I am taken home in a
sad plight, to have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar
and brandy, and find a great white puffy place on my upper lip, and for
several days I remain in the house with a green shade over my eyes, and
yet feeling that I did right to fight the butcher.
I change more and more, and now I am the head boy. I wear a gold watch and
chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat. I am
seventeen, and am smitten with a violent passion for the eldest Miss
Larkins, who is about thirty. She amuses herself with me as with a new
toy, wears my ring for a season, and then announces her engagement to a
Mr. Chestle. I am terribly dejected for a week or two, then I rally,
become a boy once more, fight the butcher again, gloriously defeat him,
and feel better,--and soon my school days draw to a close.
My aunt and I had many grave deliberations on the calling to which I
should devote myself, but could come to no conclusion, as I had no
particular liking that I could discover, for any profession. So my aunt
proposed that while I was thinking the matter over, I take a little trip,
a breathing spell, as it were.
"What I want you to be, Trot," said my aunt,--"I don't mean physically,
but morally; you are very well physically--is, a firm fellow, a fine, firm
fellow, with a will of your own, with determination.
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