I'll be hanged if I stay there," said
he. "I won't live at service--I'd rather be a sweep, or sell apples on the
dock. I'm not going to be stuck up behind their carriage, dressed up like a
monkey in a tail coat--I'll cut off my own head first." And with this
sanguinary threat he left the house, with his school-books under his arm,
intending to lay the case before his friend and adviser, the redoubtable
and sympathising Kinch.
CHAPTER III.
Charlie's Trials.
Charlie started for school with a heavy heart. Had it not been for his
impending doom of service in Mr. Thomas's family, he would have been the
happiest boy that ever carried a school-bag.
It did not require a great deal to render this young gentleman happy. All
that was necessary to make up a day of perfect joyfulness with him, was a
dozen marbles, permission to wear his worst inexpressibles, and to be
thoroughly up in his lessons. To-day he was possessed of all these
requisites, but there was also in the perspective along array of skirmishes
with Aunt Rachel, who, he knew, looked on him with an evil eye, and who had
frequently expressed herself regarding him, in his presence, in terms by no
means complimentary or affectionate; and the manner in which she had
intimated her desire, on one or two occasions, to have an opportunity of
reforming his personal habits, were by no means calculated to produce a
happy frame of mind, now that the opportunity was about to be afforded her.
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