- The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales of St. Austin's, by P. G. Wodehouse
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- Title: Tales of St. Austin's
- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
- Posting Date: August 26, 2012 [EBook #6980]
- Release Date: November, 2004
- First Posted: February 19, 2003
- Last Updated: August 3, 2016
- Language: English
- *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF ST. AUSTIN'S ***
- Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online
- Distributed Proofreading Team
- TALES OF ST AUSTIN'S
- by P. G. Wodehouse
- 1903
- PREFACE
- Most of these stories originally appeared in _The Captain_. I am
- indebted to the Editor of that magazine for allowing me to republish.
- The rest are from the _Public School Magazine_. The story entitled
- 'A Shocking Affair' appears in print for the first time. 'This was one
- of our failures.'
- _P. G. Wodehouse_
- [Dedication]
- AD MATREM
- CONTENTS
- 1 How Pillingshot Scored
- 2 The Odd Trick
- 3 L'Affaire Uncle John (A Story in Letters)
- 4 Harrison's Slight Error
- 5 Bradshaw's Little Story
- 6 A Shocking Affair
- 7 The Babe and the Dragon
- 8 The Manoeuvres of Charteris
- 9 How Payne Bucked Up
- 10 Author!
- 11 'The Tabby Terror'
- 12 The Prize Poem
- 13 Work
- 14 Notes
- 15 Now, Talking About Cricket--
- 16 The Tom Brown Question
- [1]
- HOW PILLINGSHOT SCORED
- Pillingshot was annoyed. He was disgusted, mortified; no other word for
- it. He had no objection, of course, to Mr Mellish saying that his work
- during the term, and especially his Livy, had been disgraceful. A
- master has the right to say that sort of thing if he likes. It is one
- of the perquisites of the position. But when he went on to observe,
- without a touch of shame, that there would be an examination in the
- Livy as far as they had gone in it on the following Saturday,
- Pillingshot felt that he exceeded. It was not playing the game. There
- were the examinations at the end of term. Those were fair enough. You
- knew exactly when they were coming, and could make your arrangements
- accordingly. But to spring an examination on you in the middle of the
- term out of a blue sky, as it were, was underhand and unsportsmanlike,
- and would not do at all. Pillingshot wished that he could put his foot
- down. He would have liked to have stalked up to Mr Mellish's desk,
- fixed him with a blazing eye, and remarked, 'Sir, withdraw that remark.
- Cancel that statement instantly, or--!' or words to that effect.
- What he did say was: 'Oo, si-i-r!!'
- 'Yes,' said Mr Mellish, not troubling to conceal his triumph
- at Pillingshot's reception of the news, 'there will be a Livy
- examination next Saturday. And--' (he almost intoned this last
- observation)--'anybody who does not get fifty per cent, Pillingshot,
- fifty per cent, will be severely punished. Very severely punished,
- Pillingshot.'
- After which the lesson had proceeded on its course.
- 'Yes, it is rather low, isn't it?' said Pillingshot's friend, Parker,
- as Pillingshot came to the end of a stirring excursus on the rights of
- the citizen, with special reference to mid-term Livy examinations.
- 'That's the worst of Mellish. He always has you somehow.'
- 'But what am I to _do_?' raved Pillingshot.
- 'I should advise you to swot it up before Saturday,' said Parker.
- 'Oh, don't be an ass,' said Pillingshot, irritably.
- What was the good of friends if they could only make idiotic
- suggestions like that?
- He retired, brooding, to his house.
- The day was Wednesday. There were only two more days, therefore, in
- which to prepare a quarter of a book of Livy. It couldn't be done. The
- thing was not possible.
- In the house he met Smythe.
- 'What are you going to do about it?' he inquired. Smythe was top of the
- form, and if he didn't know how to grapple with a crisis of this sort,
- who _could_ know?
- 'If you'll kindly explain,' said Smythe, 'what the dickens you are
- talking about, I might be able to tell you.'
- Pillingshot explained, with unwonted politeness, that 'it' meant the
- Livy examination.
- 'Oh,' said Smythe, airily, 'that! I'm just going to skim through it in
- case I've forgotten any of it. Then I shall read up the notes
- carefully. And then, if I have time, I shall have a look at the history
- of the period. I should advise you to do that, too.'
- 'Oh, don't be a goat,' said Pillingshot.
- And he retired, brooding, as before.
- That afternoon he spent industriously, copying out the fourth book of
- _The Aeneid_. At the beginning of the week he had had a slight
- disagreement with M. Gerard, the French master.
- Pillingshot's views on behaviour and deportment during French lessons
- did not coincide with those of M. Gerard. Pillingshot's idea of a
- French lesson was something between a pantomime rally and a scrum at
- football. To him there was something wonderfully entertaining in the
- process of 'barging' the end man off the edge of the form into space,
- and upsetting his books over him. M. Gerard, however, had a very
- undeveloped sense of humour. He warned the humorist twice, and on the
- thing happening a third time, suggested that he should go into extra
- lesson on the ensuing Wednesday.
- So Pillingshot went, and copied out Virgil.
- He emerged from the room of detention at a quarter past four. As he
- came out into the grounds he espied in the middle distance somebody
- being carried on a stretcher in the direction of the School House. At
- the same moment Parker loomed in sight, walking swiftly towards the
- School shop, his mobile features shining with the rapt expression of
- one who sees much ginger-beer in the near future.
- 'Hullo, Parker,' said Pillingshot, 'who's the corpse?'
- 'What, haven't you heard?' said Parker. 'Oh, no, of course, you were in
- extra. It's young Brown. He's stunned or something.'
- 'How did it happen?'
- 'That rotter, Babington, in Dacre's. Simply slamming about, you know,
- getting his eye in before going in, and Brown walked slap into one of
- his drives. Got him on the side of the head.'
- 'Much hurt?'
- 'Oh, no, I don't think so. Keep him out of school for about a week.'
- 'Lucky beast. Wish somebody would come and hit me on the head. Come
- and hit me on the head, Parker.'
- 'Come and have an ice,' said Parker.
- 'Right-ho,' said Pillingshot. It was one of his peculiarities, that
- whatever the hour or the state of the weather, he was always equal to
- consuming an ice. This was probably due to genius. He had an infinite
- capacity for taking pains. Scarcely was he outside the promised ice
- when another misfortune came upon him. Scott, of the First Eleven,
- entered the shop. Pillingshot liked Scott, but he was not blind to
- certain flaws in the latter's character. For one thing, he was too
- energetic. For another, he could not keep his energy to himself. He was
- always making Pillingshot do things. And Pillingshot's notion of the
- ideal life was complete _dolce far niente_.
- 'Ginger-beer, please,' said Scott, with parched lips. He had been
- bowling at the nets, and the day was hot. 'Hullo! Pillingshot, you
- young slacker, why aren't you changed? Been bunking half-holiday games?
- You'd better reform, young man.'
- 'I've been in extra,' said Pillingshot, with dignity.
- 'How many times does that make this term? You're going for the record,
- aren't you? Jolly sporting of you. Bit slow in there, wasn't it?
- 'Nother ginger-beer, please.'
- 'Just a bit,' said Pillingshot.
- 'I thought so. And now you're dying for some excitement. Of course you
- are. Well, cut over to the House and change, and then come back and
- field at the nets. The man Yorke is going to bowl me some of his
- celebrated slow tosh, and I'm going to show him exactly how Jessop does
- it when he's in form.'
- Scott was the biggest hitter in the School. Mr Yorke was one of the
- masters. He bowled slow leg-breaks, mostly half-volleys and long hops.
- Pillingshot had a sort of instinctive idea that fielding out in the
- deep with Mr Yorke bowling and Scott batting would not contribute
- largely to the gaiety of his afternoon. Fielding deep at the nets meant
- that you stood in the middle of the football field, where there was no
- telling what a ball would do if it came at you along the ground. If you
- were lucky you escaped without injury. Generally, however, the ball
- bumped and deprived you of wind or teeth, according to the height to
- which it rose. He began politely, but firmly, to excuse himself.
- 'Don't talk rot,' said Scott, complainingly, 'you must have some
- exercise or you'll go getting fat. Think what a blow it would be to
- your family, Pillingshot, if you lost your figure. Buck up. If you're
- back here in a quarter of an hour you shall have another ice. A large
- ice, Pillingshot, price sixpence. Think of it.'
- The word ice, as has been remarked before, touched chords in
- Pillingshot's nature to which he never turned a deaf ear. Within the
- prescribed quarter of an hour he was back again, changed.
- 'Here's the ice,' said Scott, 'I've been keeping it warm for you.
- Shovel it down. I want to be starting for the nets. Quicker, man,
- quicker! Don't roll it round your tongue as if it was port. Go for it.
- Finished? That's right. Come on.'
- Pillingshot had not finished, but Scott so evidently believed that he
- had, that it would have been unkind to have mentioned the fact. He
- followed the smiter to the nets.
- If Pillingshot had passed the earlier part of the afternoon in a
- sedentary fashion, he made up for it now. Scott was in rare form, and
- Pillingshot noticed with no small interest that, while he invariably
- hit Mr Yorke's deliveries a quarter of a mile or so, he never hit two
- balls in succession in the same direction. As soon as the panting
- fieldsman had sprinted to one side of the football ground and returned
- the ball, there was a beautiful, musical _plonk_, and the ball
- soared to the very opposite quarter of the field. It was a fine
- exhibition of hitting, but Pillingshot felt that he would have enjoyed
- it more if he could have watched it from a deck-chair.
- 'You're coming on as a deep field, young Pillingshot,' said Scott, as
- he took off his pads. 'You've got a knack of stopping them with your
- stomach, which the best first-class fields never have. You ought to
- give lessons at it. Now we'll go and have some tea.'
- If Pillingshot had had a more intimate acquaintance with the classics,
- he would have observed at this point, '_Timeo Danaos_', and made a
- last dash for liberty in the direction of the shop. But he was deceived
- by the specious nature of Scott's remark. Visions rose before his eyes
- of sitting back in one of Scott's armchairs, watching a fag toasting
- muffins, which he would eventually dispatch with languid enjoyment. So
- he followed Scott to his study. The classical parallel to his situation
- is the well-known case of the oysters. They, too, were eager for the
- treat.
- They had reached the study, and Pillingshot was about to fling himself,
- with a sigh of relief, into the most comfortable chair, when Scott
- unmasked his batteries.
- 'Oh, by the way,' he said, with a coolness which to Pillingshot
- appeared simply brazen, 'I'm afraid my fag won't be here today. The
- young crock's gone and got mumps, or the plague, or something. So would
- you mind just lighting that stove? It'll be rather warm, but that won't
- matter. There are some muffins in the cupboard. You might weigh in with
- them. You'll find the toasting-fork on the wall somewhere. It's hanging
- up. Got it? Good man. Fire away.'
- And Scott collected five cushions, two chairs, and a tin of mixed
- biscuits, and made himself comfortable. Pillingshot, with feelings too
- deep for words (in the then limited state of his vocabulary), did as he
- was requested. There was something remarkable about the way Scott could
- always get people to do things for him. He seemed to take everything
- for granted. If he had had occasion to hire an assassin to make away
- with the German Emperor, he would have said, 'Oh, I say, you might run
- over to Germany and kill the Kaiser, will you, there's a good chap?
- Don't be long.' And he would have taken a seat and waited, without the
- least doubt in his mind that the thing would be carried through as
- desired.
- Pillingshot had just finished toasting the muffins, when the door
- opened, and Venables, of Merevale's, came in.
- 'I thought I heard you say something about tea this afternoon, Scott,'
- said Venables. 'I just looked in on the chance. Good Heavens, man!
- Fancy muffins at this time of year! Do you happen to know what the
- thermometer is in the shade?'
- 'Take a seat,' said Scott. 'I attribute my entire success in life
- to the fact that I never find it too hot to eat muffins. Do you
- know Pillingshot? One of the hottest fieldsmen in the School.
- At least, he was just now. He's probably cooled off since then.
- Venables--Pillingshot, and _vice versa_. Buck up with the tea,
- Pillingshot. What, ready? Good man. Now we might almost begin.'
- 'Beastly thing that accident of young Brown's, wasn't it?' said Scott.
- 'Chaps oughtn't to go slamming about like that with the field full of
- fellows. I suppose he won't be right by next Saturday?'
- 'Not a chance. Why? Oh, yes, I forgot. He was to have scored for the
- team at Windybury, wasn't he?'
- 'Who are you going to get now?'
- Venables was captain of the St Austin's team. The match next Saturday
- was at Windybury, on the latter's ground.
- 'I haven't settled,' said Venables. 'But it's easy to get somebody.
- Scoring isn't one of those things which only one chap in a hundred
- understands.'
- Then Pillingshot had an idea--a great, luminous idea.
- 'May I score?' he asked, and waited trembling with apprehension lest
- the request be refused.
- 'All right,' said Venables, 'I don't see any reason why you shouldn't.
- We have to catch the 8.14 at the station. Don't you go missing it or
- anything.'
- 'Rather _not_,' said Pillingshot. 'Not much.'
- * * * * *
- On Saturday morning, at exactly 9.15, Mr Mellish distributed the Livy
- papers. When he arrived at Pillingshot's seat and found it empty, an
- expression passed over his face like unto that of the baffled villain
- in transpontine melodrama.
- 'Where is Pillingshot?' he demanded tragically. 'Where is he?'
- 'He's gone with the team to Windybury, sir,' said Parker, struggling to
- conceal a large size in grins. 'He's going to score.'
- 'No,' said Mr Mellish sadly to himself, 'he _has_ scored.'
- [2]
- THE ODD TRICK
- The attitude of Philip St H. Harrison, of Merevale's House, towards his
- fellow-man was outwardly one of genial and even sympathetic toleration.
- Did his form-master intimate that his conduct was not _his_ idea
- of what Young England's conduct should be, P. St H. Harrison agreed
- cheerfully with every word he said, warmly approved his intention of
- laying the matter before the Headmaster, and accepted his punishment
- with the air of a waiter booking an order for a chump chop and fried
- potatoes. But the next day there would be a squeaking desk in the
- form-room, just to show the master that he had not been forgotten. Or,
- again, did the captain of his side at football speak rudely to him on
- the subject of kicking the ball through in the scrum, Harrison would
- smile gently, and at the earliest opportunity tread heavily on the
- captain's toe. In short, he was a youth who made a practice of taking
- very good care of himself. Yet he had his failures. The affair of
- Graham's mackintosh was one of them, and it affords an excellent
- example of the truth of the proverb that a cobbler should stick to his
- last. Harrison's _forte_ was diplomacy. When he forsook the arts
- of the diplomatist for those of the brigand, he naturally went wrong.
- And the manner of these things was thus.
- Tony Graham was a prefect in Merevale's, and part of his duties was to
- look after the dormitory of which Harrison was one of the ornaments. It
- was a dormitory that required a good deal of keeping in order. Such
- choice spirits as Braithwaite of the Upper Fourth, and Mace, who was
- rapidly driving the master of the Lower Fifth into a premature grave,
- needed a firm hand. Indeed, they generally needed not only a firm hand,
- but a firm hand grasping a serviceable walking-stick. Add to these
- Harrison himself, and others of a similar calibre, and it will be seen
- that Graham's post was no sinecure. It was Harrison's custom to throw
- off his mask at night with his other garments, and appear in his true
- character of an abandoned villain, willing to stick at nothing as long
- as he could do it strictly incog. In this capacity he had come into
- constant contact with Graham. Even in the dark it is occasionally
- possible for a prefect to tell where a noise comes from. And if the
- said prefect has been harassed six days in the week by a noise, and
- locates it suddenly on the seventh, it is wont to be bad for the
- producer and patentee of same.
- And so it came about that Harrison, enjoying himself one night, after
- the manner of his kind, was suddenly dropped upon with violence. He had
- constructed an ingenious machine, consisting of a biscuit tin, some
- pebbles, and some string. He put the pebbles in the tin, tied the
- string to it, and placed it under a chest of drawers. Then he took the
- other end of the string to bed with him, and settled down to make a
- night of it. At first all went well. Repeated inquiries from Tony
- failed to produce the author of the disturbance, and when finally the
- questions ceased, and the prefect appeared to have given the matter up
- as a bad job, P. St H. Harrison began to feel that under certain
- circumstances life was worth living. It was while he was in this happy
- frame of mind that the string, with which he had just produced a
- triumphant rattle from beneath the chest of drawers, was seized, and
- the next instant its owner was enjoying the warmest minute of a
- chequered career. Tony, like Brer Rabbit, had laid low until he was
- certain of the direction from which the sound proceeded. He had then
- slipped out of bed, crawled across the floor in a snake-like manner
- which would have done credit to a Red Indian, found the tin, and traced
- the string to its owner. Harrison emerged from the encounter feeling
- sore and unfit for any further recreation. This deed of the night left
- its impression on Harrison. The account had to be squared somehow, and
- in a few days his chance came. Merevale's were playing a 'friendly'
- with the School House, and in default of anybody better, Harrison had
- been pressed into service as umpire. This in itself had annoyed him.
- Cricket was not in his line--he was not one of your flannelled
- fools--and of all things in connection with the game he loathed
- umpiring most.
- When, however, Tony came on to bowl at his end, _vice_ Charteris,
- who had been hit for three fours in an over by Scott, the School
- slogger, he recognized that even umpiring had its advantages, and
- resolved to make the most of the situation.
- Scott had the bowling, and he lashed out at Tony's first ball in his
- usual reckless style. There was an audible click, and what the sporting
- papers call confident appeals came simultaneously from Welch,
- Merevale's captain, who was keeping wicket, and Tony himself. Even
- Scott seemed to know that his time had come. He moved a step or two
- away from the wicket, but stopped before going farther to look at the
- umpire, on the off-chance of a miracle happening to turn his decision
- in the batsman's favour.
- The miracle happened.
- 'Not out,' said Harrison.
- 'Awfully curious,' he added genially to Tony, 'how like a bat those
- bits of grass sound! You have to be jolly smart to know where a noise
- comes from, don't you!'
- Tony grunted disgustedly, and walked back again to the beginning of his
- run.
- If ever, in the whole history of cricket, a man was out
- leg-before-wicket, Scott was so out to Tony's second ball. It was
- hardly worth appealing for such a certainty. Still, the formality had
- to be gone through.
- 'How was _that_?' inquired Tony.
- 'Not out. It's an awful pity, don't you think, that they don't bring in
- that new leg-before rule?'
- 'Seems to me,' said Tony bitterly, 'the old rule holds pretty good when
- a man's leg's bang in front.'
- 'Rather. But you see the ball didn't pitch straight, and the rule
- says--'
- 'Oh, all right,' said Tony.
- The next ball Scott hit for four, and the next after that for a couple.
- The fifth was a yorker, and just grazed the leg stump. The sixth was a
- beauty. You could see it was going to beat the batsman from the moment
- it left Tony's hand. Harrison saw it perfectly.
- 'No ball,' he shouted. And just as he spoke Scott's off-stump
- ricocheted towards the wicket-keeper.
- 'Heavens, man,' said Tony, fairly roused out of his cricket manners, a
- very unusual thing for him. 'I'll swear my foot never went over the
- crease. Look, there's the mark.'
- 'Rather not. Only, you see, it seemed to me you chucked that time. Of
- course, I know you didn't mean to, and all that sort of thing, but
- still, the rules--'
- Tony would probably have liked to have said something very forcible
- about the rules at this point, but it occurred to him that after all
- Harrison was only within his rights, and that it was bad form to
- dispute the umpire's decision. Harrison walked off towards square-leg
- with a holy joy.
- But he was too much of an artist to overdo the thing. Tony's next over
- passed off without interference. Possibly, however, this was because it
- was a very bad one. After the third over he asked Welch if he could get
- somebody else to umpire, as he had work to do. Welch heaved a sigh of
- relief, and agreed readily.
- 'Conscientious sort of chap that umpire of yours,' said Scott to Tony,
- after the match. Scott had made a hundred and four, and was feeling
- pleased. 'Considering he's in your House, he's awfully fair.'
- 'You mean that we generally swindle, I suppose?'
- 'Of course not, you rotter. You know what I mean. But, I say, that
- catch Welch and you appealed for must have been a near thing. I could
- have sworn I hit it.'
- 'Of course you did. It was clean out. So was the lbw. I say, did you
- think that ball that bowled you was a chuck? That one in my first over,
- you know.'
- 'Chuck! My dear Tony, you don't mean to say that man pulled you up for
- chucking? I thought your foot must have gone over the crease.'
- 'I believe the chap's mad,' said Tony.
- 'Perhaps he's taking it out of you this way for treading on his corns
- somehow. Have you been milling with this gentle youth lately?'
- 'By Jove,' said Tony, 'you're right. I gave him beans only the other
- night for ragging in the dormitory.'
- Scott laughed.
- 'Well, he seems to have been getting a bit of his own back today. Lucky
- the game was only a friendly. Why will you let your angry passions
- rise, Tony? You've wrecked your analysis by it, though it's improved my
- average considerably. I don't know if that's any solid satisfaction to
- you.'
- 'It isn't.'
- 'You don't say so! Well, so long. If I were you, I should keep an eye
- on that conscientious umpire.'
- 'I will,' said Tony. 'Good-night.'
- The process of keeping an eye on Harrison brought no results. When he
- wished to behave himself well, he could. On such occasions Sandford and
- Merton were literally not in it with him, and the hero of a
- Sunday-school story would simply have refused to compete. But Nemesis,
- as the poets tell us, though no sprinter, manages, like the celebrated
- Maisie, to get right there in time. Give her time, and she will arrive.
- She arrived in the case of Harrison. One morning, about a fortnight
- after the House-match incident, Harrison awoke with a new sensation. At
- first he could not tell what exactly this sensation was, and being too
- sleepy to discuss nice points of internal emotion with himself, was
- just turning over with the intention of going to sleep again, when the
- truth flashed upon him. The sensation he felt was loneliness, and the
- reason he felt lonely was because he was the only occupant of the
- dormitory. To right and left and all around were empty beds.
- As he mused drowsily on these portents, the distant sound of a bell
- came to his ears and completed the cure. It was the bell for chapel. He
- dragged his watch from under his pillow, and looked at it with
- consternation. Four minutes to seven. And chapel was at seven. Now
- Harrison had been late for chapel before. It was not the thought of
- missing the service that worried him. What really was serious was that
- he had been late so many times before that Merevale had hinted at
- serious steps to be taken if he were late again, or, at any rate, until
- a considerable interval of punctuality had elapsed.
- That threat had been uttered only yesterday, and here he was in all
- probability late once more.
- There was no time to dress. He sprang out of bed, passed a sponge over
- his face as a concession to the decencies, and looked round for
- something to cover his night-shirt, which, however suitable for
- dormitory use, was, he felt instinctively, scarcely the garment to wear
- in public.
- Fate seemed to fight for him. On one of the pegs in the wall hung a
- mackintosh, a large, blessed mackintosh. He was inside it in a moment.
- Four minutes later he rushed into his place in chapel.
