Catch me! It's better fun here--as much cricket as you like, and a river, and gymnasium, and all sorts of sprees.

It wouldn't be half bad if you were here, kid; but I suppose you're a young gent with a topper and a bag at your guardian's office.

I hope it suits you--wouldn't me--" and so on.
How this letter made me long to be at Low Heath, and how it made me realise what an ass I had been to go in for that crib! I really felt too bad to go that day to Miss Steele, even if she would have let me! and wandered about cudgelling my brains how on earth I could get her to take me back again.
She wouldn't believe my protestations, I knew; but she might believe deeds, not words.
So I shut myself up in my room and took down my arithmetic, and worked out sum after sum all off my own bat, till my brain reeled and I could hardly distinguish one figure from another.

Some I knew were wrong, others I hoped were right; all were _bona fide_.

I stuck to it till nearly midnight, and then, merely writing my name on the top, put them into an envelope, under the flap of which I wrote, "I've burnt the crib.
Try me this once," and posted them to my offended teacher.
No answer came for twenty-four hours, which I spent on pins and needles, working away frantically during my leisure hours, and occupying part of my business time in personally avenging an insult offered to Miss Steele's name by one of my guardian's junior clerks.