Sometimes, in our solemn walks under charge of the under-masters, we occasionally encountered "the opposition school" or college fellows belonging to a large educational institution near us, when it was no rare occurrence for a skirmish to ensue between the two forces, that led to the most disastrous results, as far as subsequent "pandies" and impositions from the Doctor were concerned, or, rather, those who had to undergo them! This, of course, was in the working terms--when the school was in full blast, so to speak, and everything carried on by rule in regular rotation; but, at vacation time, when all the boys had dispersed to their several homes and were enjoying themselves, as I supposed, to their heart's content, in their respective family circles, the life that I led was a very different one.

As at my uncle's house, I was still the solitary Ishmael of the community, doomed to spend holidays and periods of study alike under the academical roof.
The first of those educational interludes during my stay at the establishment occurred at Christmas, shortly after I had taken up my residence there, and the thought of all the jollity and merry-making my more fortunate schoolfellows would have at that festive season, about which they naturally talked much before the general breaking-up, made me feel very lonesome when left behind at Beachampton; although I did not for a moment desire to return to Tapioca Villa, in order to share the delightful society of my relatives there.

However, this feeling wore off in a few days, and long before the boys came back I had learnt to be pretty well contented with my solitary lot.
But, when the midsummer recess came round, in due course, matters had altered considerably for the better on my being again left behind in my glory; and, but for the fact of being deprived of the close companionship of my constant chum Tom, I can honestly say that my life was far happier than when the school was going on as usual.
I was alone, it is true, but then I had the great counterbalancing advantage of almost entire liberty of action, being allowed to roam about the place at my own sweet will and pleasure, with no lessons to learn, and the only obligation placed on me that of reporting myself regularly at meal-times; when, as the penalty for being late consisted in my having to go without my dinner or tea, as the case might be, and I possessed an unusually sensitive appetite which seldom failed to warn me of the approach of the hour devoted to those refections, even when I was out of earshot of the gong, I earned a well-founded reputation for the most praiseworthy punctuality--the lesson I had when I first arrived at the school having given me a wholesome horror of starvation! In my wanderings about the neighbourhood I explored the country for miles round.

As for the beach, I investigated it with the painstaking pertinacity of a surveying officer of the hydrographic department of the Admiralty mapping out some newly-discovered shore.

I knew every curve and indentation of the coast eastwards as far as Worthing, with the times of high and low water and the set of the tides, and was on familiar terms with the coastguardsmen stationed between Eastbourne and Preston and thence westwards.