- The short service gave him some time for recovering himself. He left
- the building feeling a new man. His costume, though quaint, would not
- call for comment. Chapel at St Austin's was never a full-dress
- ceremony. Mackintoshes covering night-shirts were the rule rather than
- the exception.
- But between his costume and that of the rest there was this subtle
- distinction. They wore their own mackintoshes. He wore somebody else's.
- The bulk of the School had split up into sections, each section making
- for its own House, and Merevale's was already in sight, when Harrison
- felt himself grasped from behind. He turned, to see Graham.
- 'Might I ask,' enquired Tony with great politeness, 'who said you might
- wear my mackintosh?'
- Harrison gasped.
- 'I suppose you didn't know it was mine?'
- 'No, no, rather not. I didn't know.'
- 'And if you had known it was mine, you wouldn't have taken it, I
- suppose?'
- 'Oh no, of course not,' said Harrison. Graham seemed to be taking an
- unexpectedly sensible view of the situation.
- 'Well,' said Tony, 'now that you know that it is mine, suppose you give
- it up.'
- 'Give it up!'
- 'Yes; buck up. It looks like rain, and I mustn't catch cold.'
- 'But, Graham, I've only got on--'
- 'Spare us these delicate details. Mack up, please, I want it.'
- Finally, Harrison appearing to be difficult in the matter, Tony took
- the garment off for him, and went on his way.
- Harrison watched him go with mixed feelings. Righteous indignation
- struggled with the gravest apprehension regarding his own future. If
- Merevale should see him! Horrible thought. He ran. He had just reached
- the House, and was congratulating himself on having escaped, when the
- worst happened. At the private entrance stood Merevale, and with him
- the Headmaster himself. They both eyed him with considerable interest
- as he shot in at the boys' entrance.
- 'Harrison,' said Merevale after breakfast.
- 'Yes, sir?'
- 'The Headmaster wishes to see you--again.'
- 'Yes, sir,' said Harrison.
- There was a curious lack of enthusiasm in his voice.
- [3]
- L'AFFAIRE UNCLE JOHN
- (_A Story in Letters_)
- I
- From Richard Venables, of St Austin's School, to his brother Archibald
- Venables, of King's College, Cambridge:
- Dear Archie--I take up my pen to write to you, not as one hoping for an
- answer, but rather in order that (you notice the Thucydidean
- construction) I may tell you of an event the most important of those
- that have gone before. You may or may not have heard far-off echoes of
- my adventure with Uncle John, who has just come back from the
- diamond-mines--and looks it. It happened thusly:
- Last Wednesday evening I was going through the cricket field to meet
- Uncle John, at the station, as per esteemed favour from the governor,
- telling me to. Just as I got on the scene, to my horror, amazement, and
- disgust, I saw a middle-aged bounder, in loud checks, who, from his
- looks, might have been anything from a retired pawnbroker to a
- second-hand butler, sacked from his last place for stealing the
- sherry, standing in the middle of the field, on the very wicket the
- Rugborough match is to be played on next Saturday (tomorrow), and
- digging--_digging_--I'll trouble you. Excavating great chunks of
- our best turf with a walking-stick. I was so unnerved, I nearly
- fainted. It's bad enough being captain of a School team under any
- circs., as far as putting you off your game goes, but when you see the
- wicket you've been rolling by day, and dreaming about by night, being
- mangled by an utter stranger--well! They say a cow is slightly
- irritated when her calf is taken away from her, but I don't suppose the
- most maternal cow that ever lived came anywhere near the frenzy that
- surged up in my bosom at that moment. I flew up to him, foaming at the
- mouth. 'My dear sir,' I shrieked, '_are_ you aware that you're
- spoiling the best wicket that has ever been prepared since cricket
- began?' He looked at me, in a dazed sort of way, and said, 'What?' I
- said: 'How on earth do you think we're going to play Rugborough on a
- ploughed field?' 'I don't follow, mister,' he replied. A man who calls
- you 'mister' is beyond the pale. You are justified in being a little
- rude to him. So I said: 'Then you must be either drunk or mad, and I
- trust it's the latter.' I believe that's from some book, though I don't
- remember which. This did seem to wake him up a bit, but before he could
- frame his opinion in words, up came Biffen, the ground-man, to have a
- last look at his wicket before retiring for the night. When he saw the
- holes--they were about a foot deep, and scattered promiscuously, just
- where two balls out of three pitch--he almost had hysterics. I gently
- explained the situation to him, and left him to settle with my friend
- of the check suit. Biffen was just settling down to a sort of Philippic
- when I went, and I knew that I had left the man in competent hands.
- Then I went to the station. The train I had been told to meet was the
- 5.30. By the way, of course, I didn't know in the least what Uncle John
- was like, not having seen him since I was about one-and-a-half, but I
- had been told to look out for a tall, rather good-looking man. Well,
- the 5.30 came in all right, but none of the passengers seemed to answer
- to the description. The ones who were tall were not good looking, and
- the only man who was good looking stood five feet nothing in his boots.
- I did ask him if he was Mr John Dalgliesh; but, his name happening to
- be Robinson, he could not oblige. I sat out a couple more trains, and
- then went back to the field. The man had gone, but Biffen was still
- there. 'Was you expecting anyone today, sir?' he asked, as I came up.
- 'Yes. Why?' I said. 'That was 'im,' said Biffen. By skilful
- questioning, I elicited the whole thing. It seems that the fearsome
- bargee, in checks, was the governor's 'tall, good-looking man'; in
- other words, Uncle John himself. He had come by the 4.30, I suppose.
- Anyway, there he was, and I had insulted him badly. Biffen told me that
- he had asked who I was, and that he (Biffen) had given the information,
- while he was thinking of something else to say to him about his
- digging. By the way, I suppose he dug from force of habit. Thought he'd
- find diamonds, perhaps. When Biffen told him this, he said in a nasty
- voice: 'Then, when he comes back will you have the goodness to tell him
- that my name is John Dalgliesh, and that he will hear more of this.'
- And I'm uncommonly afraid I shall. The governor bars Uncle John
- awfully, I know, but he wanted me to be particularly civil to him,
- because he was to get me a place in some beastly firm when I leave. I
- haven't heard from home yet, but I expect to soon. Still, I'd like to
- know how I could stand and watch him ruining the wicket for our spot
- match of the season. As it is, it won't be as good as it would have
- been. The Rugborough slow man will be unplayable if he can find one of
- these spots. Altogether, it's a beastly business. Write soon, though I
- know you won't--Yours ever, _Dick_
- II
- Telegram from Major-General Sir Everard Venables, V.C., K.C.M.G., to
- his son Richard Venables:
- Venables, St Austin's. What all this about Uncle John. Says were
- grossly rude. Write explanation next post--_Venables_.
- III
- Letter from Mrs James Anthony (nee Miss Dorothy Venables) to her
- brother Richard Venables:
- Dear Dick--What _have_ you been doing to Uncle John? Jim and I are
- stopping for a fortnight with father, and have just come in for the
- whole thing. Uncle John--_isn't_ he a horrible man?--says you were
- grossly insolent to him when he went down to see you. _Do_ write
- and tell me all about it. I have heard no details as yet. Father
- refuses to give them, and gets simply _furious_ when the matter is
- mentioned. Jim said at dinner last night that a conscientious boy would
- probably feel bound to be rude to Uncle John. Father said 'Conscience
- be--'; I forget the rest, but it was awful. Jim says if he gets any
- worse we shall have to sit on his head, and cut the traces. He is
- getting so dreadfully _horsey_. Do write the very minute you get
- this. I want to know all about it.--Your affectionate sister, _Dorothy_
- IV
- Part of Letter from Richard Venables, of St Austin's, to his father
- Major-General Sir Everard Venables, V.C., K.C.M.G.:
- ... So you see it was really his fault. The Emperor of Germany has no
- right to come and dig holes in our best wicket. Take a parallel case.
- Suppose some idiot of a fellow (not that Uncle John's that, of course,
- but you know what I mean) came and began rooting up your azaleas.
- Wouldn't you want to say something cutting? I will apologize to Uncle
- John, if you like; but still, I do think he might have gone somewhere
- else if he really wanted to dig. So you see, etc., etc.
- V
- Letter from Richard Venables, of St Austin's, to his sister Mrs James
- Anthony:
- Dear Dolly--Thanks awfully for your letter, and thank Jim for his
- message. He's a ripper. I'm awfully glad you married him and not that
- rotter, Thompson, who used to hang on so. I hope the most marvellous
- infant on earth is flourishing. And now about Uncle John. Really, I am
- jolly glad I did say all that to him. We played Rugborough yesterday,
- and the wicket was simply vile. They won the toss, and made two hundred
- and ten. Of course, the wicket was all right at one end, and that's
- where they made most of their runs. I was wicket-keeping as usual, and
- I felt awfully ashamed of the beastly pitch when their captain asked me
- if it was the football-field. Of course, he wouldn't have said that if
- he hadn't been a pal of mine, but it was probably what the rest of the
- team thought, only they were too polite to say so. When we came to bat
- it was worse than ever. I went in first with Welch--that's the fellow
- who stopped a week at home a few years ago; I don't know whether you
- remember him. He got out in the first over, caught off a ball that
- pitched where Uncle John had been prospecting, and jumped up. It was
- rotten luck, of course, and worse was to follow, for by half-past five
- we had eight wickets down for just over the hundred, and only young
- Scott, who's simply a slogger, and another fellow to come in. Well,
- Scott came in. I had made about sixty then, and was fairly well
- set--and he started simply mopping up the bowling. He gave a chance
- every over as regular as clockwork, and it was always missed, and then
- he would make up for it with two or three tremendous whangs--a safe
- four every time. It wasn't batting. It was more like golf. Well, this
- went on for some time, and we began to get hopeful again, having got a
- hundred and eighty odd. I just kept up my wicket, while Scott hit. Then
- he got caught, and the last man, a fellow called Moore, came in. I'd
- put him in the team as a bowler, but he could bat a little, too, on
- occasions, and luckily this was one of them. There were only eleven to
- win, and I had the bowling. I was feeling awfully fit, and put their
- slow man clean over the screen twice running, which left us only three
- to get. Then it was over, and Moore played the fast man in grand style,
- though he didn't score. Well, I got the bowling again, and half-way
- through the over I carted a half-volley into the Pav., and that gave us
- the match. Moore hung on for a bit and made about ten, and then got
- bowled. We made 223 altogether, of which I had managed to get
- seventy-eight, not out. It pulls my average up a good bit. Rather
- decent, isn't it? The fellows rotted about a good deal, and chaired me
- into the Pav., but it was Scott who won us the match, I think. He made
- ninety-four. But Uncle John nearly did for us with his beastly
- walking-stick. On a good wicket we might have made any number. I don't
- know how the affair will end. Keep me posted up in the governor's
- symptoms, and write again soon.--Your affectionate brother, _Dick_
- PS.--On looking over this letter, I find I have taken it for granted
- that you know all about the Uncle John affair. Probably you do, but, in
- case you don't, it was this way. You see, I was going, etc., etc.
- VI
- From Archibald Venables, of King's College, Cambridge, to Richard
- Venables, of St Austin's:
- Dear Dick--Just a line to thank you for your letter, and to tell you
- that since I got it I have had a visit from the great Uncle John, too.
- He _is_ an outsider, if you like. I gave him the best lunch I
- could in my rooms, and the man started a long lecture on extravagance.
- He doesn't seem to understand the difference between the 'Varsity and a
- private school. He kept on asking leading questions about pocket-money
- and holidays, and wanted to know if my master allowed me to walk in the
- streets in that waistcoat--a remark which cut me to the quick, 'that
- waistcoat' being quite the most posh thing of the sort in Cambridge. He
- then enquired after my studies; and, finally, when I saw him off at the
- station, said that he had decided not to tip me, because he was afraid
- that I was inclined to be extravagant. I was quite kind to him,
- however, in spite of everything; but I was glad you had spoken to him
- like a father. The recollection of it soothed me, though it seemed to
- worry him. He talked a good deal about it. Glad you came off against
- Rugborough.--Yours ever, _A. Venables_
- VII
- From Mr John Dalgliesh to Mr Philip Mortimer, of Penge:
- Dear Sir--In reply to your letter of the 18th inst., I shall be happy
- to recommend your son, Reginald, for the vacant post in the firm of
- Messrs Van Nugget, Diomonde, and Mynes, African merchants. I have
- written them to that effect, and you will, doubtless, receive a
- communication from them shortly.--I am, my dear sir, yours faithfully,
- _J. Dalgliesh_
- VIII
- From Richard Venables, of St Austin's, to his father Major-General Sir
- Everard Venables, V.C., K.C.M.G.:
- Dear Father--Uncle John writes, in answer to my apology, to say that no
- apologies will meet the case; and that he has given his nomination in
- that rotten City firm of his to a fellow called Mortimer. But rather a
- decent thing has happened. There is a chap here I know pretty well, who
- is the son of Lord Marmaduke Twistleton, and it appears that the dook
- himself was down watching the Rugborough match, and liked my batting.
- He came and talked to me after the match, and asked me what I was going
- to do when I left, and I said I wasn't certain, and he said that, if I
- hadn't anything better on, he could give me a place on his estate up in
- Scotland, as a sort of land-agent, as he wanted a chap who could play
- cricket, because he was keen on the game himself, and always had a lot
- going on in the summer up there. So he says that, if I go up to the
- 'Varsity for three years, he can guarantee me the place when I come
- down, with a jolly good screw and a ripping open-air life, with lots of
- riding, and so on, which is just what I've always wanted. So, can I?
- It's the sort of opportunity that won't occur again, and you know you
- always said the only reason I couldn't go up to the 'Varsity was, that
- it would be a waste of time. But in this case, you see, it won't,
- because he wants me to go, and guarantees me the place when I come
- down. It'll be awfully fine, if I may. I hope you'll see it.--Your
- affectionate son, _Dick_
- PS.--I think he's writing to you. He asked your address. I think Uncle
- John's a rotter. I sent him a rattling fine apology, and this is how he
- treats it. But it'll be all right if you like this land-agent idea. If
- you like, you might wire your answer.
- IX
- Telegram from Major-General Sir Everard Venables, V.C., K.C.M.G., to
- his son Richard Venables, of St Austin's:
- Venables, St Austin's. Very well.--_Venables_
- X
- Extract from Letter from Richard Venables, of St Austin's, to his
- father Major-General Sir Everard Venables, V.C., K.C.M.G.:
- ... Thanks, awfully--
- Extract from _The Austinian_ of October:
- The following O.A.s have gone into residence this year: At Oxford, J.
- Scrymgeour, Corpus Christi; R. Venables, Trinity; K. Crespigny-Brown,
- Balliol.
- Extract from the _Daily Mail_'s account of the 'Varsity match of
- the following summer:
- ... The St Austin's freshman, Venables, fully justified his inclusion by
- scoring a stylish fifty-seven. He hit eight fours, and except for a
- miss-hit in the slips, at 51, which Smith might possibly have secured
- had he started sooner, gave nothing like a chance. Venables, it will be
- remembered, played several good innings for Oxford in the earlier
- matches, notably, his not out contribution of 103 against Sussex--
- [4]
- HARRISON'S SLIGHT ERROR
- The one o'clock down express was just on the point of starting. The
- engine-driver, with his hand on the lever, whiled away the moments,
- like the watchman in _The Agamemnon_, by whistling. The guard
- endeavoured to talk to three people at once. Porters flitted to and
- fro, cleaving a path for themselves with trucks of luggage. The Usual
- Old Lady was asking if she was right for some place nobody had ever
- heard of. Everybody was saying good-bye to everybody else, and last,
- but not least, P. St H. Harrison, of St Austin's, was strolling at a
- leisurely pace towards the rear of the train. There was no need for him
- to hurry. For had not his friend, Mace, promised to keep a corner-seat
- for him while he went to the refreshment-room to lay in supplies?
- Undoubtedly he had, and Harrison, as he watched the struggling crowd,
- congratulated himself that he was not as other men. A corner seat in a
- carriage full of his own particular friends, with plenty of provisions,
- and something to read in case he got tired of talking--it would be
- perfect.
- So engrossed was he in these reflections, that he did not notice that
- from the opposite end of the platform a youth of about his own age was
- also making for the compartment in question. The first intimation he
- had of his presence was when the latter, arriving first at the door by
- a short head, hurled a bag on to the rack, and sank gracefully into the
- identical corner seat which Harrison had long regarded as his own
- personal property. And to make matters worse, there was no other vacant
- seat in the compartment. Harrison was about to protest, when the guard
- blew his whistle. There was nothing for it but to jump in and argue the
- matter out _en route_. Harrison jumped in, to be greeted instantly
- by a chorus of nine male voices. 'Outside there! No room! Turn him
- out!' said the chorus. Then the chorus broke up into its component
- parts, and began to address him one by one.
- 'You rotter, Harrison,' said Babington, of Dacre's, 'what do you come
- barging in here for? Can't you see we're five aside already?'
- 'Hope you've brought a sardine-opener with you, old chap,' said
- Barrett, the peerless pride of Philpott's, ''cos we shall jolly well
- need one when we get to the good old Junct-i-on. Get up into the rack,
- Harrison, you're stopping the ventilation.'
- The youth who had commandeered Harrison's seat so neatly took another
- unpardonable liberty at this point. He grinned. Not the timid,
- deprecating smile of one who wishes to ingratiate himself with
- strangers, but a good, six-inch grin right across his face. Harrison
- turned on him savagely.
- 'Look here,' he said, 'just you get out of that. What do you mean by
- bagging my seat?'
- 'Are you a director of this line?' enquired the youth politely. Roars
- of applause from the interested audience. Harrison began to feel hot
- and uncomfortable.
- 'Or only the Emperor of Germany?' pursued his antagonist.
- More applause, during which Harrison dropped his bag of provisions,
- which were instantly seized and divided on the share and share alike
- system, among the gratified Austinians.
- 'Look here, none of your cheek,' was the shockingly feeble retort which
- alone occurred to him. The other said nothing. Harrison returned to the
- attack.
- 'Look here,' he said, 'are you going to get out, or have I got to make
- you?'
- Not a word did his opponent utter. To quote the bard: 'The stripling
- smiled.' To tell the truth, the stripling smiled inanely.
- The other occupants of the carriage were far from imitating his
- reserve. These treacherous friends, realizing that, for those who were
- themselves comfortably seated, the spectacle of Harrison standing up
- with aching limbs for a journey of some thirty miles would be both
- grateful and comforting, espoused the cause of the unknown with all the
- vigour of which they were capable.
- 'Beastly bully, Harrison,' said Barrett. 'Trying to turn the kid out of
- his seat! Why can't you leave the chap alone? Don't you move, kid.'
- 'Thanks,' said the unknown, 'I wasn't going to.'
- 'Now you see what comes of slacking,' said Grey. 'If you'd bucked up
- and got here in time you might have bagged this seat I've got. By Jove,
- Harrison, you've no idea how comfortable it is in this corner.'
- 'Punctuality,' said Babington, 'is the politeness of princes.'
- And again the unknown maddened Harrison with a 'best-on-record' grin.
- 'But, I say, you chaps,' said he, determined as a last resource to
- appeal to their better feelings (if any), 'Mace was keeping this seat
- for me, while I went to get some grub. Weren't you, Mace?' He turned to
- Mace for corroboration. To his surprise, Mace was nowhere to be seen.
- His sympathetic school-fellows grasped the full humour of the situation
- as one man, and gave tongue once more in chorus.
- 'You weed,' they yelled joyfully, 'you've got into the wrong carriage.
- Mace is next door.'
- And then, with the sound of unquenchable laughter ringing in his ears,
- Harrison gave the thing up, and relapsed into a disgusted silence. No
- single word did he speak until the journey was done, and the carriage
- emptied itself of its occupants at the Junction. The local train was in
- readiness to take them on to St Austin's, and this time Harrison
- managed to find a seat without much difficulty. But it was a bitter
- moment when Mace, meeting him on the platform, addressed him as a
- rotter, for that he had not come to claim the corner seat which he had
- been reserving for him. They had had, said Mace, a rattling good time
- coming down. What sort of a time had Harrison had in _his_
- carriage? Harrison's reply was not remarkable for its clearness.
- The unknown had also entered the local train. It was plain, therefore,
- that he was coming to the School as a new boy. Harrison began to wonder
- if, under these circumstances, something might not be done in the
- matter by way of levelling up things. He pondered. When St Austin's
- station was reached, and the travellers began to stream up the road
- towards the College, he discovered that the newcomer was a member of
- his own House. He was standing close beside him, and heard Babington
- explaining to him the way to Merevale's. Merevale was Harrison's
- House-master.
- It was two minutes after he had found out this fact that the Grand Idea
- came to Harrison. He saw his way now to a revenge so artistic, so
- beautifully simple, that it was with some difficulty that he restrained
- himself from bursting into song. For two pins, he felt, he could have
- done a cake-walk.
- He checked his emotion. He beat it steadily back, and quenched it. When
- he arrived at Merevale's, he went first to the matron's room. 'Has
- Venables come back yet?' he asked.
- Venables was the head of Merevale's House, captain of the School
- cricket, wing three-quarter of the School Fifteen, and a great man
- altogether.
- 'Yes,' said the matron, 'he came back early this afternoon.'
- Harrison knew it. Venables always came back early on the last day of
- the holidays.
- 'He was upstairs a short while ago,' continued the matron. 'He was
- putting his study tidy.'
- Harrison knew it. Venables always put his study tidy on the last day of
- the holidays. He took a keen and perfectly justifiable pride in his
- study, which was the most luxurious in the House.
- 'Is he there now?' asked Harrison.
- 'No. He has gone over to see the Headmaster.'
- 'Thanks,' said Harrison, 'it doesn't matter. It wasn't anything
- important.'
- He retired triumphant. Things were going excellently well for his
- scheme.
- His next act was to go to the fags' room, where, as he had expected, he
- found his friend of the train. Luck continued to be with him. The
- unknown was alone.
- 'Hullo!' said Harrison.
- 'Hullo!' said the fellow-traveller. He had resolved to follow
- Harrison's lead. If Harrison was bringing war, then war let it be. If,
- however, his intentions were friendly, he would be friendly too.
- 'I didn't know you were coming to Merevale's. It's the best House in
- the School.'
- 'Oh!'
- 'Yes, for one thing, everybody except the kids has a study.'
- 'What? Not really? Why, I thought we had to keep to this room. One of
- the chaps told me so.'
- 'Trying to green you, probably. You must look out for that sort of
- thing. I'll show you the way to your study, if you like. Come along
- upstairs.'
- 'Thanks, awfully. It's awfully good of you,' said the gratified
- unknown, and they went upstairs together.
- One of the doors which they passed on their way was open, disclosing to
- view a room which, though bare at present, looked as if it might be
- made exceedingly comfortable.
- 'That's my den,' said Harrison. It was perhaps lucky that Graham, to
- whom the room belonged, in fact, as opposed to fiction, did not hear
- the remark. Graham and Harrison were old and tried foes. 'This is
- yours.' Harrison pushed open another door at the end of the passage.
