To "get a lip" quickly, I always
carried my mouthpiece in my pocket, and blew noiselessly into it
perpetually, even in school. Tosher had noticed this. One day my
algebra paper was even worse than usual. With the best intentions
in the world to master this intricate branch of knowledge, algebra
conveyed nothing whatever to my brain. To state that A + b = xy,
seemed to me the assertion of a palpable and self-evident
falsehood. After looking through my paper, Tosher called me up.
"Your algebra is quite hopeless, Hamilton. You will write me out a
Georgic. No; on second thoughts, as you seem to like your brass
instrument, you shall bring it up to my house every morning for
ten days, and as the clock strikes seven, you shall play me "Home,
Sweet Home" under my window." Accordingly every morning for ten
days I trudged through the High Street of Harrow with my big brass
instrument under my arm, and as seven rang out from the school
clock, I commenced my extremely lugubrious rendering of "Home,
Sweet Home," on the euphonium, to a scoffing and entirely
unsympathetic audience of errand-boys and early loafers, until
Tosher's soap-lathered face nodded dismissal from the window.
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