"
"Pinkerton!" it was now my turn to exclaim. "Are you
Broken-Stool Pinkerton?"
He admitted his identity with a laugh of boyish
delight; and indeed any young man in the quarter might
have been proud to own a sobriquet thus gallantly
acquired.
In order to explain the name, I must here digress into
a chapter of the history of manners in the nineteenth
century, very well worth commemoration for its own
sake. In some of the studios at that date, the hazing
of new pupils was both barbarous and obscene. Two
incidents, following one on the heels of the other,
tended to produce an advance in civilisation by the
means (as so commonly happens) of a passing appeal to
savage standards. The first was the arrival of a
little gentleman from Armenia. He had a fez upon his
head and (what nobody counted on) a dagger in his
pocket. The hazing was set about in the customary
style, and, perhaps in virtue of the victim's head-
gear, even more boisterously than usual. He bore it at
first with an inviting patience; but upon one of the
students proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked
out his knife and suddenly plunged it in the belly of
the jester.
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