- His companion stared blankly at the Oriental luxury which met his eye.
- 'But, I say,' he said, 'are you sure? This seems to be occupied
- already.'
- 'Oh, no, that's all right,' said Harrison, airily. 'The chap who used
- to be here left last term. He didn't know he was going to leave till it
- was too late to pack up all his things, so he left his study as it was.
- All you've got to do is to cart the things out into the passage and
- leave them there. The Moke'll take 'em away.'
- The Moke was the official who combined in a single body the duties of
- butler and bootboy at Merevale's House. 'Oh, right-ho!' said the
- unknown, and Harrison left him.
- Harrison's idea was that when Venables returned and found an absolute
- stranger placidly engaged in wrecking his carefully-tidied study, he
- would at once, and without making inquiries, fall upon that absolute
- stranger and blot him off the face of the earth. Afterwards it might
- possibly come out that he, Harrison, had been not altogether
- unconnected with the business, and then, he was fain to admit, there
- might be trouble. But he was a youth who never took overmuch heed for
- the morrow. Sufficient unto the day was his motto. And, besides, it was
- distinctly worth risking. The main point, and the one with which alone
- the House would concern itself, was that he had completely taken in,
- scored off, and overwhelmed the youth who had done as much by him in
- the train, and his reputation as one not to be lightly trifled with
- would be restored to its former brilliance. Anything that might happen
- between himself and Venables subsequently would be regarded as a purely
- private matter between man and man, affecting the main point not at
- all.
- About an hour later a small Merevalian informed Harrison that Venables
- wished to see him in his study. He went. Experience had taught him that
- when the Head of the House sent for him, it was as a rule as well to
- humour his whim and go. He was prepared for a good deal, for he had
- come to the conclusion that it was impossible for him to preserve his
- incognito in the matter, but he was certainly not prepared for what he
- saw.
- Venables and the stranger were seated in two armchairs, apparently on
- the very best of terms with one another. And this, in spite of the fact
- that these two armchairs were the only furniture left in the study. The
- rest, as he had noted with a grin before he had knocked at the door,
- was picturesquely scattered about the passage.
- 'Hullo, Harrison,' said Venables, 'I wanted to see you. There seems to
- have been a slight mistake somewhere. Did you tell my brother to shift
- all the furniture out of the study?'
- Harrison turned a delicate shade of green.
- 'Your--er--brother?' he gurgled.
- 'Yes. I ought to have told you my brother was coming to the Coll. this
- term. I told the Old Man and Merevale and the rest of the authorities.
- Can't make out why I forgot you. Slipped my mind somehow. However, you
- seem to have been doing the square thing by him, showing him round and
- so on. Very good of you.'
- Harrison smiled feebly. Venables junior grinned. What seemed to
- Harrison a mystery was how the brothers had managed to arrive at the
- School at different times. The explanation of which was in reality very
- simple. The elder Venables had been spending the last week of the
- holidays with MacArthur, the captain of the St Austin's Fifteen, the
- same being a day boy, suspended within a mile of the School.
- 'But what I can't make out,' went on Venables, relentlessly, 'is this
- furniture business. To the best of my knowledge I didn't leave suddenly
- at the end of last term. I'll ask if you like, to make sure, but I
- fancy you'll find you've been mistaken. Must have been thinking of
- someone else. Anyhow, we thought you must know best, so we lugged all
- the furniture out into the passage, and now it appears there's been a
- mistake of sorts, and the stuff ought to be inside all the time. So
- would you mind putting it back again? We'd help you, only we're going
- out to the shop to get some tea. You might have it done by the time we
- get back. Thanks, awfully.'
- Harrison coughed nervously, and rose to a point of order.
- 'I was going out to tea, too,' he said.
- 'I'm sorry, but I think you'll have to scratch the engagement,' said
- Venables.
- Harrison made a last effort.
- 'I'm fagging for Welch this term,' he protested.
- It was the rule at St Austin's that every fag had the right to refuse
- to serve two masters. Otherwise there would have been no peace for that
- down-trodden race.
- 'That,' said Venables, 'ought to be awfully jolly for Welch, don't you
- know, but as a matter of fact term hasn't begun yet. It doesn't start
- till tomorrow. Weigh in.'
- Various feelings began to wage war beneath Harrison's Eton waistcoat. A
- profound disinclination to undertake the suggested task battled briskly
- with a feeling that, if he refused the commission, things might--nay,
- would--happen.
- 'Harrison,' said Venables gently, but with meaning, as he hesitated,
- 'do you know what it is to wish you had never been born?'
- And Harrison, with a thoughtful expression on his face, picked up a
- photograph from the floor, and hung it neatly in its place over the
- mantelpiece.
- [5]
- BRADSHAW'S LITTLE STORY
- The qualities which in later years rendered Frederick Wackerbath
- Bradshaw so conspicuous a figure in connection with the now celebrated
- affair of the European, African, and Asiatic Pork Pie and Ham Sandwich
- Supply Company frauds, were sufficiently in evidence during his school
- career to make his masters prophesy gloomily concerning his future. The
- boy was in every detail the father of the man. There was the same
- genial unscrupulousness, upon which the judge commented so bitterly
- during the trial, the same readiness to seize an opportunity and make
- the most of it, the same brilliance of tactics. Only once during those
- years can I remember an occasion on which Justice scored a point
- against him. I can remember it, because I was in a sense responsible
- for his failure. And he can remember it, I should be inclined to think,
- for other reasons. Our then Headmaster was a man with a straight eye
- and a good deal of muscular energy, and it is probable that the
- talented Frederick, in spite of the passage of years, has a tender
- recollection of these facts.
- It was the eve of the Euripides examination in the Upper Fourth.
- Euripides is not difficult compared to some other authors, but he does
- demand a certain amount of preparation. Bradshaw was a youth who did
- less preparation than anybody I have ever seen, heard of, or read of,
- partly because he preferred to peruse a novel under the table during
- prep., but chiefly, I think, because he had reduced cribbing in form to
- such an exact science that he loved it for its own sake, and would no
- sooner have come tamely into school with a prepared lesson than a
- sportsman would shoot a sitting bird. It was not the marks that he
- cared for. He despised them. What he enjoyed was the refined pleasure
- of swindling under a master's very eye. At the trial the judge, who
- had, so ran report, been himself rather badly bitten by the Ham
- Sandwich Company, put the case briefly and neatly in the words, 'You
- appear to revel in villainy for villainy's sake,' and I am almost
- certain that I saw the beginnings of a gratified smile on Frederick's
- expressive face as he heard the remark. The rest of our study--the
- juniors at St Austin's pigged in quartettes--were in a state of
- considerable mental activity on account of this Euripides examination.
- There had been House-matches during the preceding fortnight, and
- House-matches are not a help to study, especially if you are on the
- very fringe of the cock-house team, as I was. By dint of practising
- every minute of spare time, I had got the eleventh place for my
- fielding. And, better still, I had caught two catches in the second
- innings, one of them a regular gallery affair, and both off the
- captain's bowling. It was magnificent, but it was not Euripides, and I
- wished now that it had been. Mellish, our form-master, had an
- unpleasant habit of coming down with both feet, as it were, on members
- of his form who failed in the book-papers.
- We were working, therefore, under forced draught, and it was distinctly
- annoying to see the wretched Bradshaw lounging in our only armchair
- with one of Rider Haggard's best, seemingly quite unmoved at the
- prospect of Euripides examinations. For all he appeared to care,
- Euripides might never have written a line in his life.
- Kendal voiced the opinion of the meeting.
- 'Bradshaw, you worm,' he said. 'Aren't you going to do _any_
- work?'
- 'Think not. What's the good? Can't get up a whole play of Euripides in
- two hours.'
- 'Mellish'll give you beans.'
- 'Let him.'
- 'You'll get a jolly bad report.'
- 'Shan't get a report at all. I always intercept it before my guardian
- can get it. He never says anything.'
- 'Mellish'll probably run you in to the Old Man,' said White, the fourth
- occupant of the study.
- Bradshaw turned on us with a wearied air.
- 'Oh, do give us a rest,' he said. 'Here you are just going to do a most
- important exam., and you sit jawing away as if you were paid for it.
- Oh, I say, by the way, who's setting the paper tomorrow?'
- 'Mellish, of course,' said White.
- 'No, he isn't,' I said. 'Shows what a lot you know about it. Mellish is
- setting the Livy paper.'
- 'Then, who's doing this one?' asked Bradshaw.
- 'Yorke.'
- Yorke was the master of the Upper Fifth. He generally set one of the
- upper fourth book-papers.
- 'Certain?' said Bradshaw.
- 'Absolutely.'
- 'Thanks. That's all I wanted to know. By Jove, I advise you chaps to
- read this. It's grand. Shall I read out this bit about a fight?'
- 'No!' we shouted virtuously, all together, though we were dying to hear
- it, and we turned once more to the loathsome inanities of the second
- chorus. If we had been doing Homer, we should have felt more in touch
- with Bradshaw. There's a good deal of similarity, when you come to
- compare them, between Homer and Haggard. They both deal largely in
- bloodshed, for instance. As events proved, the Euripides paper, like
- many things which seem formidable at a distance, was not nearly so bad
- as I had expected. I did a fair-to-moderate paper, and Kendal and White
- both seemed satisfied with themselves. Bradshaw confessed without
- emotion that he had only attempted the last half of the last question,
- and on being pressed for further information, merely laughed
- mysteriously, and said vaguely that it would be all right.
- It now became plain that he had something up his sleeve. We expressed a
- unanimous desire to know what it was.
- 'You might tell a chap,' I said.
- 'Out with it, Bradshaw, or we'll lynch you,' added Kendal.
- Bradshaw, however, was not to be drawn. Much of his success in the
- paths of crime, both at school and afterwards, was due to his secretive
- habits. He never permitted accomplices.
- On the following Wednesday the marks were read out. Out of a possible
- hundred I had obtained sixty--which pleased me very much indeed--White,
- fifty-five, Kendal, sixty-one. The unspeakable Bradshaw's net total was
- four.
- Mellish always read out bad marks in a hushed voice, expressive of
- disgust and horror, but four per cent was too much for him. He shouted
- it, and the form yelled applause, until Ponsonby came in from the Upper
- Fifth next door with Mr Yorke's compliments, 'and would we recollect
- that his form were trying to do an examination'.
- When order had been restored, Mellish settled his glasses and glared
- through them at Bradshaw, who, it may be remarked, had not turned a
- hair.
- 'Bradshaw,' he said, 'how do you explain this?'
- It was merely a sighting shot, so to speak. Nobody was ever expected to
- answer the question. Bradshaw, however, proved himself the exception to
- the rule.
- 'I can explain, sir,' he said, 'if I may speak to you privately
- afterwards.'
- I have seldom seen anyone so astonished as Mellish was at these words.
- In the whole course of his professional experience, he had never met
- with a parallel case. It was hard on the poor man not to be allowed to
- speak his mind about a matter of four per cent in a book-paper, but
- what could he do? He could not proceed with his denunciation, for if
- Bradshaw's explanation turned out a sufficient excuse, he would have to
- withdraw it all again, and vast stores of golden eloquence would be
- wasted. But, then, if he bottled up what he wished to say altogether,
- it might do him a serious internal injury. At last he hit on a
- compromise. He said, 'Very well, Bradshaw, I will hear what you have to
- say,' and then sprang, like the cat in the poem, 'all claws', upon an
- unfortunate individual who had scored twenty-nine, and who had been
- congratulating himself that Bradshaw's failings would act as a sort of
- lightning-conductor to him. Bradshaw worked off his explanation in
- under five minutes. I tried to stay behind to listen, on the pretext of
- wanting to tidy up my desk, but was ejected by request. Bradshaw
- explained that his statement was private.
- After a time they came out together like long-lost brothers, Mellish
- with his hand on Bradshaw's shoulder. It was some small comfort to me
- to remember that Bradshaw had the greatest dislike to this sort of
- thing.
- It was evident that Bradshaw, able exponent of the art of fiction that
- he was, must have excelled himself on this occasion. I tried to get the
- story out of him in the study that evening. White and Kendal assisted.
- We tried persuasion first. That having failed, we tried taunts. Then we
- tried kindness. Kendal sat on his legs, and I sat on his head, and
- White twisted his arm. I think that we should have extracted something
- soon, either his arm from its socket or a full confession, but we were
- interrupted. The door flew open, and Prater (the same being our
- House-master, and rather a good sort) appeared.
- 'Now then, now then,' he said. Prater's manner is always abrupt.
- 'What's this? I can't have this. I can't have this. Get up at once.
- Where's Bradshaw?'
- I rose gracefully to my feet, thereby disclosing the classic features
- of the lost one.
- 'The Headmaster wants to see you at once, Bradshaw, at the School
- House. You others had better find something to do, or you will be
- getting into trouble.'
- He and Bradshaw left together, while we speculated on the cause of the
- summons.
- We were not left very long in suspense. In a quarter of an hour
- Bradshaw returned, walking painfully, and bearing what, to the expert's
- eye, are the unmistakable signs of a 'touching up', which, being
- interpreted, is corporal punishment.
- 'Hullo,' said White, as he appeared, 'what's all this?'
- 'How many?' enquired the statistically-minded Kendal. 'You'll be
- thankful for this when you're a man, Bradshaw.'
- 'That's what I always say to myself when I'm touched up,' added Kendal.
- I said nothing, but it was to me that the wounded one addressed
- himself.
- 'You utter ass,' he said, in tones of concentrated venom.
- 'Look here, Bradshaw--' I began, protestingly.
- 'It's all through you--you idiot,' he snarled. 'I got twelve.'
- 'Twelve isn't so dusty,' said White, critically. 'Most I ever got was
- six.'
- 'But why was it?' asked Kendal. 'That's what we want to know. What have
- you been and gone and done?'
- 'It's about that Euripides paper,' said Bradshaw.
- 'Ah!' said Kendal.
- 'Yes, I don't mind telling you about it now. When Mellish had me up
- after school today, I'd got my yarn all ready. There wasn't a flaw in
- it anywhere as far as I could see. My idea was this. I told him I'd
- been to Yorke's room the day before the exam, to ask him if he had any
- marks for us. That was all right. Yorke was doing the two Unseen
- papers, and it was just the sort of thing a fellow would do to go and
- ask him about the marks.'
- 'Well?'
- 'Then when I got there he was out, and I looked about for the marks,
- and on the table I saw the Euripides paper.'
- 'By Jove!' said Kendal. We began to understand, and to realize that
- here was a master-mind.
- 'Well, of course, I read it, not knowing what it was, and then, as the
- only way of not taking an unfair advantage, I did as badly as I could
- in the exam. That was what I told Mellish. Any beak would have
- swallowed it.'
- 'Well, didn't he?'
- 'Mellish did all right, but the rotter couldn't keep it to himself.
- Went and told the Old Man. The Old Man sent for me. He was as decent as
- anything at first. That was just his guile. He made me describe exactly
- where I had seen the paper, and so on. That was rather risky, of
- course, but I put it as vaguely as I could. When I had finished, he
- suddenly whipped round, and said, "Bradshaw, why are you telling me all
- these lies?" That's the sort of thing that makes you feel rather a
- wreck. I was too surprised to say anything.'
- 'I can guess the rest,' said Kendal. 'But how on earth did he know it
- was all lies? Why didn't you stick to your yarn?'
- 'And, besides,' I put in, 'where do I come in? I don't see what I've
- got to do with it.'
- Bradshaw eyed me fiercely. 'Why, the whole thing was your fault,' he
- said. 'You told me Yorke was setting the paper.'
- 'Well, so he did, didn't he?'
- 'No, he didn't. The Old Man set it himself,' said Bradshaw, gloomily.
- [6]
- A SHOCKING AFFAIR
- The Bradshaw who appears in the following tale is the same youth who
- figures as the hero--or villain, label him as you like--of the
- preceding equally veracious narrative. I mention this because I should
- not care for you to go away with the idea that a waistcoat marked with
- the name of Bradshaw must of necessity cover a scheming heart. It may,
- however, be noticed that a good many members of the Bradshaw family
- possess a keen and rather sinister sense of the humorous, inherited
- doubtless from their great ancestor, the dry wag who wrote that
- monument of quiet drollery, _Bradshaw's Railway Guide_. So with
- the hero of my story.
- Frederick Wackerbath Bradshaw was, as I have pointed out, my
- contemporary at St Austin's. We were in the same House, and together we
- sported on the green--and elsewhere--and did our best to turn the
- majority of the staff of masters into confirmed pessimists, they in the
- meantime endeavouring to do the same by us with every weapon that lay
- to their hand. And the worst of these weapons were the end-of-term
- examination papers. Mellish was our form-master, and once a term a
- demon entered into Mellish. He brooded silently apart from the madding
- crowd. He wandered through dry places seeking rest, and at intervals he
- would smile evilly, and jot down a note on the back of an envelope.
- These notes, collected and printed closely on the vilest paper, made up
- the examination questions.
- Our form read two authors a term, one Latin and one Greek. It was the
- Greek that we feared most. Mellish had a sort of genius for picking out
- absolutely untranslatable passages, and desiring us (in print) to
- render the same with full notes. This term the book had been
- Thucydides, Book II, with regard to which I may echo the words of a
- certain critic when called upon to give his candid opinion of a
- friend's first novel, 'I dare not say what I think about that book.'
- About a week before the commencement of the examinations, the ordinary
- night-work used to cease, and we were supposed, during that week, to be
- steadily going over the old ground and arming ourselves for the
- approaching struggle. There were, I suppose, people who actually did do
- this, but for my own part I always used to regard those seven days as a
- blessed period of rest, set apart specially to enable me to keep
- abreast of the light fiction of the day. And most of the form, so far
- as I know, thought the same. It was only on the night before the
- examination that one began to revise in real earnest. One's methods on
- that night resolved themselves into sitting in a chair and wondering
- where to begin. Just as one came to a decision, it was bedtime.
- 'Bradshaw,' I said, as I reached page 103 without having read a line,
- 'do you know any likely bits?'
- Bradshaw looked up from his book. He was attempting to get a general
- idea of Thucydides' style by reading _Pickwick_.
- 'What?' he said.
- I obliged with a repetition of my remark.
- 'Likely bits? Oh, you mean for the Thucydides. I don't know. Mellish
- never sets the bits any decent ordinary individual would set. I should
- take my chance if I were you.'
- 'What are you going to do?'
- 'I'm going to read _Pickwick_. Thicksides doesn't come within a
- mile of it.'
- I thought so too.
- 'But how about tomorrow?'
- 'Oh, I shan't be there,' he said, as if it were the most ordinary of
- statements.
- 'Not there! Why, have you been sacked?'
- This really seemed the only possible explanation. Such an event would
- not have come as a surprise. It was always a matter for wonder to me
- _why_ the authorities never sacked Bradshaw, or at the least
- requested him to leave. Possibly it was another case of the ass and the
- bundles of hay. They could not make up their minds which special
- misdemeanour of his to attack first.
- 'No, I've not been sacked,' said Bradshaw.
- A light dawned upon me.
- 'Oh,' I said, 'you're going to slumber in.' For the benefit of the
- uninitiated, I may mention that to slumber in is to stay in the House
- during school on a pretence of illness.
- 'That,' replied the man of mystery, with considerable asperity, 'is
- exactly the silly rotten kid's idea that would come naturally to a
- complete idiot like you.'
- As a rule, I resent being called a complete idiot, but this was not the
- time for asserting one's personal dignity. I had to know what
- Bradshaw's scheme for evading the examination was. Perhaps there might
- be room for two in it; in which case I should have been exceedingly
- glad to have lent my moral support to it. I pressed for an explanation.
- 'You may jaw,' said Bradshaw at last, 'as much as you jolly well
- please, but I'm not going to give this away. All you're going to know
- is that I shan't be there tomorrow.'
- 'I bet you are, and I bet you do a jolly rank paper too,' I said,
- remembering that the sceptic is sometimes vouchsafed revelations to
- which the most devout believer may not aspire. It is, for instance,
- always the young man who scoffs at ghosts that the family spectre
- chooses as his audience. But it required more than a mere sneer or an
- empty gibe to pump information out of Bradshaw. He took me up at once.
- 'What'll you bet?' he said.
- Now I was prepared to wager imaginary sums to any extent he might have
- cared to name, but as my actual worldly wealth at that moment consisted
- of one penny, and my expectations were limited to the shilling
- pocket-money which I should receive on the following Saturday--half of
- which was already mortgaged--it behoved me to avoid doing anything rash
- with my ready money. But, since a refusal would have meant the downfall
- of my arguments, I was obliged to name a figure. I named an even
- sixpence. After all, I felt, I must win. By what means, other than
- illness, could Bradshaw possibly avoid putting in an appearance at the
- Thucydides examination?
- 'All right,' said Bradshaw, 'an even sixpence. You'll lose.'
- 'Slumbering in barred.'
- 'Of course.'
- 'Real illness barred too,' I said. Bradshaw is a man of resource, and
- has been known to make himself genuinely ill in similar emergencies.
- 'Right you are. Slumbering in and real illness both barred. Anything
- else you'd like to bar?'
- I thought.
- 'No. Unless--' an idea struck me--'You're not going to run away?'
- Bradshaw scorned to answer the question.
- 'Now you'd better buck up with your work,' he said, opening his book
- again. 'You've got about as long odds as anyone ever got. But you'll
- lose all the same.'
- It scarcely seemed possible. And yet--Bradshaw was generally right. If
- he said he had a scheme for doing--though it was generally for not
- doing--something, it rarely failed to come off. I thought of my
- sixpence, my only sixpence, and felt a distinct pang of remorse. After
- all, only the other day the chaplain had said how wrong it was to bet.
- By Jove, so he had. Decent man the chaplain. Pity to do anything he
- would disapprove of. I was on the point of recalling my wager, when
- before my mind's eye rose a vision of Bradshaw rampant and sneering,
- and myself writhing in my chair a crushed and scored-off wreck. I drew
- the line at that. I valued my self-respect at more than sixpence. If it
- had been a shilling now--. So I set my teeth and turned once more to my
- Thucydides. Bradshaw, having picked up the thread of his story again,
- emitted hoarse chuckles like minute guns, until I very nearly rose and
- fell upon him. It is maddening to listen to a person laughing and not
- to know the joke.
- 'You will be allowed two hours for this paper,' said Mellish on the
- following afternoon, as he returned to his desk after distributing the
- Thucydides questions. 'At five minutes to four I shall begin to collect
- your papers, but those who wish may go on till ten past. Write only on
- one side of the paper, and put your names in the top right-hand corner.
- Marks will be given for neatness. Any boy whom I see looking at his
- neighbour's--_where's Bradshaw?_'
- It was already five minutes past the hour. The latest of the late
- always had the decency to appear at least by three minutes past.
- 'Has anybody seen Bradshaw?' repeated Mellish. 'You,
- what's-your-name--' (I am what's-your-name, very much at your
- service) '--you are in his House. Have you seen him?'
