CHAPTER V
NICKNAMES
The ready invention and general felicity of the public-school nickname are points upon which few public-school men are likely to disagree. If it cannot be contended that either Carpenter or Rutter afforded a supreme example, at least each was nicknamed before he had been three days in the school, and in each case the nickname was too good an accidental fit to be easily repudiated or forgotten. Thus, although almost every Carpenter has been "Chips" in his day, there was something about a big-head thrust forward upon rather round shoulders, and a tendency to dawdle when not excited, that did recall the most dilatory of domestic workmen. Chips Carpenter, however, albeit unduly sensitive in some things, had the wit to accept his immediate sobriquet as a compliment. And in the end it was not otherwise with Rutter; but in his case there were circumstances which made his nickname a secret bitterness, despite the valuable stamp it set upon his character in the public eye.
It happened that on the Saturday afternoon, directly after dinner, the majority of the house were hanging about the quad when there entered an incongruous figure from the outer world. This was a peculiarly debased reprobate, a local character of pothouse notoriety, whose
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