SCHOOL DAYS
"All right, sir," says Cooey, touching his hat, with a leer and a wink at his companions.
"Hullo, though," says East, pulling up and taking another look at Tom, "this 'll never do—haven't you got a hat?—we never wear caps here. Only the louts wear caps. Bless you, if you were to go into the quadrangle with that thing on, I—don't know what'd happen." The very idea was quite beyond young Master East, and he looked unutterable things.
Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but confessed that he had a hat in his hat-box; which was accordingly at once extracted from the hind boot and Tom equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, as his new friend called it. But this didn't quite suit his fastidious taste in another minute, being too shiny; so, as they walk up the town, they dive into Nixon's the hatter's, and Tom is arrayed, to his utter astonishment, and without paying for it, in a regulation cat-skin at seven-and-sixpence, Nixon undertaking to send the best hat up to the matron's room, School-house, in half an hour.
"You can send in a note for a tile on Monday, and make it all right, you know," said Mentor; "we're allowed two seven-and-sixers a half, besides what we bring from home."
Tom by this time began to be conscious of his new social position and dignities, and to luxuriate in the realized ambition of being a public-school boy at last, with a vested right of spoiling two seven-and-sixers in half a year.
"You see," said his friend, as they strolled up toward the school-gates, in explanation of his conduct, "a great deal depends on how a fellow cuts up at first. If he's got nothing odd about him, and answers straightforward and holds his head up, he gets on. Now you'll do very well as to rig, all but that cap. You see, I'm doing the handsome thing by you, because my father knows yours; besides, I want to please the old lady. She gave me a half-a-sov. this half, and perhaps 'll double it next, if I keep in her good books."
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