ly corrupt and godless, there are those who have not
bowed the knee to Baal.

He found too how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to be produced by
his act. For a few nights there was a sneer or a laugh when he knelt
down, but this passed off soon and one by one all the other boys but
three or four followed the lead. I fear that this was in some measure
owing to the fact, that Tom could probably have thrashed any boy in the
room except the praepostor;[5] at any rate, every boy knew that he would
try upon very slight provocation, and didn't choose to run the risk of a
hard fight because Tom Brown had taken a fancy to say his prayers.

[Footnote 5: A praepostor is a monitor, a scholar appointed to oversee
other scholars.]

THE FIGHT

There is a certain sort of fellow--we who are used to studying boys all
know him well enough--of whom you can predicate with almost positive
certainty, after he has been a month at school, that he is sure to have
a fight, and with almost equal certainty that he will have but one. Tom
Brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give
a full, true, and correct account of Tom's only single combat with a
school-fellow, let those young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or
who think a good set-to with the weapons which God has given to us all,
an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly, affair, just skip this
chapter at once, for it won't be to their taste.

It was not at all usual in those days for two school-house boys to have
a fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained,
hard-headed fellow came up, who would never be happy unless he was
quarreling with his nearest neighbors, or when there was some
class-dispute between the fifth-form and the fags, for instance, which
required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side
tacitly, who settled the matter by a good, hearty mill. But for the most
part the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the
boxing-gloves, kept the school-house boys from fighting one another. Two
or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the
hall or fifth-form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at
all, knew all his neighbors' prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a
nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy
in the house. But of course no such experience could be gotten as
regarded boys in other houses; and as most of t