Chapter 16 CHAPTER 3

The New Schoolfellow IT was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school: a day quite in keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had not carried in his pocket a parcel of sugar candy and a small Dutch doll for little Laura , there would have been no ray of expected pleasure to enliven the general gloom. But he liked to think how Laura would put out her lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugar candy, and, to give the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagination, he took out the parcel, made a small hole in the paper and bit off a crystal or two, which had so solacing an effect under the confined prospect and damp odours of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated the process more than once on his way. `Well, Tulliver, were glad to see you again, said Mr Stelling, heartily. `Take off your wrappings and come into the study till dinner. You'll find a bright fire there and a new companion.

Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St Oggs, but had always turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible. companion even if Philip had not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how a bad mans son could be very good. His own father was a good man, and he would readily have fought any one who said the contrary. He was in a state of mingled embarrassment and defiance as he followed Mr Stelling to the study. `Here is a new companion for you, to shake hands with, Tulliver, said that gentleman on entering the study, - `Master Philip Wakem. I shall leave you to make acquaintance by yourself. You already know something of each other, I imagine - for you are neighbors at home.

Tom looked confused and awkward while Philip rose and glanced at him timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he was not prepared to say, `How do you do? Mr Stelling wisely turned away and closed the door behind him: boys shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders. Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk towards Tom. He thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him: every one, almost, disliked looking at him; So they remained without shaking hands or even speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every now and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece of paper he had before him. He had seated himself again, and as he drew was thinking what he could say to Tom, and trying to overcome his own repugnance to making the first advances.

Tom began to look often and longer at Philips face, for he could see it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeable face - very old-looking, Tom thought: he wondered how much older Philip was than himself. - even a mere physiognomist - would have seen that the deformation of Philips spine was not a congenital hump, but the result of an accident in infancy; but you do not expect from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions: to him, Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformation of Wakems son had some relation to the lawyers rascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk with hot emphasis; and he felt too a half-admitted fear of him as probably a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight you, had cunning ways of doing you a mischief by the sly. There was a humpbacked tailor in the neighborhood of Mr Jacobs Academy, who was considered a very unamiable character, and was much shot after by public-spirited boys s olely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral qualities; so that Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon. Still, no face could be more unlike that ugly tailors than this melancholy boys face: the brown hair round it waved and curled at the ends like a girls - Tom thought that truly pitiable. This Wakem was a pale, puny fellow, and it was quite clear he would not be able to play at anything worth speaking of; was apparently making one thing after another without any trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted something new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeable to have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand looking out of the study window at the rain and kicking his foot against the washboard in solitude; something would happen every day - `a quarrel or something; and Tom thought he should rather like to show Philip that he had better not try his spiteful tricks on him. He sudd only walked across the hearth, and looked over Philips paper.

`Why, thats donkey with panniers - and a spaniel, and partridges in the corn! he exclaimed, his tongue being completely loosed by surprise and admiration. `O my buttons! I wish I could draw like that. Im to learn drawing this half - I wonder if I shall learn to make dogs and donkeys! `O you can do them without learning, said Philip. `I never learned drawing. `Never learned? said Tom, in amazement. `Why when I make dogs and horses and those things, the heads and the legs won't come right; though I can see how they ought to be very well. sorts of chimneys - chimneys going all down the wall, and windows in the roof and all that. But I daresay I could do dogs and horses if I was to try more, he added, reflecting that Philip might falsely suppose that he was going to `knock under, if he were too frank about the imperfection of his accomplishments.

`O yes, said Philip, `Its very easy. Youve only to look well at things, and draw them over and over again. What you do wrong once, you can alter the next time, `But havent you been taught anything? said Tom, beginning to have a puzzled suspicion that Philips crooked back might be the source of remarkable faculties, `I thought youd been to school a long while, `Yes, said Philip, smiling. `Ive been taught Latin and Greek and mathematics... and writing and such things. `O but, I say, you dont like Latin though do you? said Tom, lowering his voice confidentially. `Pretty well - I dont care much about it, said Philip.

`Ah, but perhaps you havent got into the Propiae quae maribus, said Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as to say, `that was the test: it was easy talking until you came to that. Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising stupidity of this well-made active-looking boy; but made polite by his own extreme sensitivity as well as by his desire to conciliate, he checked his inclination to laugh, and said quietly, `Ive done with the grammar: I dont learn that any more. `Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall, said Tom, with a sense of disappointment. `No; but I daresay I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you if I can.

