enclosure no. ii.—from the same to the same.
dear father,
i hope you wont be angry at writing of my own acord and if you like you may stop the postage out of what you mean to give me next time, but the other letter was all a flam and didnt speak my real mind. the doctor frumpt it all up out of his own head, and we all copied it out for all our fathers. what i want to tell you is as the holidays is so nigh, i do wish you would make up your mind for me to be took away for good and all. i dont like the victuals for one thing and besides i am allmost sure we are not well teached. the table beer always gives me the stomach ake if i don’t tie a string tight round it and i only wish you see some of mr. murphy’s ruling when he smells so of rum another thing is the batter puddings which the fellows call it putty, because it sticks pains in our insides, and sometimes we have stinking beef. tom spooner has saved a bit on the sly to show parents, but it’s so strong we are afeard it wont keep over the three weeks to the holidays, and we are treated like gally slaves, and hare and hounds is forbid because last time the hare got up behind the chelmsford coach and went home to his friends in leadenhall market. as for sums
[pg 401]
we know the ciphering master has got a tutors key because theres a board at the bottom of his desk comes out with a little coaxing, and more than that hes a cruel savage and makes love to masters daughter, and shes often courted in the school room because its where her father don’t come so much as anywheres else. the new footman is another complaint. the doctor dont allow him nothing a year for his wages except his profits out of the boys with fruit and pastery, and besides being rotten and stale, hes riz burnt almonds twice since micklemas. then we are almost quite sure monseur le smith dont know italian at least we have always observed he never talks to the image boys, and the old cook never favours no one now except carter with sop in pans ever since his mother come to see him. and thats
[pg 402]
why i do hope at my next school you will raise my pocket money, its unpossible to tip handsome out of sixpence a week. jackson saved enough to buy a donkey and then divided him into shares and i had a shilling share but the doctor were so unjust as seize on him altho there was no law agin bringing asses to the school. it was the same on guy fox day with our squibs and rockets which we was more mortified to hear them going off after we were in bed. i am certain sure we should have had a barring out in our school room long and long ago only the doctor hardly ever wants to come in. thats the way the ushers do just as they like in school hours and mr. huckings does a leathersellers bookkeeping and mr. snitch makes poetry for the newspapers. its not my fault then if i am backwards in my greek and latin though i have got a prize for spelling and grammer but we all have prizes for something to please our parents when we go home. the only treat we have is reddishes out of the garden when they are got old and burning hot and popgunny and them wont last long as masters going to keep pigs. i suppose then we shall have measely pork to match the stinking beef. the fellows say its because the doctor swops stokes’s schooling agin butchers meat and as the edication is so very bad old stokes on his part wont send in any better quality. thats whats called mutual accommodation in the newspapers. give my love to mrs. rumsey with thanks for the plum cake only next time more sweetmeat, and say i am almost sure i sometimes sleep in a damp bed. i am certain sure mrs. rumsey would advise you the same as i do, namely for me to be took away, without running more risks, if it was only for fear of mac kenzie, for hes a regular tyrant and hectors over us all. hes three parts a nigger and you cant punch his head so as to do any good, and only last monday he was horsed for wanting to googe little jones’s eyes out and for nothing at all but just looking at his towel to see if the black come off. i am ready to
[pg 403]
take my drop down dead if it is not all faithfully true, mac kenzie and the beef and the footman and all, and i do hope you will trust to my word and be agreeable to my offer to be took away and i do hope it will be before next saturday for that’s mr. paynes visiting day, the drawing master as i call him, but some of the fellows have nick named him sinbad because he hunted the elephants so for their teeth. philip frank says theres a capital school at richmond where the master permits fishing and boating and cigars and gunpowder and poney chaises for only sixty guineas a year. i often think if my poor dear late mother was alive it is just the genteel sort of school she would like me to be finished off at. but thats as you prefer and if you will only promise upon your honour to remove me i wont run away. i forgot to say i have very bad head akes some
[pg 404]
times besides the stomach akes and last week i was up in the nussery for being feverish and spotty, and i had to take antimonious wine but nothing made me sick except the gruel. precious stuff it is and tastes like slate pencil dust and salt. i was in great hopes it was scarlet fever or something catching that i might be sent home to you, but the fisician said my rash was only chickings or stinging nettles. altogether i am so unhappy at not getting on in my learning that i do beg and pray to be took away, and i will be very dutiful and grateful all the rest of my days. do, pray, do, and consider me down on my bended knees. and i will wish you every comfort in life if you will only provide for mine, and i will pray for your gout to go away for ever and ever, and then i will nurse your last days and be such a good son to you as never was except me. and in that case i owe three shillings to the footman and shouldn’t like to leave the school in debt. i shall expect to see you come in all the coaches that go the road or at least that you will fetch me in a letter, and if i am disappointed i really do believe i shall go off my head or something. with which i remain
dear father,
your dutiful and affectionate son,
robert carnaby.