 a fall over his stool. This
was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared
to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had
launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at
the masthead, bearing the inscription »Tidd's Practice,« under which diabolical
ensign he was carrying me and little Em'ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned.
    I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school next day,
and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by degrees, that in
less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions. I
was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough in their studies; but
custom would improve me in the first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the
second. Accordingly, I went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and
gained great commendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby
life became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present life
grew so familiar, that I seemed to have been leading it a long time.
    Doctor Strong's was an excellent school; as different from Mr. Creakle's as
good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound
system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys,
and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless
they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we
had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and
dignity. Hence, we soon became warmly attached to it - I am sure I did for one,
and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise - and learnt
with a good will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and
plenty of liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of in the
town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the
reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's boys.
    Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor's house, and through them
I learned, at second hand, some particulars of the Doctor's history. As, how he
had not yet been married twelve months to the beautiful young