Tom did not say `Thank You, for he was quite absorbed in the thought that Wakems son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have been expected. `I say, he said presently, `do you love your father? `Yes, said Philip, coloring deeply, `dont you love yours? `O yes... I only wanted to know, said Tom, rather ashamed of himself now he saw Philip coloring and looking uncomfortable. He found much difficulty in adjusting his attitude of mind towards the son of Lawyer Wakem, and it had occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father, that fact might go some way towards clearing up his perplexity.

`Shall you learn drawing now? he said, by way of changing the subject. `No, said Philip. `My father wishes me to give all my time to other things now. `What Latin, and Euclid, and those things? said Tom. `Yes, said Philip, who had left off using his pencil and was resting his head on one hand, while Tom was leaning forward on both elbows, and looking with increasing admiration at the dog and the donkey. `And you don't mind that? said Tom, with strong curiosity. `No: I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like by and by. `I cant think why anybody should learn Latin, said Tom. `Its no good.

`Its part of the education of a gentleman, said Philip. `All gentlemen learn the same things. `What, do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knows Latin? said Tom, who had often thought he should like to resemble Sir John Crake. `He learned it when he was a boy, of course, said Philip `But I dare say hes forgotten it. `O, well, I can do that, then, said Tom, not with any epigrammatic intention, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that as far as Latin was concerned, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir John Crake. `Only you obliged to remember it while you are at school, else you've got to learn ever so many lines of `Speaker Mr Stellings very particular - did you know? Hell have you up ten times if you say "nam" for "jam"... he wont let you go a letter wrong, i can tell you.

`OI dont mind, said Philip, unable to choke a laugh, `I can remember things easily. And there are some lessons Im very fond of. Im very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. a Greek and fought the Persians, and then have come home and have written tragedies, or else have been listened to by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand death. (Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to impress the well-made barbarian with a sense of his mental superiority.) `Why, were the Greeks great fighters? said Tom, who saw a vista in this direction. `Is there anything like David and Goliath, and Samson, in the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history of the Jews . `O, there are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks - about the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as Samson did. And in the Odyssey - thats a beautiful Poem - theres a more wonderful giant than Goliath - Polypheme , who had only one eye in the middle of his forehead, and Ulysses, a little fellow, but very wise and cunning, got a red-hot pine-tree and stuck it into this one eye and made him, roar like a thousand bulls . `O what fun! said Tom, Jumping away from the table and stamping first with one leg and then the other. `I say, can you tell me all about those stories? Because I shant learn Greek, you know... . Shall I? he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the contrary might be possible. `Does every gentleman learn Greek?... Will Mr Stelling make me begin with it, do you think? `No, I should think not - very likely not, said Philip. `But you may read those stories without knowing Greek. `O but I dont like reading: Id sooner have you tell them me. But only the fighting ones, you know. My sister Maggie is always wanting to tell me stories - but theyre stupid things. Girls stories always are. good many fighting stories? `O Yes, said Philip. `Lots of them, besides the Greek stories. I can tell you about Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin, and about William Wallace, and Robert Bruce and James Douglas - I Know no end. `Youre older than I am arent you? said Tom. `Why, how old are you Im fifteen. `Im only going in fourteen, said Tom. `But I thrashed all the fellows at Jacobs - thats where I was before I came here. And I beat em all at bandy and climbing. And I wish Mr Stelling would let us go fishing. I could show you how to fish. You could fish, couldn't you? Its only standing, and sitting still, you know. Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favour. This hunchback must not suppose that his acquaintance with fighting stories put him on a par with an actual fighting hero like Tom Tulliver. Philip wonced under this allusion to his fitness for active sports, and he answered almost peevishly, `I Cant bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching a line hour after hour - or else throwing and throwing, and catching nothing. `Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when they landed a big pike, I can tell you, said Tom, who had never caught anything that was `big in his life, but whose imagination was on the stretch with indignant zeal for the honor of sport. Wakems son, it was plain, had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Happily for the harmony of this first interview, they were now called to dinner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his unsound views on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to himself: that was just what he should have expected from a hunchback.