- I could have pointed out with some pleasure at this juncture that if
- Cain expressed indignation at being asked where his brother was, I, by
- a simple sum in proportion, might with even greater justice feel
- annoyed at having to locate a person who was no relative of mine at
- all. Did Mr Mellish expect me to keep an eye on every member of my
- House? Did Mr Mellish--in short, what did he mean by it?
- This was what I thought. I said, 'No, sir.'
- 'This is extraordinary,' said Mellish, 'most extraordinary. Why, the
- boy was in school this morning.'
- This was true. The boy had been in school that morning to some purpose,
- having beaten all records (his own records) in the gentle sport of
- Mellish-baiting. This evidently occurred to Mellish at the time, for he
- dropped the subject at once, and told us to begin our papers.
- Now I have remarked already that I dare not say what I think of
- Thucydides, Book II. How then shall I frame my opinion of that
- examination paper? It was Thucydides, Book II, with the few easy parts
- left out. It was Thucydides, Book II, with special home-made
- difficulties added. It was--well, in its way it was a masterpiece.
- Without going into details--I dislike sensational and realistic
- writing--I may say that I personally was not one of those who required
- an extra ten minutes to finish their papers. I finished mine at
- half-past two, and amused myself for the remaining hour and a half by
- writing neatly on several sheets of foolscap exactly what I thought of
- Mr Mellish, and precisely what I hoped would happen to him some day. It
- was grateful and comforting.
- At intervals I wondered what had become of Bradshaw. I was not
- surprised at his absence. At first I had feared that he would keep his
- word in that matter. As time went on I knew that he would. At more
- frequent intervals I wondered how I should enjoy being a bankrupt.
- Four o'clock came round, and found me so engrossed in putting the
- finishing touches to my excursus of Mr Mellish's character, that I
- stayed on in the form-room till ten past. Two other members of the form
- stayed too, writing with the despairing energy of those who had five
- minutes to say what they would like to spread over five hours. At last
- Mellish collected the papers. He seemed a trifle surprised when I gave
- up my modest three sheets. Brown and Morrison, who had their eye on the
- form prize, each gave up reams. Brown told me subsequently that he had
- only had time to do sixteen sheets, and wanted to know whether I had
- adopted Rutherford's emendation in preference to the old reading in
- Question II. My prolonged stay had made him regard me as a possible
- rival.
- I dwell upon this part of my story, because it has an important bearing
- on subsequent events. If I had not waited in the form-room I should not
- have gone downstairs just behind Mellish. And if I had not gone
- downstairs just behind Mellish, I should not have been in at the death,
- that is to say the discovery of Bradshaw, and this story would have
- been all beginning and middle, and no ending, for I am certain that
- Bradshaw would never have told me a word. He was a most secretive
- animal.
- I went downstairs, as I say, just behind Mellish. St Austin's, you must
- know, is composed of three blocks of buildings, the senior, the middle,
- and the junior, joined by cloisters. We left the senior block by the
- door. To the captious critic this information may seem superfluous, but
- let me tell him that I have left the block in my time, and entered it,
- too, though never, it is true, in the company of a master, in other
- ways. There are windows.
- Our procession of two, Mellish leading by a couple of yards, passed
- through the cloisters, and came to the middle block, where the Masters'
- Common Room is. I had no particular reason for going to that block, but
- it was all on my way to the House, and I knew that Mellish hated having
- his footsteps dogged. That Thucydides paper rankled slightly.
- In the middle block, at the top of the building, far from the haunts of
- men, is the Science Museum, containing--so I have heard, I have never
- been near the place myself--two stuffed rats, a case of mouldering
- butterflies, and other objects of acute interest. The room has a
- staircase all to itself, and this was the reason why, directly I heard
- shouts proceeding from that staircase, I deduced that they came from
- the Museum. I am like Sherlock Holmes, I don't mind explaining my
- methods.
- 'Help!' shouted the voice. 'Help!'
- The voice was Bradshaw's.
- Mellish was talking to M. Gerard, the French master, at the moment. He
- had evidently been telling him of Bradshaw's non-appearance, for at the
- sound of his voice they both spun round, and stood looking at the
- staircase like a couple of pointers.
- 'Help,' cried the voice again.
- Mellish and Gerard bounded up the stairs. I had never seen a French
- master run before. It was a pleasant sight. I followed. As we reached
- the door of the Museum, which was shut, renewed shouts filtered through
- it. Mellish gave tongue.
- 'Bradshaw!'
- 'Yes, sir,' from within.
- 'Are you there?' This I thought, and still think, quite a superfluous
- question.
- 'Yes, sir,' said Bradshaw.
- 'What are you doing in there, Bradshaw? Why were you not in school this
- afternoon? Come out at once.' This in deep and thrilling tones.
- 'Please, sir,' said Bradshaw complainingly, 'I can't open the door.'
- Now, the immediate effect of telling a person that you are unable to
- open a door is to make him try his hand at it. Someone observes that
- there are three things which everyone thinks he can do better than
- anyone else, namely poking a fire, writing a novel, and opening a door.
- Gerard was no exception to the rule.
- 'Can't open the door?' he said. 'Nonsense, nonsense.' And, swooping at
- the handle, he grasped it firmly, and turned it.
- At this point he made an attempt, a very spirited attempt, to lower the
- world's record for the standing high jump. I have spoken above of the
- pleasure it gave me to see a French master run. But for good, square
- enjoyment, warranted free from all injurious chemicals, give me a
- French master jumping.
- 'My dear Gerard,' said the amazed Mellish.
- 'I have received a shock. Dear me, I have received a most terrible
- shock.'
- So had I, only of another kind. I really thought I should have expired
- in my tracks with the effort of keeping my enjoyment strictly to
- myself. I saw what had happened. The Museum is lit by electric light.
- To turn it on one has to shoot the bolt of the door, which, like the
- handle, is made of metal. It is on the killing two birds with one stone
- principle. You lock yourself in and light yourself up with one
- movement. It was plain that the current had gone wrong somehow, run
- amock, as it were. Mellish meanwhile, instead of being warned by
- Gerard's fate, had followed his example, and tried to turn the handle.
- His jump, though quite a creditable effort, fell short of Gerard's by
- some six inches. I began to feel as if some sort of round game were
- going on. I hoped that they would not want me to take a hand. I also
- hoped that the thing would continue for a good while longer. The
- success of the piece certainly warranted the prolongation of its run.
- But here I was disappointed. The disturbance had attracted another
- spectator, Blaize, the science and chemistry master. The matter was
- hastily explained to him in all its bearings. There was Bradshaw
- entombed within the Museum, with every prospect of death by starvation,
- unless he could support life for the next few years on the two stuffed
- rats and the case of butterflies. The authorities did not see their way
- to adding a human specimen (youth's size) to the treasures in the
- Museum, _so_--how was he to be got out?
- The scientific mind is equal to every emergency.
- 'Bradshaw,' shouted Blaize through the keyhole.
- 'Sir?'
- 'Are you there?'
- I should imagine that Bradshaw was growing tired of this question by
- this time. Besides, it cast aspersions on the veracity of Gerard and
- Mellish. Bradshaw, with perfect politeness, hastened to inform the
- gentleman that he was there.
- 'Have you a piece of paper?'
- 'Will an envelope do, sir?'
- 'Bless the boy, anything will do so long as it is paper.'
- Dear me, I thought, is it as bad as all that? Is Blaize, in despair of
- ever rescuing the unfortunate prisoner, going to ask him to draw up a
- 'last dying words' document, to be pushed under the door and despatched
- to his sorrowing guardian?
- 'Put it over your hand, and then shoot back the bolt.'
- 'But, sir, the electricity.'
- 'Pooh, boy!'
- The scientific mind is always intolerant of lay ignorance.
- 'Pooh, boy, paper is a non-conductor. You won't get hurt.'
- Bradshaw apparently acted on his instructions. From the other side of
- the door came the sharp sound of the bolt as it was shot back, and at
- the same time the light ceased to shine through the keyhole. A moment
- later the handle turned, and Bradshaw stepped forth--free!
- 'Dear me,' said Mellish. 'Now I never knew that before, Blaize.
- Remarkable. But this ought to be seen to. In the meantime, I had better
- ask the Headmaster to give out that the Museum is closed until further
- notice, I think.'
- And closed the Museum has been ever since. That further notice has
- never been given. And yet nobody seems to feel as if an essential part
- of their life had ceased to be, so to speak. Curious. Bradshaw, after a
- short explanation, was allowed to go away without a stain--that is to
- say, without any additional stain--on his character. We left the
- authorities discussing the matter, and went downstairs.
- 'Sixpence isn't enough,' I said, 'take this penny. It's all I've got.
- You shall have the sixpence on Saturday.'
- 'Thanks,' said Bradshaw.' Was the Thucydides paper pretty warm?'
- 'Warmish. But, I say, didn't you get a beastly shock when you locked
- the door?'
- 'I did the week before last, the first time I ever went to the place.
- This time I was more or less prepared for it. Blaize seems to think
- that paper dodge a special invention of his own. He'll be taking out a
- patent for it one of these days. Why, every kid knows that paper
- doesn't conduct electricity.'
- 'I didn't,' I said honestly.
- 'You don't know much,' said Bradshaw, with equal honesty.
- 'I don't,' I replied. 'Bradshaw, you're a great man, but you missed the
- best part of it all.'
- 'What, the Thucydides paper?' asked he with a grin.
- 'No, you missed seeing Gerard jump quite six feet.'
- Bradshaw's face expressed keen disappointment.
- 'No, did he really? Oh, I say, I wish I'd seen it.'
- The moral of which is that the wicked do not always prosper. If
- Bradshaw had not been in the Museum, he might have seen Gerard jump six
- feet, which would have made him happy for weeks. On second thoughts,
- though, that does not work out quite right, for if Bradshaw had not
- been in the Museum, Gerard would not have jumped at all. No, better put
- it this way. I was virtuous, and I had the pleasure of witnessing the
- sight I have referred to. But then there was the Thucydides paper,
- which Bradshaw missed but which I did not. No. On consideration, the
- moral of this story shall be withdrawn and submitted to a committee of
- experts. Perhaps they will be able to say what it is.
- [7]
- THE BABE AND THE DRAGON
- The annual inter-house football cup at St Austin's lay between Dacre's,
- who were the holders, and Merevale's, who had been runner-up in the
- previous year, and had won it altogether three times out of the last
- five. The cup was something of a tradition in Merevale's, but of late
- Dacre's had become serious rivals, and, as has been said before, were
- the present holders.
- This year there was not much to choose between the two teams. Dacre's
- had three of the First Fifteen and two of the Second; Merevale's two of
- the First and four of the Second. St Austin's being not altogether a
- boarding-school, many of the brightest stars of the teams were day
- boys, and there was, of course, always the chance that one of these
- would suddenly see the folly of his ways, reform, and become a member
- of a House.
- This frequently happened, and this year it was almost certain to happen
- again, for no less a celebrity than MacArthur, commonly known as the
- Babe, had been heard to state that he was negotiating with his parents
- to that end. Which House he would go to was at present uncertain. He
- did not know himself, but it would, he said, probably be one of the two
- favourites for the cup. This lent an added interest to the competition,
- for the presence of the Babe would almost certainly turn the scale. The
- Babe's nationality was Scots, and, like most Scotsmen, he could play
- football more than a little. He was the safest, coolest centre
- three-quarter the School had, or had had for some time. He shone in all
- branches of the game, but especially in tackling. To see the Babe
- spring apparently from nowhere, in the middle of an inter-school match,
- and bring down with violence a man who had passed the back, was an
- intellectual treat. Both Dacre's and Merevale's, therefore, yearned for
- his advent exceedingly. The reasons which finally decided his choice
- were rather curious. They arose in the following manner:
- The Babe's sister was at Girton. A certain Miss Florence Beezley was
- also at Girton. When the Babe's sister revisited the ancestral home at
- the end of the term, she brought Miss Beezley with her to spend a week.
- What she saw in Miss Beezley was to the Babe a matter for wonder, but
- she must have liked her, or she would not have gone out of her way to
- seek her company. Be that as it may, the Babe would have gone a very
- long way out of his way to avoid her company. He led a fine, healthy,
- out-of-doors life during that week, and doubtless did himself a lot of
- good. But times will occur when it is imperative that a man shall be
- under the family roof. Meal-times, for instance. The Babe could not
- subsist without food, and he was obliged, Miss Beezley or no Miss
- Beezley, to present himself on these occasions. This, by the way, was
- in the Easter holidays, so that there was no school to give him an
- excuse for absence.
- Breakfast was a nightmare, lunch was rather worse, and as for dinner,
- it was quite unspeakable. Miss Beezley seemed to gather force during
- the day. It was not the actual presence of the lady that revolted the
- Babe, for that was passable enough. It was her conversation that
- killed. She refused to let the Babe alone. She was intensely learned
- herself, and seemed to take a morbid delight in dissecting his
- ignorance, and showing everybody the pieces. Also, she persisted in
- calling him Mr MacArthur in a way that seemed somehow to point out and
- emphasize his youthfulness. She added it to her remarks as a sort of
- after-thought or echo.
- 'Do you read Browning, Mr MacArthur?' she would say suddenly, having
- apparently waited carefully until she saw that his mouth was full.
- The Babe would swallow convulsively, choke, blush, and finally say--
- 'No, not much.'
- 'Ah!' This in a tone of pity not untinged with scorn.
- 'When you say "not much", Mr MacArthur, what exactly do you mean? Have
- you read any of his poems?'
- 'Oh, yes, one or two.'
- 'Ah! Have you read "Pippa Passes"?'
- 'No, I think not.'
- 'Surely you must know, Mr MacArthur, whether you have or not. Have you
- read "Fifine at the Fair"?'
- 'No.'
- 'Have you read "Sordello"?'
- 'No.'
- 'What _have_ you read, Mr MacArthur?'
- Brought to bay in this fashion, he would have to admit that he had read
- 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin', and not a syllable more, and Miss Beezley
- would look at him for a moment and sigh softly. The Babe's subsequent
- share in the conversation, provided the Dragon made no further
- onslaught, was not large.
- One never-to-be-forgotten day, shortly before the end of her visit, a
- series of horrible accidents resulted in their being left to lunch
- together alone. The Babe had received no previous warning, and when he
- was suddenly confronted with this terrible state of affairs he almost
- swooned. The lady's steady and critical inspection of his style of
- carving a chicken completed his downfall. His previous experience of
- carving had been limited to those entertainments which went by the name
- of 'study-gorges', where, if you wanted to help a chicken, you took
- hold of one leg, invited an accomplice to attach himself to the other,
- and pulled.
- But, though unskilful, he was plucky and energetic. He lofted the bird
- out of the dish on to the tablecloth twice in the first minute.
- Stifling a mad inclination to call out 'Fore!' or something to that
- effect, he laughed a hollow, mirthless laugh, and replaced the errant
- fowl. When a third attack ended in the same way, Miss Beezley asked
- permission to try what she could do. She tried, and in two minutes the
- chicken was neatly dismembered. The Babe re-seated himself in an
- over-wrought state.
- 'Tell me about St Austin's, Mr MacArthur,' said Miss Beezley, as the
- Babe was trying to think of something to say--not about the weather.
- 'Do you play football?'
- 'Yes.'
- 'Ah!'
- A prolonged silence.
- 'Do you--' began the Babe at last.
- 'Tell me--' began Miss Beezley, simultaneously.
- 'I beg your pardon,' said the Babe; 'you were saying--?'
- 'Not at all, Mr MacArthur. _You_ were saying--?'
- 'I was only going to ask you if you played croquet?'
- 'Yes; do you?'
- 'No.'
- 'Ah!'
- 'If this is going to continue,' thought the Babe, 'I shall be
- reluctantly compelled to commit suicide.'
- There was another long pause.
- 'Tell me the names of some of the masters at St Austin's, Mr
- MacArthur,' said Miss Beezley. She habitually spoke as if she were an
- examination paper, and her manner might have seemed to some to verge
- upon the autocratic, but the Babe was too thankful that the question
- was not on Browning or the higher algebra to notice this. He reeled off
- a list of names.
- '... Then there's Merevale--rather a decent sort--and Dacre.'
- 'What sort of a man is Mr Dacre?'
- 'Rather a rotter, I think.'
- 'What is a rotter, Mr MacArthur?'
- 'Well, I don't know how to describe it exactly. He doesn't play cricket
- or anything. He's generally considered rather a crock.'
- 'Really! This is very interesting, Mr MacArthur. And what is a crock? I
- suppose what it comes to,' she added, as the Babe did his best to find
- a definition, 'is this, that you yourself dislike him.' The Babe
- admitted the impeachment. Mr Dacre had a finished gift of sarcasm which
- had made him writhe on several occasions, and sarcastic masters are
- rarely very popular.
- 'Ah!' said Miss Beezley. She made frequent use of that monosyllable. It
- generally gave the Babe the same sort of feeling as he had been
- accustomed to experience in the happy days of his childhood when he had
- been caught stealing jam.
- Miss Beezley went at last, and the Babe felt like a convict who has
- just received a free pardon.
- One afternoon in the following term he was playing fives with
- Charteris, a prefect in Merevale's House. Charteris was remarkable from
- the fact that he edited and published at his own expense an unofficial
- and highly personal paper, called _The Glow Worm_, which was a
- great deal more in demand than the recognized School magazine, _The
- Austinian_, and always paid its expenses handsomely.
- Charteris had the journalistic taint very badly. He was always the
- first to get wind of any piece of School news. On this occasion he was
- in possession of an exclusive item. The Babe was the first person to
- whom he communicated it.
- 'Have you heard the latest romance in high life, Babe?' he observed, as
- they were leaving the court. 'But of course you haven't. You never do
- hear anything.'
- 'Well?' asked the Babe, patiently.
- 'You know Dacre?'
- 'I seem to have heard the name somewhere.'
- 'He's going to be married.'
- 'Yes. Don't trouble to try and look interested. You're one of those
- offensive people who mind their own business and nobody else's. Only I
- thought I'd tell you. Then you'll have a remote chance of understanding
- my quips on the subject in next week's _Glow Worm_. You laddies
- frae the north have to be carefully prepared for the subtler flights of
- wit.'
- 'Thanks,' said the Babe, placidly. 'Good-night.'
- The Headmaster intercepted the Babe a few days after he was going home
- after a scratch game of football. 'MacArthur,' said he, 'you pass Mr
- Dacre's House, do you not, on your way home? Then would you mind asking
- him from me to take preparation tonight? I find I shall be unable to be
- there.' It was the custom at St Austin's for the Head to preside at
- preparation once a week; but he performed this duty, like the
- celebrated Irishman, as often as he could avoid it.
- The Babe accepted the commission. He was shown into the drawing-room.
- To his consternation, for he was not a society man, there appeared to
- be a species of tea-party going on. As the door opened, somebody was
- just finishing a remark.
- '... faculty which he displayed in such poems as "Sordello",' said the
- voice.
- The Babe knew that voice.
- He would have fled if he had been able, but the servant was already
- announcing him. Mr Dacre began to do the honours.
- 'Mr MacArthur and I have met before,' said Miss Beezley, for it was
- she. 'Curiously enough, the subject which we have just been discussing
- is one in which he takes, I think, a great interest. I was saying, Mr
- MacArthur, when you came in, that few of Tennyson's works show the
- poetic faculty which Browning displays in "Sordello".'
- The Babe looked helplessly at Mr Dacre.
- 'I think you are taking MacArthur out of his depth there,' said Mr
- Dacre. 'Was there something you wanted to see me about, MacArthur?'
- The Babe delivered his message.
- 'Oh, yes, certainly,' said Mr Dacre. 'Shall you be passing the School
- House tonight? If so, you might give the Headmaster my compliments, and
- say I shall be delighted.'
- The Babe had had no intention of going out of his way to that extent,
- but the chance of escape offered by the suggestion was too good to be
- missed. He went.
- On his way he called at Merevale's, and asked to see Charteris.
- 'Look here, Charteris,' he said, 'you remember telling me that Dacre
- was going to be married?'
- 'Yes.'
- 'Well, do you know her name by any chance?'
- 'I ken it weel, ma braw Hielander. She is a Miss Beezley.'
- 'Great Scott!' said the Babe.
- 'Hullo! Why, was your young heart set in that direction? You amaze and
- pain me, Babe. I think we'd better have a story on the subject in
- _The Glow Worm_, with you as hero and Dacre as villain. It shall
- end happily, of course. I'll write it myself.'
- 'You'd better,' said the Babe, grimly. 'Oh, I say, Charteris.'
- 'Well?'
- 'When I come as a boarder, I shall be a House-prefect, shan't I, as I'm
- in the Sixth?'
- 'Yes.'
- 'And prefects have to go to breakfast and supper, and that sort of
- thing, pretty often with the House-beak, don't they?'
- 'Such are the facts of the case.'
- 'Thanks. That's all. Go away and do some work. Good-night.'
- The cup went to Merevale's that year. The Babe played a singularly
- brilliant game for them.
- [8]
- THE MANOEUVRES OF CHARTERIS
- _Chapter 1_
- 'Might I observe, sir--'
- 'You may observe whatever you like,' said the referee kindly.
- 'Twenty-five.'
- 'The rules say--'
- 'I have given my decision. Twenty-_five_!' A spot of red appeared
- on the official cheek. The referee, who had been heckled since the
- kick-off, was beginning to be annoyed.
- 'The ball went behind without bouncing, and the rules say--'
- 'Twenty-FIVE!!' shouted the referee. 'I am perfectly well aware what
- the rules say.' And he blew his whistle with an air of finality. The
- secretary of the Bargees' F.C. subsided reluctantly, and the game was
- restarted.
- The Bargees' match was a curious institution. Their real name was the
- Old Crockfordians. When, a few years before, the St Austin's secretary
- had received a challenge from them, dated from Stapleton, where their
- secretary happened to reside, he had argued within himself as follows:
- 'This sounds all right. Old Crockfordians? Never heard of Crockford.
- Probably some large private school somewhere. Anyhow, they're certain
- to be decent fellows.' And he arranged the fixture. It then transpired
- that Old Crockford was a village, and, from the appearance of the team
- on the day of battle, the Old Crockfordians seemed to be composed
- exclusively of the riff-raff of same. They wore green shirts with a
- bright yellow leopard over the heart, and C.F.C. woven in large letters
- about the chest. One or two of the outsides played in caps, and the
- team to a man criticized the referee's decisions with point and
- pungency. Unluckily, the first year saw a weak team of Austinians
- rather badly beaten, with the result that it became a point of honour
- to wipe this off the slate before the fixture could be cut out of the
- card. The next year was also unlucky. The Bargees managed to score a
- penalty goal in the first half, and won on that. The match resulted in
- a draw in the following season, and by this time the thing had become
- an annual event.
