Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

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Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Story of a Bad Boy

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amazingly. Escorted by two or three of the schoolfellows, I walked home through the pleasant autumn twilight, battered but triumphant. As I went along, my cap cocked on one side to keep the chilly air from my eye, I felt that I was not only following my nose, but following it so closely, that I was in some danger of treading on it. I seemed to have nose enough for the whole party. My left cheek, also, was puffed out like a dumpling. I couldn't help saying to myself, "If this is victory, how about that other fellow?" "Tom," said Harry Blake, hesitating. "Well?" "Did you see Mr. Grimshaw looking out of the recitation-room window just as we left the yard?" "No was he, though?" "I am sure of it." "Then he must have seen all the row." "Shouldn't wonder." "No, he didn't," broke in Adams, "or he would have stopped it short metre; but I guess be saw you pitching into the pump which you did uncommonly strong-and of course be smelt mischief directly." "Well, it can't be helped now," I reflected. "-As the monkey said when he fell out of the cocoanut tree," added Charley Marden, trying to make me laugh. It was early candle-light when we reached the house. Miss Abigail, opening the front door, started back at my hilarious appearance. I tried to smile upon her sweetly, but the smile, rippling over my swollen cheek, and dying away like a spent wave on my nose, produced an expression of which Miss Abigail declared she had never seen the like excepting on the face of a Chinese idol. She hustled me unceremoniously into the presence of my grandfather in the sitting-room. Captain Nutter, as the recognized professional warrior of our family, could not consistently take me to task for fighting Conway; nor was he disposed to do so; for the Captain was well aware of the long-continued provocation I had endured. "Ah, you rascal!" cried the old gentleman, after hearing my story. "Just like me when I was young-always in one kind of trouble or another. I believe it runs in the family." "I think," said Miss Abigail, without the faintest expression) on her countenance, "that a table-spoonful of hot-dro-" The Captain interrupted Miss Abigail peremptorily, directing her to make a shade out of cardboard and black silk to tie over my eye. Miss Abigail must have been possessed with the idea that I had taken up pugilism as a profession, for she turned out no fewer than six of these blinders. "They'll be handy to have in the house," says Miss Abigail, grimly. Of course, so great a breach of discipline was not to be passed over by Mr. Grimshaw. He had, as we suspected, witnessed the closing scene of the fight from the school-room window, and the next morning, after prayers, I was not wholly unprepared when Master Conway and myself were called up to the desk for examination. Conway, with a piece of court-plaster in the shape of a Maltese cross on his right cheek, and I with the silk patch over my left eye, caused a general titter through the room. "Silence!" said Mr. Grimshaw, sharply. As the reader is already familiar with the leading points in the case of Bailey versus Conway, I shall not report the trial further than to say that Adams, Marden, and several other pupils testified to the fact that Conway had imposed on me ever since my first day at the Temple School. Their evidence also went to show that Conway was a quarrelsome character generally. Bad for Conway. Seth Rodgers, on the part of his friend, proved that I had struck the first blow. That was bad for me. "If you please, sir," said Binny Wallace, holding up his hand for permission to speak, "Bailey didn't fight on his own account; he fought on my account, and, if you please, sir, I am the boy to be blamed, for I was the cause of the trouble." This drew out the story of Conway's harsh treatment of the smaller boys. As Binny related the wrongs of his playfellows, saying very little of his own grievances, I noticed that Mr. Grimshaw's hand, unknown to himself perhaps, rested lightly from time to time on Wallace's sunny hair. The examination finished, Mr. Grimshaw leaned on the desk thoughtfully for a moment and then said: "Every boy in this school knows that it is against the rules to fight. If

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