Page:Vivian Grey, Volume 1.djvu/35

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VIVIAN GREY.
25

ing the duties of tuition to a third person, engaged these deputies merely as a sort of police, to regulate the bodies, rather than the minds, of his youthful subjects. One of the first principles of the new theory introduced into the establishment of Burnsley Vicarage by Mr. Vivian Grey, was, that the ushers were to be considered by the boys as a species of upper servants; were to be treated with civility, certainly, as all servants are by gentlemen; but that no further attention was to be paid them, and that any fellow voluntarily conversing with an usher, was to be cut dead by the whole school. This pleasant arrangement was no secret to those whom it most immediately concerned, and, of course, rendered Vivian rather a favourite with them. The men, who were sufficiently vulgars, had not the tact to conciliate the boy by a little attention, and were both, notwithstanding, too much afraid of his influence in the school to attack him openly; so they