There was never any order to it, no one commanded the charge. Most often it fizzled, the build-up somehow losing its heat and we would troop back to class when the bell rang, and oddly it was always somewhat disappointing when the charge never came. But other times the emotions would boil over, and the charge would be on—once one side started, the other knew that offence was by far the best chance for survival. For at the back of the ranks, the senior boys, the veterans with nothing to prove, prowled to intercept run-aways and give them a far worse kicking that they might have received in the crunch.

At Mr. Wackford Squeers’ Academy, Dotheboys Hall…. Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessities, instructed in all languages living and dead… No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled.
Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
    Nicholas Nickleby? No thank you. Oliver Twist on his way to becoming David Copperfield, with none of the merits of either. I really don’t understand how people could like this one. They reckon it’s a fine example of Dickensian energy and spirit but I must have skimmed over those bits. A wormy hero, dreary misfortunes and even more improbable recoveries. Squeers, the villain, does his best to liven things up but he is such a germ that the task is beyond him. Dickens was trying to describe his version of a Moorabbin Tech, but it was all too exaggerated (no matter how true) to be believable. The point is that, having also attended an abominable academic institution, I should have been able to connect with this, but I encountered no point of comparison. Perhaps that is the reason for my disappointment while all around me they sing its praises. Looking through my copy—which I read I know not when—and having seen one movie, one play and two TV series made from the bloody thing without my initial impression of tedium being altered one iota—I hardly found any part of it I remembered.
    Of course, Dickens was still in development at this stage and allowances must be made in all fairness. You just can’t expect a genius to be a genius all the time. Of his seventeen novels, he produced at least five masterpieces by anyone’s count, (more than anyone else in all literature) and five more pretty good ones. This is one of the other seven.