- Now, however, the School was getting some of its own back. The Bargees
- had brought down a player of some reputation from the North, and were
- as strong as ever in the scrum. But St Austin's had a great team, and
- were carrying all before them. Charteris and Graham at half had the
- ball out to their centres in a way which made Merevale, who looked
- after the football of the School, feel that life was worth living. And
- when once it was out, things happened rapidly. MacArthur, the captain
- of the team, with Thomson as his fellow-centre, and Welch and Bannister
- on the wings, did what they liked with the Bargees' three-quarters. All
- the School outsides had scored, even the back, who dropped a neat goal.
- The player from the North had scarcely touched the ball during the
- whole game, and altogether the Bargees were becoming restless and
- excited.
- The kick-off from the twenty-five line which followed upon the small
- discussion alluded to above, reached Graham. Under ordinary
- circumstances he would have kicked, but in a winning game original
- methods often pay. He dodged a furious sportsman in green and yellow,
- and went away down the touch-line. He was almost through when he
- stumbled. He recovered himself, but too late. Before he could pass,
- someone was on him. Graham was not heavy, and his opponent was
- muscular. He was swung off his feet, and the next moment the two came
- down together, Graham underneath. A sharp pain shot through his
- shoulder.
- A doctor emerged from the crowd--there is always a doctor in a
- crowd--and made an examination.
- 'Anything bad?' asked the referee.
- 'Collar-bone,' said the doctor. 'The usual, you know. Rather badly
- smashed. Nothing dangerous, of course. Be all right in a month or so.
- Stop his playing. Rather a pity. Much longer before half-time?'
- 'No. I was just going to blow the whistle when this happened.'
- The injured warrior was carried off, and the referee blew his whistle
- for half-time.
- 'I say, Charteris,' said MacArthur, 'who the deuce am I to put half
- instead of Graham?'
- 'Rogers used to play half in his childhood, I believe. But, I say, did
- you ever see such a scrag? Can't you protest, or something?'
- 'My dear chap, how can I? It's on our own ground. These Bargee beasts
- are visitors, if you come to think of it. I'd like to wring the chap's
- neck who did it. I didn't spot who it was. Did you see?'
- 'Rather. Their secretary. That man with the beard. I'll get Prescott to
- mark him this half.'
- Prescott was the hardest tackler in the School. He accepted the
- commission cheerfully, and promised to do his best by the bearded one.
- Charteris certainly gave him every opportunity. When he threw the ball
- out of touch, he threw it neatly to the criminal with the beard, and
- Prescott, who stuck to him closer than a brother, had generally tackled
- him before he knew what had happened. After a time he began to grow
- thoughtful, and when there was a line-out went and stood among the
- three-quarters. In this way much of Charteris's righteous retribution
- miscarried, but once or twice he had the pleasure and privilege of
- putting in a piece of tackling on his own account. The match ended with
- the enemy still intact, but considerably shaken. He was also rather
- annoyed. He spoke to Charteris on the subject as they were leaving the
- field.
- 'I was watching you,' he said, _apropos_ of nothing apparently.
- 'That must have been nice for you,' said Charteris.
- 'You wait.'
- 'Certainly. Any time you're passing, I'm sure--'
- 'You ain't 'eard the last of me yet.'
- 'That's something of a blow,' said Charteris cheerfully, and they
- parted.
- Charteris, having got into his blazer, ran after Welch and MacArthur,
- and walked back with them to the House. All three of them were at
- Merevale's.
- 'Poor old Tony,' said MacArthur. 'Where have they taken him to? The
- House?'
- 'Yes,' said Welch. 'I say, Babe, you ought to scratch this match next
- year. Tell 'em the card's full up or something.'
- 'Oh, I don't know. One expects fairly rough play in this sort of game.
- After all, we tackle pretty hard ourselves. I know I always try and go
- my hardest. If the man happens to be brittle, that's his lookout,'
- concluded the bloodthirsty Babe.
- 'My dear man,' said Charteris, 'there's all the difference between a
- decent tackle and a bally scrag like the one that doubled Tony up. You
- can't break a chap's collar-bone without trying to.'
- 'Well, if you come to think of it, I suppose the man must have been
- fairly riled. You can't expect a man to be in an angelic temper when
- his side's been licked by thirty points.'
- The Babe was one of those thoroughly excellent persons who always try,
- when possible, to make allowances for everybody.
- 'Well, dash it,' said Charteris indignantly, 'if he had lost his hair
- he might have drawn the line at falling on Tony like that. It wasn't
- the tackling part of it that crocked him. The beast simply jumped on
- him like a Hooligan. Anyhow, I made him sit up a bit before we
- finished. I gave Prescott the tip to mark him out of touch. Have you
- ever been collared by Prescott? It's a liberal education. Now, there
- you are, you see. Take Prescott. He's never crocked a man seriously in
- his life. I don't count being winded. That's absolutely an accident.
- Well, there you are, then. Prescott weighs thirteen-ten, and he's all
- muscle, and he goes like a battering-ram. You'll own that. He goes as
- hard as he jolly well knows how, and yet the worst he has ever done is
- to lay a man out for a couple of minutes while he gets his wind back.
- Well, compare him with this Bargee man. The Bargee weighs a stone less
- and isn't nearly as strong, and yet he smashes Tony's collar-bone. It's
- all very well, Babe, but you can't get away from it. Prescott tackles
- fairly and the Bargee scrags.'
- 'Yes,' said MacArthur, 'I suppose you're right.'
- 'Rather,' said Charteris. 'I wish I'd broken his neck.'
- 'By the way,' said Welch, 'you were talking to him after the match.
- What was he saying?'
- Charteris laughed.
- 'By Jove, I'd forgotten; he said I hadn't heard the last of him, and
- that I was to wait.'
- 'What did you say?'
- 'Oh, I behaved beautifully. I asked him to be sure and look in any time
- he was passing, and after a few chatty remarks we parted.'
- 'I wonder if he meant anything.'
- 'I believe he means to waylay me with a buckled belt. I shan't stir out
- except with the Old Man or some other competent bodyguard. "'Orrible
- outrage, shocking death of a St Austin's schoolboy." It would look
- rather well on the posters.'
- Welch stuck strenuously to the point.
- 'No, but, look here, Charteris,' he said seriously, 'I'm not rotting.
- You see, the man lives in Stapleton, and if he knows anything of School
- rules--'
- 'Which he doesn't probably. Why should he? Well?'--'If he knows
- anything of the rules, he'll know that Stapleton's out of bounds, and
- he may book you there and run you in to Merevale.'
- 'Yes,' said MacArthur. 'I tell you what, you'd do well to knock off a
- few of your expeditions to Stapleton. You know you wouldn't go there
- once a month if it wasn't out of bounds. You'll be a prefect next term.
- I should wait till then, if I were you.'
- 'My dear chap, what does it matter? The worst that can happen to you
- for breaking bounds is a couple of hundred lines, and I've got a
- capital of four hundred already in stock. Besides, things would be so
- slow if you always kept in bounds. I always feel like a cross between
- Dick Turpin and Machiavelli when I go to Stapleton. It's an awfully
- jolly feeling. Like warm treacle running down your back. It's cheap at
- two hundred lines.'
- 'You're an awful fool,' said Welch, rudely but correctly.
- Welch was a youth who treated the affairs of other people rather too
- seriously. He worried over them. This is not a particularly common
- trait in the character of either boy or man, but Welch had it highly
- developed. He could not probably have explained exactly why he was
- worried, but he undoubtedly was. Welch had a very grave and serious
- mind. He shared a study with Charteris--for Charteris, though not yet a
- School-prefect, was part owner of a study--and close observation had
- convinced him that the latter was not responsible for his actions, and
- that he wanted somebody to look after him. He had therefore elected
- himself to the post of a species of modified and unofficial guardian
- angel to him. The duties were heavy, and the remuneration exceedingly
- light.
- 'Really, you know,' said MacArthur, 'I don't see what the point of all
- your lunacy is. I don't know if you're aware of it, but the Old Man's
- getting jolly sick with you.'
- 'I didn't know,' said Charteris, 'but I'm very glad to hear it. For
- hist! I have a ger-rudge against the person. Beneath my ban that mystic
- man shall suffer, _coute que coute_, Matilda. He sat upon
- me--publicly, and the resultant blot on my scutcheon can only be wiped
- out with blood, or broken rules,' he added.
- This was true. To listen to Charteris on the subject, one might have
- thought that he considered the matter rather amusing than otherwise.
- This, however, was simply due to the fact that he treated everything
- flippantly in conversation. But, like the parrot, he thought the more.
- The actual _casus belli_ had been trivial. At least the mere
- spectator would have considered it trivial. It had happened after this
- fashion. Charteris was a member of the School corps. The orderly-room
- of the School corps was in the junior part of the School buildings.
- Charteris had been to replace his rifle in that shrine of Mars after a
- mid-day drill, and on coming out into the passage had found himself in
- the middle of a junior school 'rag' of the conventional type.
- Somebody's cap had fallen off, and two hastily picked teams were
- playing football with it (Association rules). Now, Charteris was not a
- prefect (that, it may be observed in passing, was another source of
- bitterness in him towards the Powers, for he was fairly high up in the
- Sixth, and others of his set, Welch, Thomson, and Tony Graham, who were
- also in the Sixth--the two last below him in form order--had already
- received their prefects' caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been
- officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was passing on with
- what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming
- simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing
- teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into him. To
- preserve his balance--this will probably seem a very thin line of
- defence, but 'I state but the facts'--he grabbed at the disciple of
- Smith amidst applause, and at that precise moment a new actor appeared
- on the scene--the Headmaster. Now, of all the things that lay in his
- province, the Headmaster most disliked to see a senior 'ragging' with a
- junior. He had a great idea of the dignity of the senior school, and
- did all that in him lay to see that it was kept up. The greater number
- of the juniors with whom the senior was found ragging, the more heinous
- the offence. Circumstantial evidence was dead against Charteris. To all
- outward appearances he was one of the players in the impromptu football
- match. The soft and fascinating beams of the simper, to quote Mr
- Jabberjee once more, had not yet faded from the act. A well-chosen word
- or two from the Headmagisterial lips put a premature end to the
- football match, and Charteris was proceeding on his way when the
- Headmaster called him. He stopped. The Headmaster was angry. So angry,
- indeed, that he did what in a more lucid interval he would not have
- done. He hauled a senior over the coals in the hearing of a number of
- juniors, one of whom (unidentified) giggled loudly. As Charteris had on
- previous occasions observed, the Old Man, when he did start to take a
- person's measure, didn't leave out much. The address was not long, but
- it covered a great deal of ground. The section of it which chiefly
- rankled in Charteris's mind, and which had continued to rankle ever
- since, was that in which the use of the word 'buffoon' had occurred.
- Everybody who has a gift of humour and (very naturally) enjoys
- exercising it, hates to be called a buffoon. It was Charteris's one
- weak spot. Every other abusive epithet in the language slid off him
- without penetrating or causing him the least discomfort. The word
- 'buffoon' went home, right up to the hilt. And, to borrow from Mr
- Jabberjee for positively the very last time, he had observed
- (mentally): 'Henceforward I will perpetrate heaps of the lowest dregs
- of vice.' He had, in fact, started a perfect bout of breaking rules,
- simply because they were rules. The injustice of the thing rankled. No
- one so dislikes being punished unjustly as the person who might have
- been punished justly on scores of previous occasions, if he had only
- been found out. To a certain extent, Charteris ran amok. He broke
- bounds and did little work, and--he was beginning gradually to find
- this out--got thoroughly tired of it all. Offended dignity, however,
- still kept him at it, and much as he would have preferred to have
- resumed a less feverish type of existence, he did not do so.
- 'I have a ger-rudge against the man,' he said.
- 'You _are_ an idiot, really,' said Welch.
- 'Welch,' said Charteris, by way of explanation to MacArthur, 'is a lad
- of coarse fibre. He doesn't understand the finer feelings. He can't see
- that I am doing this simply for the Old Man's good. Spare the rod,
- spile the choild. Let's go and have a look at Tony when we're changed.
- He'll be in the sick-room if he's anywhere.'
- 'All right,' said the Babe, as he went into his study. 'Buck up. I'll
- toss you for first bath in a second.'
- Charteris walked on with Welch to their sanctum.
- 'You know,' said Welch seriously, stooping to unlace his boots,
- 'rotting apart, you really are a most awful ass. I wish I could get you
- to see it.'
- 'Never you mind, ducky,' said Charteris, 'I'm all right. I'll look
- after myself.'
- _Chapter 2_
- It was about a week after the Bargees' match that the rules respecting
- bounds were made stricter, much to the popular indignation. The penalty
- for visiting Stapleton without leave was increased from two hundred
- lines to two extra lessons. The venomous characteristic of extra lesson
- was that it cut into one's football, for the criminal was turned into a
- form-room from two till four on half-holidays, and so had to scratch
- all athletic engagements for the day, unless he chose to go for a
- solitary run afterwards. In the cricket term the effect of this was not
- so deadly. It was just possible that you might get an innings somewhere
- after four o'clock, even if only at the nets. But during the football
- season--it was now February--to be in extra lesson meant a total loss
- of everything that makes life endurable, and the School protested (to
- one another, in the privacy of their studies) with no uncertain voice
- against this barbarous innovation.
- The reason for the change had been simple. At the corner of the High
- Street at Stapleton was a tobacconist's shop, and Mr Prater, strolling
- in one evening to renew his stock of Pioneer, was interested to observe
- P. St H. Harrison, of Merevale's, purchasing a consignment of 'Girl of
- my Heart' cigarettes (at twopence-halfpenny the packet of twenty,
- including a coloured picture of Lord Kitchener). Now, Mr Prater was one
- of the most sportsmanlike of masters. If he had merely met Harrison out
- of bounds, and it had been possible to have overlooked him, he would
- have done so. But such a proceeding in the interior of a small shop was
- impossible. There was nothing to palliate the crime. The tobacconist
- also kept the wolf from the door, and lured the juvenile population of
- the neighbourhood to it, by selling various weird brands of sweets, but
- it was only too obvious that Harrison was not after these. Guilt was in
- his eye, and the packet of cigarettes in his hand. Also Harrison's
- House cap was fixed firmly at the back of his head. Mr Prater finished
- buying his Pioneer, and went out without a word. That night it was
- announced to Harrison that the Headmaster wished to see him. The
- Headmaster saw him, though for a certain period of the interview he did
- not see the Headmaster, having turned his back on him by request. On
- the following day Stapleton was placed doubly out of bounds.
- Tony, who was still in bed, had not heard the news when Charteris came
- to see him on the evening of the day on which the edict had gone forth.
- 'How are you getting on?' asked Charteris.
- 'Oh, fairly well. It's rather slow.'
- 'The grub seems all right.' Charteris absently reached out for a slice
- of cake.
- 'Not bad.'
- 'And you don't have to do any work.'
- 'No.'
- 'Well, then, it seems to me you're having a jolly good time. What don't
- you like about it?'
- 'It's so slow, being alone all day.'
- 'Makes you appreciate intellectual conversation all the more when you
- get it. Mine, for instance.'
- 'I want something to read.'
- 'I'll bring you a Sidgwick's _Greek Prose Composition_, if you
- like. Full of racy stories.'
- 'I've read 'em, thanks.'
- 'How about Jebb's _Homer_? You'd like that. Awfully interesting.
- Proves that there never was such a man as Homer, you know, and that the
- _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ were produced by evolution. General
- style, quietly funny. Make you roar.'
- 'Don't be an idiot. I'm simply starving for something to read. Haven't
- you got anything?'
- 'You've read all mine.'
- 'Hasn't Welch got any books?'
- 'Not one. He bags mine when he wants to read. I'll tell you what I will
- do if you like.'
- 'What?'
- 'Go into Stapleton, and borrow something from Adamson.' Adamson was the
- College doctor.
- 'By Jove, that's not a bad idea.'
- 'It's a dashed good idea, which wouldn't have occurred to anybody but a
- genius. I've been quite a pal of Adamson's ever since I had the flu. I
- go to tea with him occasionally, and we talk medical shop. Have you
- ever tried talking medical shop during tea? Nothing like it for giving
- you an appetite.'
- 'Has he got anything readable?'
- 'Rather. Have you ever tried anything of James Payn's?'
- 'I've read _Terminations_, or something,' said Tony doubtfully,
- 'but he's so obscure.'
- 'Don't,' said Charteris sadly, 'please don't. _Terminations_ is by
- one Henry James, and there is a substantial difference between him and
- James Payn. Anyhow, if you want a short biography of James Payn, he
- wrote a hundred books, and they're all simply ripping, and Adamson has
- got a good many of them, and I'm hoping to borrow a couple--any two
- will do--and you're going to read them. I know one always bars a book
- that's recommended to one, but you've got no choice. You're not going
- to get anything else till you've finished those two.'
- 'All right,' said Tony. 'But Stapleton's out of bounds. I suppose
- Merevale'll give you leave to go in.'
- 'He won't,' said Charteris. 'I shan't ask him. On principle. So long.'
- On the following afternoon Charteris went into Stapleton. The distance
- by road was almost exactly one mile. If you went by the fields it was
- longer, because you probably lost your way.
- Dr Adamson's house was in the High Street. Charteris knocked at the
- door. The servant was sorry, but the doctor was out. Her tone seemed to
- suggest that, if she had had any say in the matter, he would have
- remained in. Would Charteris come in and wait? Charteris rather thought
- he would. He waited for half an hour, and then, as the absent medico
- did not appear to be coming, took two books from the shelf, wrote a
- succinct note explaining what he had done, and why he had done it,
- hoping the doctor would not mind, and went out with his literary
- trophies into the High Street again.
- The time was now close on five o'clock. Lock-up was not till a quarter
- past six--six o'clock nominally, but the doors were always left open
- till a quarter past. It would take him about fifteen minutes to get
- back, less if he trotted. Obviously, the thing to do here was to spend
- a thoughtful quarter of an hour or so inspecting the sights of the
- town. These were ordinarily not numerous, but this particular day
- happened to be market day, and there was a good deal going on. The High
- Street was full of farmers, cows, and other animals, the majority of
- the former well on the road to intoxication. It is, of course,
- extremely painful to see a man in such a condition, but when such a
- person is endeavouring to count a perpetually moving drove of pigs, the
- onlooker's pain is sensibly diminished. Charteris strolled along the
- High Street observing these and other phenomena with an attentive eye.
- Opposite the Town Hall he was button-holed by a perfect stranger, whom,
- by his conversation, he soon recognized as the Stapleton 'character'.
- There is a 'character' in every small country town. He is not a bad
- character; still less is he a good character. He is just a 'character'
- pure and simple. This particular man--or rather, this man, for he was
- anything but particular--apparently took a great fancy to Charteris at
- first sight. He backed him gently against a wall, and insisted on
- telling him an interminable anecdote of his shady past, when, it
- seemed, he had been a 'super' in some travelling company. The plot of
- the story, as far as Charteris could follow it, dealt with a theatrical
- tour in Dublin, where some person or persons unknown had, with malice
- prepense, scattered several pounds of snuff on the stage previous to a
- performance of _Hamlet_; and, according to the 'character', when
- the ghost of Hamlet's father sneezed steadily throughout his great
- scene, there was not a dry eye in the house. The 'character' had
- concluded that anecdote, and was half-way through another, when
- Charteris, looking at his watch, found that it was almost six o'clock.
- He interrupted one of the 'character's' periods by diving past him and
- moving rapidly down the street. The historian did not seem to object.
- Charteris looked round and saw that he had button-holed a fresh victim.
- He was still gazing in one direction and walking in another, when he
- ran into somebody.
- 'Sorry,' said Charteris hastily. 'Hullo!'
- It was the secretary of the Old Crockfordians, and, to judge from the
- scowl on that gentleman's face, the recognition was mutual.
- 'It's you, is it?' said the secretary in his polished way.
- 'I believe so,' said Charteris.
- 'Out of bounds,' observed the man.
- Charteris was surprised. This grasp of technical lore on the part of a
- total outsider was as unexpected as it was gratifying.
- 'What do you know about bounds?' said Charteris.
- 'I know you ain't allowed to come 'ere, and you'll get it 'ot from your
- master for coming.'
- 'Ah, but he won't know. I shan't tell him, and I'm sure you will
- respect my secret.'
- Charteris smiled in a winning manner.
- 'Ho!' said the man, 'Ho indeed!'
- There is something very clinching about the word 'Ho'. It seems
- definitely to apply the closure to any argument. At least, I have never
- yet met anyone who could tell me the suitable repartee.
- 'Well,' said Charteris affably, 'don't let me keep you. I must be going
- on.'
- 'Ho!' observed the man once more. 'Ho indeed!'
- 'That's a wonderfully shrewd remark,' said Charteris. 'I can see that,
- but I wish you'd tell me exactly what it means.'
- 'You're out of bounds.'
- 'Your mind seems to run in a groove. You can't get off that bounds
- business. How do you know Stapleton's out of bounds?'
- 'I have made enquiries,' said the man darkly.
- 'By Jove,' said Charteris delightedly, 'this is splendid. You're a
- regular sleuth-hound. I dare say you've found out my name and House
- too?'
- 'I may 'ave,' said the man, 'or I may not 'ave.'
- 'Well, now you mention it, I suppose one of the two contingencies is
- probable. Well, I'm awfully glad to have met you. Good-bye. I must be
- going.'
- 'You're goin' with me.'
- 'Arm in arm?'
- 'I don't want to _'ave_ to take you.'
- 'No,' said Charteris, 'I should jolly well advise you not to try. This
- is my way.'
- He walked on till he came to the road that led to St Austin's. The
- secretary of the Old Crockfordians stalked beside him with determined
- stride.
- 'Now,' said Charteris, when they were on the road, 'you mustn't mind if
- I walk rather fast. I'm in a hurry.'
- Charteris's idea of walking rather fast was to dash off down the road
- at quarter-mile pace. The move took the man by surprise, but, after a
- moment, he followed with much panting. It was evident that he was not
- in training. Charteris began to feel that the walk home might be
- amusing in its way. After they had raced some three hundred yards he
- slowed down to a walk again. It was at this point that his companion
- evinced a desire to do the rest of the journey with a hand on the
- collar of his coat.
- 'If you touch me,' observed Charteris with a surprising knowledge of
- legal _minutiae_, 'it'll be a technical assault, and you'll get
- run in; and you'll get beans anyway if you try it on.'
- The man reconsidered matters, and elected not to try it on.
- Half a mile from the College Charteris began to walk rather fast again.
- He was a good half-miler, and his companion was bad at every distance.
- After a game struggle he dropped to the rear, and finished a hundred
- yards behind in considerable straits. Charteris shot in at Merevale's
- door with five minutes to spare, and went up to his study to worry
- Welch by telling him about it.
- 'Welch, you remember the Bargee who scragged Tony? Well, there have
- been all sorts of fresh developments. He's just been pacing me all the
- way from Stapleton.'
- 'Stapleton! Have you been to Stapleton? Did Merevale give you leave?'
- 'No. I didn't ask him.'
