"It seems almost too good to be true.

Only fancy, no more thrashing except for lying and things of that sort, and treating us like friends! and he talked as if he meant it too." "That he did," Ned said gravely; "and I tell you, fellows, we shall have to work now, and no mistake.

A fellow who will not work for such a man as that deserves to be skinned." "I expect," said James Mather, who was one of the biggest boys in the school though still in the third class, "that it's all gammon, just to give himself a good name, and to do away with the bad repute the school has got into for Hathorn's flogging.

You will see how long it will last! I ain't going to swallow all that soft soap." Ned, who had been much touched at the master's address, at once fired up: "Oh! we all know how clever you are, Mather--quite a shining genius, one of the sort who can see through a stone wall.

If you say it's gammon, of course it must be so." There was a laugh among the boys.
"I will punch your head if you don't shut up, Sankey," Mather said angrily; "there's no ink bottle for you to shy here." Ned turned very white, but he checked himself with an effort.
"I don't want to fight today--it's the first day of the half year, and after such a speech as we've heard I don't want to have a row on this first morning.