were in good wind now, and sent him slap
up to the ceiling first time, against which his knees came rather
sharply. But the moment's pause before descending was the rub, the
feeling of utter helplessness, and of leaving his whole inside behind
him sticking to the ceiling. Tom was very near shouting to be set down,
when he found himself back in the blanket, but thought of East, and
didn't; and so took his three tosses without a kick or a cry, and was
called 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, Flashy!" rejoined the other. "Up with
another one."

And so no 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 praepostor 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