- 'You _are_ an idiot. And now this Bargee man will go straight to
- the Old Man and run you in. I wonder you didn't think of that.'
- 'Curious I didn't.'
- 'I suppose he saw you come in here?'
- 'Rather. He couldn't have had a better view if he'd paid for a seat.
- Half a second; I must just run up with these volumes to Tony.'
- When he came back he found Welch more serious than ever.
- 'I told you so,' said Welch. 'You're to go to the Old Man at once. He's
- just sent over for you. I say, look here, if it's only lines I don't
- mind doing some of them, if you like.'
- Charteris was quite touched by this sporting offer.
- 'It's awfully good of you,' he said, 'but it doesn't matter, really. I
- shall be all right.'
- Ten minutes later he returned, beaming.
- 'Well,' said Welch, 'what's he given you?'
- 'Only his love, to give to you. It was this way. He first asked me if I
- wasn't perfectly aware that Stapleton was out of bounds. "Sir," says I,
- "I've known it from childhood's earliest hour." "Ah," says he to me,
- "did Mr Merevale give you leave to go in this afternoon?" "No," says I,
- "I never consulted the gent you mention."'
- 'Well?'
- 'Then he ragged me for ten minutes, and finally told me I must go into
- extra the next two Saturdays.'
- 'I thought so.'
- 'Ah, but mark the sequel. When he had finished, I said that I was sorry
- I had mistaken the rules, but I had thought that a chap was allowed to
- go into Stapleton if he got leave from a master. "But you said that Mr
- Merevale did not give you leave," said he. "Friend of my youth," I
- replied courteously, "you are perfectly correct. As always. Mr Merevale
- did not give me leave, but," I added suavely, "Mr Dacre did." And I
- came away, chanting hymns of triumph in a mellow baritone, and leaving
- him in a dead faint on the sofa. And the Bargee, who was present during
- the conflict, swiftly and silently vanished away, his morale
- considerably shattered. And that, my gentle Welch,' concluded Charteris
- cheerfully, 'put me one up. So pass the biscuits, and let us rejoice if
- we never rejoice again.'
- _Chapter 3_
- The Easter term was nearing its end. Football, with the exception of
- the final House-match, which had still to come off, was over, and life
- was in consequence a trifle less exhilarating than it might have been.
- In some ways the last few weeks before the Easter holidays are quite
- pleasant. You can put on running shorts and a blazer and potter about
- the grounds, feeling strong and athletic, and delude yourself into the
- notion that you are training for the sports. Ten minutes at the broad
- jump, five with the weight, a few sprints on the track--it is all very
- amusing and harmless, but it is apt to become monotonous after a time.
- And if the weather is at all inclined to be chilly, such an occupation
- becomes impossible.
- Charteris found things particularly dull. He was a fair average runner,
- but there were others far better at every distance, so that he saw no
- use in mortifying the flesh with strict training. On the other hand, in
- view of the fact that the final House-match had yet to be played, and
- that Merevale's was one of the two teams that were going to play it, it
- behoved him to keep himself at least moderately fit. The genial muffin
- and the cheery crumpet were still things to be avoided. He thus found
- himself in a position where, apparently, the few things which it was
- possible for him to do were barred, and the net result was that he felt
- slightly dull.
- To make matters worse, all the rest of his set were working full time
- at their various employments, and had no leisure for amusing him. Welch
- practised hundred-yard sprints daily, and imagined that it would be
- quite a treat for Charteris to be allowed to time him. So he gave him
- the stopwatch, saw him safely to the end of the track, and at a given
- signal dashed off in the approved American style. By the time he
- reached the tape, dutifully held by two sporting Merevalian juniors,
- Charteris's attention had generally been attracted elsewhere. 'What
- time?' Welch would pant. 'By Jove,' Charteris would observe blandly, 'I
- forgot to look. About a minute and a quarter, I fancy.' At which Welch,
- who always had a notion that he had done it in ten and a fifth
- _that_ time, at any rate, would dissemble his joy, and mildly
- suggest that somebody else should hold the watch. Then there was Jim
- Thomson, generally a perfect mine of elevating conversation. He was in
- for the mile and also the half, and refused to talk about anything
- except those distances, and the best methods for running them in the
- minimum of time. Charteris began to feel a blue melancholy stealing
- over him. The Babe, again. He might have helped to while away the long
- hours, but unfortunately the Babe had been taken very bad with a notion
- that he was going to win the 'cross-country run, and when, in addition
- to this, he was seized with a panic with regard to the prospects of the
- House team in the final, and began to throw out hints concerning strict
- training, Charteris regarded him as a person to be avoided. If he fled
- to the Babe for sympathy now, the Babe would be just as likely as not
- to suggest that he should come for a ten-mile spin with him, to get him
- into condition for the final Houser. The very thought of a ten-mile
- spin made Charteris feel faint. Lastly, there was Tony. But Tony's
- company was worse than none at all. He went about with his arm in a
- sling, and declined to be comforted. But for his injury, he would by
- now have been training hard for the Aldershot Boxing Competition, and
- the fact that he was now definitely out of it had a very depressing
- effect upon him. He lounged moodily about the gymnasium, watching
- Menzies, who was to take his place, sparring with the instructor, and
- refused consolation. Altogether, Charteris found life a distinct bore.
- He was reduced to such straits for amusement, that one Wednesday
- afternoon, finding himself with nothing else to do, he was working at a
- burlesque and remarkably scurrilous article on 'The Staff, by one who
- has suffered', which he was going to insert in _The Glow Worm_, an
- unofficial periodical which he had started for the amusement of the
- School and his own and his contributors' profit. He was just warming to
- his work, and beginning to enjoy himself, when the door opened without
- a preliminary knock. Charteris deftly slid a piece of blotting-paper
- over his MS., for Merevale occasionally entered a study in this manner.
- And though there was nothing about Merevale himself in the article, it
- would be better perhaps, thought Charteris, if he did not see it. But
- it was not Merevale. It was somebody far worse. The Babe.
- The Babe was clothed as to his body in football clothes, and as to
- face, in a look of holy enthusiasm. Charteris knew what that look
- meant. It meant that the Babe was going to try and drag him out for a
- run.
- 'Go away, Babe,' he said, 'I'm busy.'
- 'Why on earth are you slacking in here on this ripping afternoon?'
- 'Slacking!' said Charteris. 'I like that. I'm doing berrain work, Babe.
- I'm writing an article on masters and their customs, which will cause a
- profound sensation in the Common Room. At least it would, if they ever
- saw it, but they won't. Or I hope they won't for their sake _and_
- mine. So run away, my precious Babe, and don't disturb your uncle when
- he's busy.'
- 'Rot,' said the Babe firmly, 'you haven't taken any exercise for a
- week.'
- Charteris replied proudly that he had wound up his watch only last
- night. The Babe refused to accept the remark as relevant to the matter
- in hand.
- 'Look here, Alderman,' he said, sitting down on the table, and gazing
- sternly at his victim, 'it's all very well, you know, but the final
- comes on in a few days, and you know you aren't in any too good
- training.'
- 'I am,' said Charteris, 'I'm as fit as a prize fighter. Simply full of
- beans. Feel my ribs.'
- The Babe declined the offer.
- 'No, but I say,' he said plaintively, 'I wish you'd treat it seriously.
- It's getting jolly serious, really. If Dacre's win that cup again this
- year, that'll make four years running.'
- 'Not so,' said Charteris, like the mariner of
- infinite-resource-and-sagacity; 'not so, but far otherwise. It'll only
- make three.'
- 'Well, three's bad enough.'
- 'True, oh king, three is quite bad enough.'
- 'Well, then, there you are. Now you see.'
- Charteris looked puzzled.
- 'Would you mind explaining that remark?' he said. 'Slowly.'
- But the Babe had got off the table, and was prowling round the room,
- opening cupboards and boxes.
- 'What are you playing at?' enquired Charteris.
- 'Where do you keep your footer things?'
- 'What do you want with my footer things, if you don't mind my asking?'
- 'I'm going to help you put them on, and then you're coming for a run.'
- 'Ah,' said Charteris.
- 'Yes. Just a gentle spin to keep you in training. Hullo, this looks
- like them.'
- He plunged both hands into a box near the window and flung out a mass
- of football clothes. It reminded Charteris of a terrier digging at a
- rabbit-hole.
- He protested.
- 'Don't, Babe. Treat 'em tenderly. You'll be spoiling the crease in
- those bags if you heave 'em about like that. I'm very particular about
- how I look on the football field. _I_ was always taught to dress
- myself like a little gentleman, so to speak. Well, now you've seen
- them, put 'em away.'
- 'Put 'em on,' said the Babe firmly.
- 'You are a beast, Babe. I don't want to go for a run. I'm getting too
- old for violent exercise.'
- 'Buck up,' said the Babe. 'We mustn't chuck any chances away. Now that
- Tony can't play, we shall have to do all we know if we want to win.'
- 'I don't see what need there is to get nervous about it. Considering
- we've got three of the First three-quarter line, and the Second Fifteen
- back, we ought to do pretty well.'
- 'But look at Dacre's scrum. There's Prescott, to start with. He's worth
- any two of our men put together. Then they've got Carter, Smith, and
- Hemming out of the first, and Reeve-Jones out of the second. And their
- outsides aren't so very bad, if you come to think of it. Bannister's in
- the first, and the other three-quarters are all good. And they've got
- both the second halves. You'll have practically to look after both of
- them now that Tony's crocked. And Baddeley has come on a lot this
- term.'
- 'Babe,' said Charteris, 'you have reason. I will turn over a new leaf.
- I _will_ be good. Give me my things and I'll come for a run. Only
- please don't let it be anything over twenty miles.'
- 'Good man,' said the gratified Babe. 'We won't go far, and will take it
- quite easy.'
- 'I tell you what,' said Charteris. 'Do you know a place called Worbury?
- I thought you wouldn't, probably. It's only a sort of hamlet, two
- cottages, three public-houses, and a duck-pond, and that sort of thing.
- I only know it because Welch and I ran there once last year. It's in
- the Badgwick direction, about three miles by road, mostly along the
- level. I vote we muffle up fairly well, blazers and sweaters and so on,
- run to Worbury, tea at one of the cottages, and back in time for
- lock-up. How does that strike you?'
- 'It sounds all right. How about tea though? Are you certain you can get
- it?'
- 'Rather. The Oldest Inhabitant is quite a pal of mine.'
- Charteris's circle of acquaintances was a standing wonder to the Babe
- and other Merevalians. He seemed to know everybody in the county.
- When once he was fairly started on any business, physical or mental,
- Charteris generally shaped well. It was the starting that he found the
- difficulty. Now that he was actually in motion, he was enjoying himself
- thoroughly. He wondered why on earth he had been so reluctant to come
- for this run. The knowledge that there were three miles to go, and that
- he was equal to them, made him feel a new man. He felt fit. And there
- is nothing like feeling fit for dispelling boredom. He swung along with
- the Babe at a steady pace.
- 'There's the cottage,' he said, as they turned a bend of the road, and
- Worbury appeared a couple of hundred yards away. 'Let's sprint.' They
- sprinted, and arrived at the door of the cottage with scarcely a yard
- between them, much to the admiration of the Oldest Inhabitant, who was
- smoking a thoughtful pipe in his front garden. Mrs Oldest Inhabitant
- came out of the cottage at the sound of voices, and Charteris broached
- the subject of tea. The menu was sumptuous and varied, and even the
- Babe, in spite of his devotion to strict training, could scarce forbear
- to smile happily at the mention of hot cakes.
- During the _mauvais quart d'heure_ before the meal, Charteris kept
- up an animated conversation with the Oldest Inhabitant, the Babe
- joining in from time to time when he could think of anything to say.
- Charteris appeared to be quite a friend of the family. He enquired
- after the Oldest Inhabitant's rheumatics. It was gratifying to find
- that they were distinctly better. How had Mrs O. I. been since his last
- visit? Prarper hearty? Excellent. How was the O. I.'s nevvy?
- At the mention of his nevvy the O. I. became discursive. He told his
- audience everything that had happened in connection with the said nevvy
- for years back. After which he started to describe what he would
- probably do in the future. Amongst other things, there were going to be
- some sports at Rutton today week, and his nevvy was going to try and
- win the cup for what the Oldest Inhabitant vaguely described as 'a
- race'. He had won it last year. Yes, prarper good runner, his nevvy.
- Where was Rutton? the Babe wanted to know. About eight miles out of
- Stapleton, said Charteris, who was well up in local geography. You got
- there by train. It was the next station.
- Mrs O. I. came out to say that tea was ready, and, being drawn into the
- conversation on the subject of the Rutton sports, produced a programme
- of the same, which her nevvy had sent them. From this it seemed that
- the nevvy's 'spot' event was the egg and spoon race. An asterisk
- against his name pointed him out as the last year's winner.
- 'Hullo,' said Charteris, 'I see there's a strangers' mile. I'm a demon
- at the mile when I'm roused. I think I shall go in for it.'
- He handed the programme back and began his tea.
- 'You know, Babe,' he said, as they were going back that evening, 'I
- really think I shall go in for that race. It would be a most awful rag.
- It's the day before the House-match, so it'll just get me fit.'
- 'Don't be a fool,' said the Babe. 'There would be a fearful row about
- it if you were found out. You'd get extras for the rest of your life.'
- 'Well, the final Houser comes off on a Thursday, so it won't affect
- that.'
- 'Yes, but still--'
- 'I shall think about it,' said Charteris. 'You needn't go telling
- anyone.'
- 'If you'll take my advice, you'll drop it.'
- 'Your suggestion has been noted, and will receive due attention,' said
- Charteris. 'Put on the pace a bit.'
- They lengthened their stride, and conversation came to an abrupt end.
- _Chapter 4_
- 'I shall go, Babe,' said Charteris on the following night.
- The Sixth Form had a slack day before them on the morrow, there being a
- temporary lull in the form-work which occurred about once a week, when
- there was no composition of any kind to be done. The Sixth did four
- compositions a week, two Greek and two Latin, and except for these did
- not bother themselves very much about overnight preparation. The Latin
- authors which the form were doing were Livy and Virgil, and when either
- of these were on the next day's programme, most of the Sixth considered
- that they were justified in taking a night off. They relied on their
- ability to translate both authors at sight and without previous
- acquaintance. The popular notion that Virgil is hard rarely appeals to
- a member of a public school. There are two ways of translating Virgil,
- the conscientious and the other. He prefers the other.
- On this particular night, therefore, work was 'off'. Merevale was over
- at the Great Hall, taking preparation, and the Sixth-Form Merevalians
- had assembled in Charteris's study to talk about things in general. It
- was after a pause of some moments, that had followed upon a lively
- discussion of the House's prospects in the forthcoming final, that
- Charteris had spoken.
- 'I shall go, Babe,' said he.
- 'Go where?' asked Tony, from the depths of a deck-chair.
- 'Babe knows.'
- The Babe turned to the company and explained.
- 'The lunatic's going in for the strangers' mile at some sports at
- Rutton next week. He'll get booked for a cert. He can't see that. I
- never saw such a man.'
- 'Rally round,' said Charteris, 'and reason with me. I'll listen. Tony,
- what do you think about it?'
- Tony expressed his opinion tersely, and Charteris thanked him. Welch,
- who had been reading, now awoke to the fact that a discussion was in
- progress, and asked for details. The Babe explained once more, and
- Welch heartily corroborated Tony's remarks. Charteris thanked him too.
- 'You aren't really going, are you?' asked Welch.
- 'Rather,' said Charteris.
- 'The Old Man won't give you leave.'
- 'Shan't worry the poor man with such trifles.'
- 'But it's miles out of bounds. Stapleton station is out of bounds to
- start with. It's against rules to go in a train, and Rutton's even more
- out of bounds than Stapleton.'
- 'And as there are sports there,' said Tony, 'the Old Man is certain to
- put Rutton specially out of bounds for that day. He always bars a St
- Austin's chap going to a place when there's anything going on there.'
- 'I don't care. What have I to do with the Old Man's petty prejudices?
- Now, let me get at my time-table. Here we are. Now then.'
- 'Don't be a fool,' said Tony,
- 'Certainly not. Look here, there's a train starts from Stapleton at
- three. I can catch that all right. Gets to Rutton at three-twenty.
- Sports begin at three-fifteen. At least, they are supposed to. Over
- before five, I should think. At least, my race will be, though I must
- stop to see the Oldest Inhabitant's nevvy win the egg and spoon canter.
- But that ought to come on before the strangers' race. Train back at a
- quarter past five. Arrives at a quarter to six. Lock up six-fifteen.
- That gives me half an hour to get here from Stapleton. What more do you
- want? I shall do it easily, and ... the odds against my being booked
- are about twenty-five to one. At which price if any gent present cares
- to deposit his money, I am willing to take him. Now I'll treat you to a
- tune, if you're good.'
- He went to the cupboard and produced his gramophone. Charteris's
- musical instruments had at one time been strictly suppressed by the
- authorities, and, in consequence, he had laid in a considerable stock
- of them. At last, when he discovered that there was no rule against the
- use of musical instruments in the House, Merevale had yielded. The
- stipulation that Charteris should play only before prep. was rigidly
- observed, except when Merevale was over at the Hall, and the Sixth had
- no work. On such occasions Charteris felt justified in breaking through
- the rule. He had a gramophone, a banjo, a penny whistle, and a mouth
- organ. The banjo, which he played really well, was the most in request,
- but the gramophone was also popular.
- 'Turn on "Whistling Rufus",' observed Thomson.
- 'Whistling Rufus' was duly turned on, giving way after an encore to
- 'Bluebells'.
- 'I always weep when I hear this,' said Tony.
- 'It _is_ beautiful, isn't it?' said Charteris.
- I'll be your sweetheart, if you--will be--mine,
- All my life, I'll be your valentine.
- Bluebells I've gathered--grrhhrh.
- The needle of the gramophone, after the manner of its kind, slipped
- raspingly over the surface of the wax, and the rest of the ballad was
- lost.
- 'That,' said Charteris, 'is how I feel with regard to the Old Man. I'd
- be his sweetheart, if he'd be mine. But he makes no advances, and the
- stain on my scutcheon is not yet wiped out. I must say I haven't tried
- gathering bluebells for him yet, nor have I offered my services as a
- perpetual valentine, but I've been very kind to him in other ways.'
- 'Is he still down on you?' asked the Babe.
- 'He hasn't done much lately. We're in a state of truce at present. Did
- I tell you how I scored about Stapleton?'
- 'You've only told us about a hundred times,' said the Babe brutally. 'I
- tell you what, though, he'll score off you if he finds you going to
- Rutton.'
- 'Let's hope he won't.'
- 'He won't,' said Welch suddenly.
- 'Why?'
- 'Because you won't go. I'll bet you anything you like that you won't
- go.'
- That settled Charteris. It was the sort of remark that always acted on
- him like a tonic. He had been intending to go all the time, but it was
- this speech of Welch's that definitely clinched the matter. One of his
- mottoes for everyday use was 'Let not thyself be scored off by Welch.'
- 'That's all right,' he said. 'Of course I shall go. What's the next
- item you'd like on this machine?'
- The day of the sports arrived, and the Babe, meeting Charteris at
- Merevale's gate, made a last attempt to head him off from his purpose.
- 'How are you going to take your things?' he asked. 'You can't carry a
- bag. The first beak you met would ask questions.'
- If he had hoped that this would be a crushing argument, he was
- disappointed.
- Charteris patted a bloated coat pocket.
- 'Bags,' he said laconically. 'Vest,' he added, doing the same to his
- other pocket. 'Shoes,' he concluded, 'you will observe I am carrying in
- a handy brown paper parcel, and if anybody wants to know what's in it,
- I shall tell them it's acid drops. Sure you won't come, too?'
- 'Quite, thanks.'
- 'All right. So long then. Be good while I'm gone.'
- And he passed on down the road that led to Stapleton.
- The Rutton Recreation Ground presented, as the _Stapleton Herald_
- justly remarked in its next week's issue, 'a gay and animated
- appearance'. There was a larger crowd than Charteris had expected. He
- made his way through them, resisting without difficulty the entreaties
- of a hoarse gentleman in a check suit to have three to two on 'Enery
- something for the hundred yards, and came at last to the dressing-tent.
- At this point it occurred to him that it would be judicious to find out
- when his race was to start. It was rather a chilly day, and the less
- time he spent in the undress uniform of shorts the better. He bought a
- correct card for twopence, and scanned it. The strangers' mile was down
- for four-fifty. There was no need to change for an hour yet. He wished
- the authorities could have managed to date the event earlier.
- Four-fifty was running it rather fine. The race would be over by about
- five to five, and it was a walk of some ten minutes to the station,
- less if he hurried. That would give him ten minutes for recovering from
- the effects of the race, and changing back into his ordinary clothes
- again. It would be quick work. But, having come so far, he was not
- inclined to go back without running in the race. He would never be able
- to hold his head up again if he did that. He left the dressing-tent,
- and started on a tour of the field.
- The scene was quite different from anything he had ever witnessed
- before in the way of sports. The sports at St Austin's were decorous to
- a degree. These leaned more to the rollickingly convivial. It was like
- an ordinary race-meeting, except that men were running instead of
- horses. Rutton was a quiet little place for the majority of the year,
- but it woke up on this day, and was evidently out to enjoy itself. The
- Rural Hooligan was a good deal in evidence, and though he was
- comparatively quiet just at present, the frequency with which he
- visited the various refreshment stalls that dotted the ground gave
- promise of livelier times in the future. Charteris felt that the
- afternoon would not be dull.
- The hour soon passed, and Charteris, having first seen the Oldest
- Inhabitant's nevvy romp home in the egg and spoon event, took himself
- off to the dressing-tent, and began to get into his running clothes.
- The bell for his race was just ringing when he left the tent. He
- trotted over to the starting place.
- Apparently there was not a very large 'field'. Two weedy-looking youths
- of about Charteris's age, dressed in blushing pink, put in an
- appearance, and a very tall, thin man came up almost immediately
- afterwards. Charteris had just removed his coat, and was about to get
- to his place on the line, when another competitor arrived, and, to
- judge by the applause that greeted his appearance, he was evidently a
- favourite in the locality. It was with shock that Charteris recognized
- his old acquaintance, the Bargees' secretary.
- He was clad in running clothes of a bright orange and a smile of
- conscious superiority, and when somebody in the crowd called out 'Go
- it, Jarge!' he accepted the tribute as his due, and waved a
- condescending hand in the speaker's direction.
- Some moments elapsed before he recognized Charteris, and the latter had
- time to decide upon his line of action. If he attempted concealment in
- any way, the man would recognize that on this occasion, at any rate, he
- had, to use an adequate if unclassical expression, got the bulge, and
- then there would be trouble. By brazening things out, however, there
- was just a chance that he might make him imagine that there was more in
- the matter than met the eye, and that, in some mysterious way, he had
- actually obtained leave to visit Rutton that day. After all, the man
- didn't know very much about School rules, and the recollection of the
- recent fiasco in which he had taken part would make him think twice
- about playing the amateur policeman again, especially in connection
- with Charteris.
