Nothing, of course, could astonish him; nothing was ever news to him; nothing could evoke his applause.

"Tim," perhaps some one would say, "do you know old Grinder (the head master) is going to be married, and we are to get a week extra holiday ?" "Ah," says Tim, to whom this is all news, "I always thought there was something of the kind up.

For my own part, I thought we should get a fortnight extra." "Buck made a good jump yesterday, Tim," says another.

"Five feet and half an inch." "Sure it wasn't three-quarters of an inch ?" is Tim's provoking answer.
Of all irritating things, perhaps the most irritating is to have your big bundle of news calmly opened and emptied, and its contents appropriated without scruple or acknowledgment.
Tim this very day has the gratification of amazing half the school with the news of Dr Grinder's approaching marriage and the consequent extra holidays, and of seeing the enthusiastic astonishment of others to whom he retails the latest achievement of the athletic Buck.
But he did not always come off so easily.

Once he was made the victim of a joke which, in any one less self-satisfied, might have effectually checked his foolish propensity.