“Besides, it was an egg, sir, not a tomato at all.”
“Boy! Do I understand you to say that it was your intention to throw an egg at a member of my Staff?” exclaimed the Head.
Bunter quaked.
“Oh! No, sir!” he howled. “I didn’t — I mean I wasn’t — I never! I — I was saying something else when Mr. Prout heard me say I’d shy it at him, sir — . Besides, I dropped the egg, sir, and — and it was smashed — not — not that I had an egg at all, sir! I — I never found it at the back of the study cupboard, sir — you — you can ask Toddy, sir — he saw me taking it out — .”
“Bless my soul!” repeated the Head.
“You hear him, sir?” boomed Prout. “You hear him? A more utterly and unscrupulously untruthful boy, sir — .”
“The matter seems clearly established,” said Dr. Locke. “Bunter! You were heard to threaten to throw something at Mr. Prout — apparently an egg! — and a tomato was thrown — .”
“Oh, yes, sir, but — but — but an egg ain’t a tomato, sir — I — I mean, a — a tomato ain’t an egg, sir — ,” wailed Bunter. “It was an egg I was going to chuck, sir — I — I mean that I wasn’t going to chuck, sir — . I — I don’t know anything about a tomato, sir — .”
“You need say no more, Bunter.”
The Banishing of Billy Bunter, by Frank Richards, 1956