- So he smiled genially, and expressed a hope that the man enjoyed robust
- health.
- The man replied by glaring in a simple and unaffected manner.
- 'Looked up the Headmaster lately?' asked Charteris.
- 'What are you doing here?'
- 'I'm going to run. Hope you don't mind.'
- 'You're out of bounds.'
- 'That's what you said before. You'd better enquire a bit before you
- make rash statements. Otherwise, there's no knowing what may happen.
- Perhaps Mr Dacre has given me leave.'
- The man said something objurgatory under his breath, but forbore to
- continue the discussion. He was wondering, as Charteris had expected
- that he would, whether the latter had really got leave or not. It was a
- difficult problem.
- Whether such a result was due to his mental struggles, or whether it
- was simply to be attributed to his poor running, is open to question,
- but the fact remains that the secretary of the Old Crockfordians did
- not shine in the strangers' mile. He came in last but one, vanquishing
- the pink sportsman by a foot. Charteris, after a hot finish, was beaten
- on the tape by one of the weedy youths, who exhibited astounding
- sprinting powers in the last two hundred yards, overhauling Charteris,
- who had led all the time, in fine style, and scoring what the
- _Stapleton Herald_ described as a 'highly popular victory'.
- As soon as he had recovered his normal stock of wind--which was not
- immediately--it was borne in upon Charteris that if he wanted to catch
- the five-fifteen back to Stapleton, he had better be beginning to
- change. He went to the dressing-tent, and on examining his watch was
- horrified to find that he had just ten minutes in which to do
- everything, and the walk to the station, he reflected, was a long five
- minutes. He literally hurled himself into his clothes, and,
- disregarding the Bargee, who had entered the tent and seemed to wish to
- continue the discussion at the point where they had left off, shot off
- towards the gate nearest the station. He had exactly four minutes and
- twenty-five seconds in which to complete the journey, and he had just
- run a mile.
- _Chapter 5_
- Fortunately the road was mainly level. On the other hand, he was
- hampered by an overcoat. After the first hundred yards he took this
- off, and carried it in an unwieldy parcel. This, he found, answered
- admirably. Running became easier. He had worked the stiffness out of
- his legs by this time, and was going well. Three hundred yards from the
- station it was anybody's race. The exact position of the other
- competitor, the train, could not be defined. It was at any rate not yet
- within earshot, which meant that it still had at least a quarter of a
- mile to go. Charteris considered that he had earned a rest. He slowed
- down to a walk, but after proceeding at this pace for a few yards,
- thought that he heard a distant whistle, and dashed on again. Suddenly
- a raucous bellow of laughter greeted his ears from a spot in front of
- him, hidden from his sight by a bend in the road.
- 'Somebody slightly tight,' thought Charteris, rapidly diagnosing the
- case. 'By Jove, if he comes rotting about with me I'll kill him.'
- Having to do anything in a desperate hurry always made Charteris's
- temper slightly villainous. He turned the corner at a sharp trot, and
- came upon two youths who seemed to be engaged in the harmless
- occupation of trying to ride a bicycle. They were of the type which he
- held in especial aversion, the Rural Hooligan type, and one at least of
- the two had evidently been present at a recent circulation of the
- festive bowl. He was wheeling the bicycle about the road in an aimless
- manner, and looked as if he wondered what was the matter with it that
- it would not stay in the same place for two consecutive seconds. The
- other youth was apparently of the 'Charles-his-friend' variety, content
- to look on and applaud, and generally to play chorus to his companion's
- 'lead'. He was standing at the side of the road, smiling broadly in a
- way that argued feebleness of mind. Charteris was not quite sure which
- of the two types he loathed the more. He was inclined to call it a tie.
- However, there seemed to be nothing particularly lawless in what they
- were doing now. If they were content to let him pass without hindrance,
- he, for his part, was content generously to overlook the insult they
- offered him in daring to exist, and to maintain a state of truce. But,
- as he drew nearer, he saw that there was more in this business than the
- casual spectator might at first have supposed. A second and keener
- inspection of the reptiles revealed fresh phenomena. In the first
- place, the bicycle which Hooligan number one was playing with was a
- lady's bicycle, and a small one at that. Now, up to the age of fourteen
- and the weight of ten stone, a beginner at cycling often finds it more
- convenient to learn to ride on a lady's machine than on a gentleman's.
- The former offers greater facilities for rapid dismounting, a quality
- not to be despised in the earlier stages of initiation. But, though
- this is undoubtedly the case, and though Charteris knew that it was so,
- yet he felt instinctively that there was something wrong here.
- Hooligans of twenty years and twelve stone do not learn to ride on
- small ladies' machines, or, if they do, it is probably without the
- permission of the small lady who owns the same. Valuable as his time
- was, Charteris felt that it behoved him to spend a thoughtful minute or
- so examining into this affair. He slowed down once again to a walk,
- and, as he did so, his eye fell upon the character in the drama whose
- absence had puzzled him, the owner of the bicycle. And from that moment
- he felt that life would be a hollow mockery if he failed to fall upon
- those revellers and slay them. She stood by the hedge on the right, a
- forlorn little figure in grey, and she gazed sadly and helplessly at
- the manoeuvres that were going on in the middle of the road. Her age
- Charteris put down at a venture at twelve--a correct guess. Her state
- of mind he also conjectured. She was letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I
- would', like the late Macbeth, the cat i' the adage, and numerous other
- celebrities. She evidently had plenty of remarks to make on the subject
- in hand, but refrained from motives of prudence.
- Charteris had no such scruples. The feeling of fatigue that had been
- upon him had vanished, and his temper, which had been growing steadily
- worse for some twenty minutes, now boiled over gleefully at the
- prospect of something solid to work itself off upon. Even without a
- cause Charteris detested the Rural Hooligan. Now that a real,
- copper-bottomed motive for this dislike had been supplied to him, he
- felt himself capable of dealing with a whole regiment of the breed. The
- criminal with the bicycle had just let it fall with a crash to the
- ground when Charteris went for him low, in the style which the Babe
- always insisted on seeing in members of the First Fifteen on the
- football field, and hove him without comment into a damp ditch.
- 'Charles his friend' uttered a shout of disapproval and rushed into the
- fray. Charteris gave him the straight left, of the type to which the
- great John Jackson is reported to have owed so much in the days of the
- old Prize Ring, and Charles, taking it between the eyes, stopped in a
- discouraged and discontented manner, and began to rub the place.
- Whereupon Charteris dashed in, and, to use an expression suitable to
- the deed, 'swung his right at the mark'. The 'mark', it may be
- explained for the benefit of the non-pugilistic, is that portion of the
- anatomy which lies hid behind the third button of the human waistcoat.
- It covers--in a most inadequate way--the wind, and even a gentle tap in
- the locality is apt to produce a fleeting sense of discomfort. A
- genuine flush hit on the spot, shrewdly administered by a muscular arm
- with the weight of the body behind it, causes the passive agent in the
- transaction to wish fervently, as far as he is at the moment physically
- capable of wishing anything, that he had never been born. 'Charles his
- friend' collapsed like an empty sack, and Charteris, getting a grip of
- the outlying portions of his costume, dragged him to the ditch and
- rolled him in on top of his friend, who had just recovered sufficiently
- to be thinking about getting out again. The pair of them lay there in a
- tangled heap. Charteris picked up the bicycle and gave it a cursory
- examination. The enamel was a good deal scratched, but no material
- damage had been done. He wheeled it across to its owner.
- 'It isn't much hurt,' he said, as they walked on slowly together. 'Bit
- scratched, that's all.'
- 'Thanks _awfully_,' said the small lady.
- 'Oh, not at all,' replied Charteris. 'I enjoyed it.' (He felt he had
- said the right thing there. Your real hero always 'enjoys it'.) 'I'm
- sorry those bargees frightened you.'
- 'They did rather. But'--she added triumphantly after a pause--'I didn't
- cry.'
- 'Rather not,' said Charteris. 'You were awfully plucky. I noticed. But
- hadn't you better ride on? Which way were you going?'
- 'I wanted to get to Stapleton.'
- 'Oh. That's simple enough. You've merely got to go straight on down
- this road, as straight as ever you can go. But, look here, you know,
- you shouldn't be out alone like this. It isn't safe. Why did they let
- you?'
- The lady avoided his eye. She bent down and inspected the left pedal.
- 'They shouldn't have sent you out alone,' said Charteris, 'why did
- they?'
- 'They--they didn't. I came.'
- There was a world of meaning in the phrase. Charteris felt that he was
- in the same case. They had not let _him_. He had come. Here was a
- kindred spirit, another revolutionary soul, scorning the fetters of
- convention and the so-called authority of self-constituted rules, aha!
- Bureaucrats!
- 'Shake hands,' he said, 'I'm in just the same way.'
- They shook hands gravely.
- 'You know,' said the lady, 'I'm awfully sorry I did it now. It was very
- naughty.'
- 'I'm not sorry yet,' said Charteris, 'I'm rather glad than otherwise.
- But I expect I shall be sorry before long.'
- 'Will you be sent to bed?'
- 'I don't think so.'
- 'Will you have to learn beastly poetry?'
- 'Probably not.'
- She looked at him curiously, as if to enquire, 'then if you won't have
- to learn poetry and you won't get sent to bed, what on earth is there
- for you to worry about?'
- She would probably have gone on to investigate the problem further, but
- at that moment there came the sound of a whistle. Then another, closer
- this time. Then a faint rumbling, which increased in volume steadily.
- Charteris looked back. The railway line ran by the side of the road. He
- could see the smoke of a train through the trees. It was quite close
- now, and coming closer every minute, and he was still quite a hundred
- and fifty yards from the station gates.
- 'I say,' he cried. 'Great Scott, here comes my train. I must rush.
- Good-bye. You keep straight on.'
- His legs had had time to grow stiff again. For the first few strides
- running was painful. But his joints soon adapted themselves to the
- strain, and in ten seconds he was sprinting as fast as he had ever
- sprinted off the running-track. When he had travelled a quarter of the
- distance the small cyclist overtook him.
- 'Be quick,' she said, 'it's just in sight.'
- Charteris quickened his stride, and, paced by the bicycle, spun along
- in fine style. Forty yards from the station the train passed him. He
- saw it roll into the station. There were still twenty yards to go,
- exclusive of the station's steps, and he was already running as fast as
- it lay in him to run. Now there were only ten. Now five. And at last,
- with a hurried farewell to his companion, he bounded up the steps and
- on to the platform. At the end of the platform the line took a sharp
- curve to the left. Round that curve the tail end of the guard's van was
- just disappearing.
- 'Missed it, sir,' said the solitary porter, who managed things at
- Rutton, cheerfully. He spoke as if he was congratulating Charteris on
- having done something remarkably clever.
- 'When's the next?' panted Charteris.
- 'Eight-thirty,' was the porter's appalling reply.
- For a moment Charteris felt quite ill. No train till eight-thirty! Then
- was he indeed lost. But it couldn't be true. There must be some sort of
- a train between now and then.
- 'Are you certain?' he said. 'Surely there's a train before that?'
- 'Why, yes, sir,' said the porter gleefully, 'but they be all exprusses.
- Eight-thirty be the only 'un what starps at Rootton.'
- 'Thanks,' said Charteris with marked gloom, 'I don't think that'll be
- much good to me. My aunt, what a hole I'm in.'
- The porter made a sympathetic and interrogative noise at the back of
- his throat, as if inviting him to explain everything. But Charteris
- felt unequal to conversation. There are moments when one wants to be
- alone. He went down the steps again. When he got out into the road, his
- small cycling friend had vanished. Charteris was conscious of a feeling
- of envy towards her. She was doing the journey comfortably on a
- bicycle. He would have to walk it. Walk it! He didn't believe he could.
- The strangers' mile, followed by the Homeric combat with the two
- Hooligans and that ghastly sprint to wind up with, had left him
- decidedly unfit for further feats of pedestrianism. And it was eight
- miles to Stapleton, if it was a yard, and another mile from Stapleton
- to St Austin's. Charteris, having once more invoked the name of his
- aunt, pulled himself together with an effort, and limped gallantly on
- in the direction of Stapleton. But fate, so long hostile to him, at
- last relented. A rattle of wheels approached him from behind. A thrill
- of hope shot through him at the sound. There was the prospect of a
- lift. He stopped, and waited for the dog-cart--it sounded like a
- dog-cart--to arrive. Then he uttered a shout of rapture, and began to
- wave his arms like a semaphore. The man in the dog-cart was Dr Adamson.
- 'Hullo, Charteris,' said the Doctor, pulling up his horse, 'what are
- you doing here?'
- 'Give me a lift,' said Charteris, 'and I'll tell you. It's a long yarn.
- Can I get in?'
- 'Come along. Plenty of room.'
- Charteris climbed up, and sank on to the cushioned seat with a sigh of
- pleasure. What glorious comfort. He had never enjoyed anything more in
- his life.
- 'I'm nearly dead,' he said, as the dog-cart went on again. 'This is how
- it all happened. You see, it was this way--'
- And he embarked forthwith upon his narrative.
- _Chapter 6_
- By special request the Doctor dropped Charteris within a hundred yards
- of Merevale's door.
- 'Good-night,' he said. 'I don't suppose you will value my advice at
- all, but you may have it for what it is worth. I recommend you stop
- this sort of game. Next time something will happen.'
- 'By Jove, yes,' said Charteris, climbing painfully down from the
- dog-cart, 'I'll take that advice. I'm a reformed character from this
- day onwards. This sort of thing isn't good enough. Hullo, there's the
- bell for lock-up. Good-night, Doctor, and thanks most awfully for the
- lift. It was frightfully kind of you.'
- 'Don't mention it,' said Dr Adamson, 'it is always a privilege to be in
- your company. When are you coming to tea with me again?'
- 'Whenever you'll have me. I must get leave, though, this time.'
- 'Yes. By the way, how's Graham? It is Graham, isn't it? The fellow who
- broke his collar-bone?'
- 'Oh, he's getting on splendidly. Still in a sling, but it's almost well
- again now. But I must be off. Good-night.'
- 'Good-night. Come to tea next Monday.'
- 'Right,' said Charteris; 'thanks awfully.'
- He hobbled in at Merevale's gate, and went up to his study. The Babe
- was in there talking to Welch.
- 'Hullo,' said the Babe, 'here's Charteris.'
- 'What's left of him,' said Charteris.
- 'How did it go off?'
- 'Don't, please.'
- 'Did you win?' asked Welch.
- 'No. Second. By a yard. Oh, Lord, I am dead.'
- 'Hot race?'
- 'Rather. It wasn't that, though. I had to sprint all the way to the
- station, and missed my train by ten seconds at the end of it all.'
- 'Then how did you get here?'
- 'That was the one stroke of luck I've had this afternoon. I started to
- walk back, and after I'd gone about a quarter of a mile, Adamson caught
- me up in his dog-cart. I suggested that it would be a Christian act on
- his part to give me a lift, and he did. I shall remember Adamson in my
- will.'
- 'Tell us what happened.'
- 'I'll tell thee everything I can,' said Charteris. 'There's little to
- relate. I saw an aged, aged man a-sitting on a gate. Where do you want
- me to begin?'
- 'At the beginning. Don't rot.'
- 'I was born,' began Charteris, 'of poor but honest parents, who sent
- me to school at an early age in order that I might acquire a grasp of
- the Greek and Latin languages, now obsolete. I--'
- 'How did you lose?' enquired the Babe.
- 'The other man beat me. If he hadn't, I should have won hands down. Oh,
- I say, guess who I met at Rutton.'
- 'Not a beak?'
- 'No. Almost as bad, though. The Bargee man who paced me from Stapleton.
- Man who crocked Tony.'
- 'Great _Scott_!' cried the Babe. 'Did he recognize you?'
- 'Rather. We had a very pleasant conversation.'
- 'If he reports you,' began the Babe.
- 'Who's that?'
- Charteris looked up. Tony Graham had entered the study.
- 'Hullo, Tony! Adamson told me to remember him to you.'
- 'So you've got back?'
- Charteris confirmed the hasty guess.
- 'But what are you talking about, Babe?' said Tony. 'Who's going to be
- reported, and who's going to report?'
- The Babe briefly explained the situation.
- 'If the man,' he said, 'reports Charteris, he may get run in tomorrow,
- and then we shall have both our halves away against Dacre's. Charteris,
- you are a fool to go rotting about out of bounds like this.'
- 'Nay, dry the starting tear,' said Charteris cheerfully. 'In the first
- place, I shouldn't get kept in on a Thursday anyhow. I should be shoved
- into extra on Saturday. Also, I shrewdly conveyed to the Bargee the
- impression that I was at Rutton by special permission.'
- 'He's bound to know that that can't be true,' said Tony.
- 'Well, I told him to think it over. You see, he got so badly left last
- time he tried to compass my downfall, that I shouldn't be a bit
- surprised if he let the job alone this journey.'
- 'Let's hope so,' said the Babe gloomily.
- 'That's right, Babby,' remarked Charteris encouragingly, nodding at the
- pessimist.
- 'You buck up and keep looking on the bright side. It'll be all right.
- You see if it won't. If there's any running in to be done, I shall do
- it. I shall be frightfully fit tomorrow after all this dashing about
- today. I haven't an ounce of superfluous flesh on me. I'm a fine,
- strapping specimen of sturdy young English manhood. And I'm going to
- play a _very_ selfish game tomorrow, Babe.'
- 'Oh, my dear chap, you mustn't.' The Babe's face wore an expression of
- horror. The success of the House-team in the final was very near to his
- heart. He could not understand anyone jesting on the subject. Charteris
- respected his anguish, and relieved it speedily.
- 'I was only ragging,' he said. 'Considering that our three-quarter line
- is our one strong point, I'm not likely to keep the ball from it, if I
- get a chance of getting it out. Make your mind easy, Babe.'
- The final House-match was always a warmish game. The rivalry between
- the various Houses was great, and the football cup especially was
- fought for with immense keenness. Also, the match was the last fixture
- of the season, and there was a certain feeling in the teams that if
- they _did_ happen to disable a man or two, it would not matter
- much. The injured sportsman would not be needed for School-match
- purposes for another six months. As a result of which philosophical
- reflection, the tackling was ruled slightly energetic, and the
- handing-off was done with vigour.
- This year, to add a sort of finishing touch, there was just a little
- ill-feeling between Dacre's and Merevale's. The cause of it was the
- Babe. Until the beginning of the term he had been a day boy. Then the
- news began to circulate that he was going to become a boarder, either
- at Dacre's or at Merevale's. He chose the latter, and Dacre's felt
- slightly aggrieved. Some of the less sportsmanlike members of the House
- had proposed that a protest should be made against his being allowed to
- play, but, fortunately for the credit of Dacre's, Prescott, the captain
- of the House Fifteen, had put his foot down with an emphatic bang at
- the suggestion. As he sagely pointed out, there were some things which
- were bad form, and this was one of them. If the team wanted to express
- their disapproval, said he, let them do it on the field by tackling
- their very hardest. He personally was going to do his best, and he
- advised them to do the same.
- The rumour of this bad blood had got about the School in some
- mysterious manner, and when Swift, Merevale's only First Fifteen
- forward, kicked off up the hill, a large crowd was lining the ropes. It
- was evident from the outset that it would be a good game.
- Dacre's were the better side--as a team. They had no really weak spot.
- But Merevale's extraordinarily strong three-quarter line somewhat made
- up for an inferior scrum. And the fact that the Babe was in the centre
- was worth much.
- At first Dacre's pressed. Their pack was unusually heavy for a
- House-team, and they made full use of it. They took the ball down the
- field in short rushes till they were in Merevale's twenty-five. Then
- they began to heel, and, if things had been more or less exciting for
- the Merevalians before, they became doubly so now. The ground was dry,
- and so was the ball, and the game consequently waxed fast. Time after
- time the ball went along Dacre's three-quarter line, only to end by
- finding itself hurled, with the wing who was carrying it, into touch.
- Occasionally the centres, instead of feeding their wings, would try to
- dodge through themselves. And that was where the Babe came in. He was
- admittedly the best tackler in the School, but on this occasion he
- excelled himself. His man never had a chance of getting past. At last a
- lofty kick into touch over the heads of the spectators gave the players
- a few seconds' rest.
- The Babe went up to Charteris.
- 'Look here,' he said, 'it's risky, but I think we'll try having the
- ball out a bit.'
- 'In our own twenty-five?' said Charteris.
- 'Wherever we are. I believe it will come off all right. Anyway, we'll
- try it. Tell the forwards.'
- For forwards playing against a pack much heavier than themselves, it is
- easier to talk about letting the ball out than to do it. The first half
- dozen times that Merevale's scrum tried to heel they were shoved off
- their feet, and it was on the enemy's side that the ball went out. But
- the seventh attempt succeeded. Out it came, cleanly and speedily.
- Daintree, who was playing instead of Tony, switched it across to
- Charteris. Charteris dodged the half who was marking him, and ran.
- Heeling and passing in one's own twenty-five is like smoking--an
- excellent practice if indulged in in moderation. On this occasion it
- answered perfectly. Charteris ran to the half-way line, and handed the
- ball on to the Babe. The Babe was tackled from behind, and passed to
- Thomson. Thomson dodged his man, and passed to Welch on the wing. Welch
- was the fastest sprinter in the School. It was a pleasure--if you did
- not happen to be one of the opposing side--to see him race down the
- touch-line. He was off like an arrow. Dacre's back made a futile
- attempt to get at him. Welch could have given the back fifteen yards in
- a hundred. He ran round him, and, amidst terrific applause from the
- Merevale's-supporting section of the audience, scored between the
- posts. The Babe took the kick and converted without difficulty. Five
- minutes afterwards the whistle blew for half-time.
- The remainder of the game does not call for detailed description.
- Dacre's pressed nearly the whole of the last half hour, but twice more
- the ball came out and went down Merevale's three-quarter line. Once it
- was the Babe who scored with a run from his own goal-line, and once
- Charteris, who got in from half-way, dodging through the whole team.
- The last ten minutes of the game was marked by a slight excess of
- energy on both sides. Dacre's forwards were in a decidedly bad temper,
- and fought like tigers to break through, and Merevale's played up to
- them with spirit. The Babe seemed continually to be precipitating
- himself at the feet of rushing forwards, and Charteris felt as if at
- least a dozen bones were broken in various portions of his anatomy. The
- game ended on Merevale's line, but they had won the match and the cup
- by two goals and a try to nothing.
- Charteris limped off the field, cheerful but damaged. He ached all
- over, and there was a large bruise on his left cheek-bone. He and Babe
- were going to the House, when they were aware that the Headmaster was
- beckoning to them.
- 'Well, MacArthur, and what was the result of the match?'
- 'We won, sir,' boomed the Babe. 'Two goals and a try to _nil_.'
- 'You have hurt your cheek, Charteris?'
- 'Yes, sir.'
- 'How did you do that?'
- 'I got a kick, sir, in one of the rushes.'
- 'Ah. I should bathe it, Charteris. Bathe it well. I hope it will not be
- very painful. Bathe it well in warm water.'
- He walked on.
- 'You know,' said Charteris to the Babe, as they went into the House,
- 'the Old Man isn't such a bad sort after all. He has his points, don't
- you think?'
- The Babe said that he did.
- 'I'm going to reform, you know,' continued Charteris confidentially.
- 'It's about time,' said the Babe. 'You can have the bath first if you
- like. Only buck up.'
- Charteris boiled himself for ten minutes, and then dragged his weary
- limbs to his study. It was while he was sitting in a deck-chair eating
- mixed biscuits, and wondering if he would ever be able to summon up
- sufficient energy to put on garments of civilization, that somebody
- knocked at the door.
- 'Yes,' shouted Charteris. 'What is it? Don't come in. I'm changing.'
- The melodious treble of Master Crowinshaw, his fag, made itself heard
- through the keyhole.
- 'The Head told me to tell you that he wanted to see you at the School
- House as soon as you can go.'
- 'All right,' shouted Charteris. 'Thanks.'
- 'Now what,' he continued to himself, 'does the Old Man want to see me
- for? Perhaps he wants to make certain that I've bathed my cheek in warm
- water. Anyhow, I suppose I must go.'
- A quarter of an hour later he presented himself at the Headmagisterial
- door. The sedate Parker, the Head's butler, who always filled Charteris
- with a desire to dig him hard in the ribs just to see what would
- happen, ushered him into the study.
- The Headmaster was reading by the light of a lamp when Charteris came
- in. He laid down his book, and motioned him to a seat; after which
- there was an awkward pause.
- 'I have just received,' began the Head at last, 'a most unpleasant
- communication. Most unpleasant. From whom it comes I do not know. It
- is, in fact--er--anonymous. I am sorry that I ever read it.'
- He stopped. Charteris made no comment. He guessed what was coming. He,
- too, was sorry that the Head had ever read the letter.
- 'The writer says that he saw you, that he actually spoke to you, at the
- athletic sports at Rutton yesterday. I have called you in to tell me if
- that is true.' The Head fastened an accusing eye on his companion.
- 'It is quite true, sir,' said Charteris steadily.
- 'What!' said the Head sharply. 'You were at Rutton?'
- 'Yes, sir.'
- 'You were perfectly aware, I suppose, that you were breaking the School
- rules by going there, Charteris?' enquired the Head in a cold voice.
- 'Yes, sir.' There was another pause.
- 'This is very serious,' began the Head. 'I cannot overlook this. I--'
- There was a slight scuffle of feet in the passage outside. The door
- flew open vigorously, and a young lady entered. It was, as Charteris
- recognized in a minute, his acquaintance of the afternoon, the young
- lady of the bicycle.
- 'Uncle,' she said, 'have you seen my book anywhere?'
- 'Hullo!' she broke off as her eye fell on Charteris.
- 'Hullo!' said Charteris, affably, not to be outdone in the courtesies.
- 'Did you catch your train?'
- 'No. Missed it.'
- 'Hullo! what's the matter with your cheek?'
- 'I got a kick on it.'
- 'Oh, does it hurt?'
- 'Not much, thanks.'
- Here the Head, feeling perhaps a little out of it, put in his oar.
- 'Dorothy, you must not come here now. I am busy. And how, may I ask, do
- you and Charteris come to be acquainted?'
- 'Why, he's him,' said Dorothy lucidly.
- The Head looked puzzled.
- 'Him. The chap, you know.'
- It is greatly to the Head's credit that he grasped the meaning of these
- words. Long study of the classics had quickened his faculty for seeing
- sense in passages where there was none. The situation dawned upon him.
- 'Do you mean to tell me, Dorothy, that it was Charteris who came to
- your assistance yesterday?'
- Dorothy nodded energetically.
- 'He gave the men beans,' she said. 'He did, really,' she went on,
- regardless of the Head's look of horror. 'He used right and left with
- considerable effect.'
- Dorothy's brother, a keen follower of the Ring, had been good enough
- some days before to read her out an extract from an account in _The
- Sportsman_ of a match at the National Sporting Club, and the account
- had been much to her liking. She regarded it as a masterpiece of
- English composition.
- 'Dorothy,' said the Headmaster, 'run away to bed.' A suggestion which
- she treated with scorn, it wanting a clear two hours to her legal
- bedtime. 'I must speak to your mother about your deplorable habit of
- using slang. Dear me, I must certainly speak to her.'
- And, shamefully unabashed, Dorothy retired.
- The Head was silent for a few minutes after she had gone; then he
- turned to Charteris again.
- 'In consideration of this, Charteris, I shall--er--mitigate slightly
- the punishment I had intended to give you.'
- Charteris murmured his gratification.
- 'But,' continued the Head sternly, 'I cannot overlook the offence. I
- have my duty to consider. You will therefore write me--er--ten lines of
- Virgil by tomorrow evening, Charteris.'
- 'Yes, sir.'
- 'Latin _and_ English,' said the relentless pedagogue.
- 'Yes, sir.'
- 'And, Charteris--I am speaking now--er--unofficially, not as a
- headmaster, you understand--if in future you would cease to break
- School rules simply as a matter of principle, for that, I fancy, is what
- it amounts to, I--er--well, I think we should get on better together.
- And that is, on my part at least, a consummation--er--devoutly to be
- wished. Good-night, Charteris.'
- 'Good-night, sir.'
- The Head extended a large hand. Charteris took it, and his departure.
- The Headmaster opened his book again, and turned over a new leaf.
- Charteris at the same moment, walking slowly in the direction of
- Merevale's, was resolving for the future to do the very same thing. And
- he did.
- [9]
- HOW PAYNE BUCKED UP
- It was Walkinshaw's affair from the first. Grey, the captain of the St
- Austin's Fifteen, was in the infirmary nursing a bad knee. To him came
- Charles Augustus Walkinshaw with a scheme. Walkinshaw was football
- secretary, and in Grey's absence acted as captain. Besides these two
- there were only a couple of last year's team left--Reade and Barrett,
- both of Philpott's House.
- 'Hullo, Grey, how's the knee?' said Walkinshaw.
- 'How's the team getting on?' he said.
- 'Well, as far as I can see,' said Walkinshaw, 'we ought to have a
- rather good season, if you'd only hurry up and come back. We beat a
- jolly hot lot of All Comers yesterday. Smith was playing for them. The
- Blue, you know. And lots of others. We got a goal and a try to
- _nil_.'
- 'Good,' said Grey. 'Who did anything for us? Who scored?'
- 'I got in once. Payne got the other.'
- 'By Jove, did he? What sort of a game is he playing this year?'
- The moment had come for Walkinshaw to unburden himself to his scheme.
- He proceeded to do so.
- 'Not up to much,' he said. 'Look here, Grey, I've got rather an idea.
- It's my opinion Payne's not bucking up nearly as much as he might. Do
- you mind if I leave him out of the next game?'
- Grey stared. The idea was revolutionary.
- 'What! Leave him out? My good man, he'll be the next chap to get his
- colours. He's a cert. for his cap.'
- 'That's just it. He knows he's a cert., and he's slacking on the
- strength of it. Now, my idea is that if you slung him out for a match
- or two, he'd buck up extra hard when he came into the team again. Can't
- I have a shot at it?'
- Grey weighed the matter. Walkinshaw pressed home his arguments.
- 'You see, it isn't like cricket. At cricket, of course, it might put a
- chap off awfully to be left out, but I don't see how it can hurt a
- man's play at footer. Besides, he's beginning to stick on side
- already.'
- 'Is he, by Jove?' said Grey. This was the unpardonable sin. 'Well, I'll
- tell you what you can do if you like. Get up a scratch game, First
- Fifteen _v._ Second, and make him captain of the Second.'
- 'Right,' said Walkinshaw, and retired beaming.
- Walkinshaw, it may be remarked at once, to prevent mistakes, was a
- well-meaning idiot. There was no doubt about his being well-meaning.
- Also, there was no doubt about his being an idiot. He was continually
- getting insane ideas into his head, and being unable to get them out
- again. This matter of Payne was a good example of his customary
- methods. He had put his hand on the one really first-class forward St
- Austin's possessed, and proposed to remove him from the team. And yet
- through it all he was perfectly well-meaning. The fact that personally
- he rather disliked Payne had, to do him justice, no weight at all with
- him. He would have done the same by his bosom friend under like
- circumstances. This is the only excuse that can be offered for him. It
- was true that Payne regarded himself as a certainty for his colours, as
- far as anything can be considered certain in this vale of sorrow. But
- to accuse him of trading on this, and, to use the vernacular, of
- putting on side, was unjust to a degree.
- On the afternoon following this conversation Payne, who was a member of
- Dacre's House, came into his study and banged his books down on the
- table with much emphasis. This was a sign that he was feeling
- dissatisfied with the way in which affairs were conducted in the world.
- Bowden, who was asleep in an armchair--he had been staying in with a
- cold--woke with a start. Bowden shared Payne's study. He played centre
- three-quarter for the Second Fifteen.
- 'Hullo!' he said.
- Payne grunted. Bowden realized that matters had not been going well
- with him. He attempted to soothe him with conversation, choosing what
- he thought would be a congenial topic.
- 'What's on on Saturday?' he asked.
- 'Scratch game. First _v._ Second.'
- Bowden groaned.
- 'I know those First _v._ Second games,' he said. 'They turn the
- Second out to get butchered for thirty-five minutes each way, to
- improve the First's combination. It may be fun for the First, but it's
- not nearly so rollicking for us. Look here, Payne, if you find me with
- the pill at any time, you can let me down easy, you know. You needn't
- go bringing off any of your beastly gallery tackles.'
- 'I won't,' said Payne. 'To start with, it would be against rules. We
- happen to be on the same side.'
- 'Rot, man; I'm not playing for the First.' This was the only
- explanation that occurred to him.
- 'I'm playing for the Second.'
- 'What! Are you certain?'
- 'I've seen the list. They're playing Babington instead of me.'
- 'But why? Babington's no good.'
- 'I think they have a sort of idea I'm slacking or something. At any
- rate, Walkinshaw told me that if I bucked up I might get tried again.'
- 'Silly goat,' said Bowden. 'What are you going to do?'
- 'I'm going to take his advice, and buck up.'
- II
- He did. At the beginning of the game the ropes were lined by some
- thirty spectators, who had come to derive a languid enjoyment from
- seeing the First pile up a record score. By half-time their numbers had
- risen to an excited mob of something over three hundred, and the second
- half of the game was fought out to the accompaniment of a storm of
- yells and counter yells such as usually only belonged to
- school-matches. The Second Fifteen, after a poor start, suddenly awoke
- to the fact that this was not going to be the conventional massacre by
- any means. The First had scored an unconverted try five minutes after
- the kick-off, and it was after this that the Second began to get
- together. The school back bungled the drop out badly, and had to find
- touch in his own twenty-five, and after that it was anyone's game. The
- scrums were a treat to behold. Payne was a monument of strength. Time
- after time the Second had the ball out to their three-quarters, and
- just after half-time Bowden slipped through in the corner. The kick
- failed, and the two teams, with their scores equal now, settled down
- grimly to fight the thing out to a finish. But though they remained on
- their opponents' line for most of the rest of the game, the Second did
- not add to their score, and the match ended in a draw of three points
- all.
- The first intimation Grey received of this came to him late in the
- evening. He had been reading a novel which, whatever its other merits
- may have been, was not interesting, and it had sent him to sleep. He
- awoke to hear a well-known voice observe with some unction: 'Ah! M'yes.
- Leeches and hot fomentations.' This effectually banished sleep. If
- there were two things in the world that he loathed, they were leeches
- and hot fomentations, and the School doctor apparently regarded them as
- a panacea for every kind of bodily ailment, from a fractured skull to a
- cold in the head. It was this gentleman who had just spoken, but Grey's
- alarm vanished as he perceived that the words had no personal
- application to himself. The object of the remark was a fellow-sufferer
- in the next bed but one. Now Grey was certain that when he had fallen
- asleep there had been nobody in that bed. When, therefore, the medical
- expert had departed on his fell errand, the quest of leeches and hot
- fomentations, he sat up and gave tongue.
- 'Who's that in that bed?' he asked.
- 'Hullo, Grey,' replied a voice. 'Didn't know you were awake. I've come
- to keep you company.'
- 'That you, Barrett? What's up with you?'
- 'Collar-bone. Dislocated it or something. Reade's over in that corner.
- He has bust his ankle. Oh, yes, we've been having a nice, cheery
- afternoon,' concluded Barrett bitterly.
- 'Great Scott! How did it happen?'
- 'Payne.'
- 'Where? In your collar-bone?'
- 'Yes. That wasn't what I meant, though. What I was explaining was that
- Payne got hold of me in the middle of the field, and threw me into
- touch. After which he fell on me. That was enough for my simple needs.
- I'm not grasping.'
- 'How about Reade?'
- 'The entire Second scrum collapsed on top of Reade. When we dug him out
- his ankle was crocked. Mainspring gone, probably. Then they gathered up
- the pieces and took them gently away. I don't know how it all ended.'
- Just then Walkinshaw burst into the room. He had a large bruise over
- one eye, his arm was in a sling, and he limped. But he was in excellent
- spirits.
- 'I knew I was right, by Jove,' he observed to Grey. 'I knew he could
- buck up if he liked.'
- 'I know it now,' said Barrett.
- 'Who's this you're talking about?' said Grey.
- 'Payne. I've never seen anything like the game he played today. He was
- everywhere. And, by Jove, his _tackling_!'
- 'Don't,' said Barrett, wearily.
- 'It's the best match I ever played in,' said Walkinshaw, bubbling over
- with enthusiasm. 'Do you know, the Second had all the best of the
- game.'
- 'What was the score?'
- 'Draw. One try all.'
- 'And now I suppose you're satisfied?' enquired Barrett. The great
- scheme for the regeneration of Payne had been confided to him by its
- proud patentee.
- 'Almost,' said Walkinshaw. 'We'll continue the treatment for one more
- game, and then we'll have him simply fizzing for the Windybury match.
- That's next Saturday. By the way, I'm afraid you'll hardly be fit again
- in time for that, Barrett, will you?'
- 'I may possibly,' said Barrett, coldly, 'be getting about again in time
- for the Windybury match of the year after next. This year I'm afraid I
- shall not have the pleasure. And I should strongly advise you, if you
- don't want to have to put a team of cripples into the field, to
- discontinue the treatment, as you call it.'
- 'Oh, I don't know,' said Walkinshaw.
- On the following Wednesday evening, at five o'clock, something was
- carried in on a stretcher, and deposited in the bed which lay between
- Grey and Barrett. Close scrutiny revealed the fact that it was what had
- once been Charles Augustus Walkinshaw. He was slightly broken up.
- 'Payne?' enquired Grey in chilly tones.
- Walkinshaw admitted the impeachment.
- Grey took a pencil and a piece of paper from the table at his side. 'If
- you want to know what I'm doing,' he said, 'I'm writing out the team
- for the Windybury match, and I'm going to make Payne captain, as the
- senior Second Fifteen man. And if we win I'm jolly well going to give
- him his cap after the match. If we don't win, it'll be the fault of a
- raving lunatic of the name of Walkinshaw, with his beastly Colney Hatch
- schemes for reforming slack forwards. You utter rotter!'
- Fortunately for the future peace of mind of C. A. Walkinshaw, the
- latter contingency did not occur. The School, in spite of its
- absentees, contrived to pull the match off by a try to _nil_.
- Payne, as was only right and proper, scored the try, making his way
- through the ranks of the visiting team with the quiet persistence of a
- steam-roller. After the game he came to tea, by request, at the
- infirmary, and was straightaway invested by Grey with his First Fifteen
- colours. On his arrival he surveyed the invalids with interest.
- 'Rough game, footer,' he observed at length.
- 'Don't mention it,' said Barrett politely. 'Leeches,' he added
- dreamily. 'Leeches and hot fomentations. _Boiling_ fomentations.
- Will somebody kindly murder Walkinshaw!'
- 'Why?' asked Payne, innocently.
- [10]
- AUTHOR!
- J. S. M. Babington, of Dacre's House, was on the horns of a dilemma.
- Circumstances over which he had had no control had brought him, like
- another Hercules, to the cross-roads, and had put before him the choice
- between pleasure and duty, or, rather, between pleasure and what those
- in authority called duty. Being human, he would have had little
- difficulty in making his decision, had not the path of pleasure been so
- hedged about by danger as to make him doubt whether after all the thing
- could be carried through.
- The facts in the case were these. It was the custom of the mathematical
- set to which J. S. M. Babington belonged, 4B to wit, to relieve the
- tedium of the daily lesson with a species of round game which was
- played as follows. As soon as the master had taken his seat, one of the
- players would execute a manoeuvre calculated to draw attention on
- himself, such as dropping a book or upsetting the blackboard. Called up
- to the desk to give explanation, he would embark on an eloquent speech
- for the defence. This was the cue for the next player to begin. His
- part consisted in making his way to the desk and testifying to the
- moral excellence of his companion, and giving in full the reasons why
- he should be discharged without a stain upon his character. As soon as
- he had warmed to his work he would be followed by a third player, and
- so on until the standing room around the desk was completely filled
- with a great cloud of witnesses. The duration of the game varied, of
- course, considerably. On some occasions it could be played through with
- such success, that the master would enter into the spirit of the thing,
- and do his best to book the names of all offenders at one and the same
- time, a feat of no inconsiderable difficulty. At other times matters
- would come to a head more rapidly. In any case, much innocent fun was
- to be derived from it, and its popularity was great. On the day,
- however, on which this story opens, a new master had been temporarily
- loosed into the room in place of the Rev. Septimus Brown, who had been
- there as long as the oldest inhabitant could remember. The Rev.
- Septimus was a wrangler, but knew nothing of the ways of the human boy.
- His successor, Mr Reginald Seymour, was a poor mathematician, but a
- good master. He had been, moreover, a Cambridge Rugger Blue. This fact
- alone should have ensured him against the customary pleasantries, for a
- Blue is a man to be respected. It was not only injudicious, therefore,
- but positively wrong of Babington to plunge against the blackboard on
- his way to his place. If he had been a student of Tennyson, he might
- have remembered that the old order is in the habit of changing and
- yielding place to the new.
- Mr Seymour looked thoughtfully for a moment
- at the blackboard.
- 'That was rather a crude effort,' he said pleasantly to Babington, 'you
- lack _finesse_. Pick it up again, please.'
- Babington picked it up without protest. Under the rule of the Rev.
- Septimus this would have been the signal for the rest of the class to
- leave their places and assist him, but now they seemed to realize that
- there was a time for everything, and that this was decidedly no time
- for indoor games.
- 'Thank you,' said Mr Seymour, when the board was in its place again.
- 'What is your name? Eh, what? I didn't quite hear.'
- 'Babington, sir.'
- 'Ah. You had better come in tomorrow at two and work out examples three
- hundred to three-twenty in "Hall and Knight". There is really plenty of
- room to walk in between that desk and the blackboard. It only wants
- practice.'
- What was left of Babington then went to his seat. He felt that his
- reputation as an artistic player of the game had received a shattering
- blow. Then there was the imposition. This in itself would have troubled
- him little. To be kept in on a half-holiday is annoying, but it is one
- of those ills which the flesh is heir to, and your true philosopher can
- always take his gruel like a man.
- But it so happened that by the evening post he had received a letter
- from a cousin of his, who was a student at Guy's, and from all accounts
- was building up a great reputation in the medical world. From this
- letter it appeared that by a complicated process of knowing people who
- knew other people who had influence with the management, he had
- contrived to obtain two tickets for a morning performance of the new
- piece that had just been produced at one of the theatres. And if Mr J.
- S. M. Babington wished to avail himself of the opportunity, would he
- write by return, and be at Charing Cross Underground bookstall at
- twenty past two.
- Now Babington, though he objected strongly to the drama of ancient
- Greece, was very fond of that of the present day, and he registered a
- vow that if the matter could possibly be carried through, it should be.
- His choice was obvious. He could cut his engagement with Mr Seymour, or
- he could keep it. The difficulty lay rather in deciding upon one or
- other of the alternatives. The whole thing turned upon the extent of
- the penalty in the event of detection.
- That was his dilemma. He sought advice.
- 'I should risk it,' said his bosom friend Peterson.
- 'I shouldn't advise you to,' remarked Jenkins.
- Jenkins was equally a bosom friend, and in the matter of wisdom in no
- way inferior to Peterson.
- 'What would happen, do you think?' asked Babington.
- 'Sack,' said one authority.
- 'Jaw, and double impot,' said another.
- 'The _Daily Telegraph_,' muttered the tempter in a stage aside,
- 'calls it the best comedy since Sheridan.'
- 'So it does,' thought Babington. 'I'll risk it.'
- 'You'll be a fool if you do,' croaked the gloomy Jenkins. 'You're bound
- to be caught.' But the Ayes had it. Babington wrote off that night
- accepting the invitation.
- It was with feelings of distinct relief that he heard Mr Seymour
- express to another master his intention of catching the twelve-fifteen
- train up to town. It meant that he would not be on the scene to see him
- start on the 'Hall and Knight'. Unless luck were very much against him,
- Babington might reasonably hope that he would accept the imposition
- without any questions. He had taken the precaution to get the examples
- finished overnight, with the help of Peterson and Jenkins, aided by a
- weird being who actually appeared to like algebra, and turned out ten
- of the twenty problems in an incredibly short time in exchange for a
- couple of works of fiction (down) and a tea (at a date). He himself
- meant to catch the one-thirty, which would bring him to town in good
- time. Peterson had promised to answer his name at roll-call, a delicate
- operation, in which long practice had made him, like many others of the
- junior members of the House, no mean proficient.
- It would be pleasant for a conscientious historian to be able to say
- that the one-thirty broke down just outside Victoria, and that
- Babington arrived at the theatre at the precise moment when the curtain
- fell and the gratified audience began to stream out. But truth, though
- it crush me. The one-thirty was so punctual that one might have thought
- that it belonged to a line other than the line to which it did belong.
- From Victoria to Charing Cross is a journey that occupies no
- considerable time, and Babington found himself at his destination with
- five minutes to wait. At twenty past his cousin arrived, and they made
- their way to the theatre. A brief skirmish with a liveried menial in
- the lobby, and they were in their seats.
- Some philosopher, of extraordinary powers of intuition, once informed
- the world that the best of things come at last to an end. The statement
- was tested, and is now universally accepted as correct. To apply the
- general to the particular, the play came to an end amidst uproarious
- applause, to which Babington contributed an unstinted quotum, about
- three hours after it had begun.
- 'What do you say to going and grubbing somewhere?' asked Babington's
- cousin, as they made their way out.
- 'Hullo, there's that man Richards,' he continued, before Babington
- could reply that of all possible actions he considered that of going
- and grubbing somewhere the most desirable. 'Fellow I know at Guy's, you
- know,' he added, in explanation. 'I'll get him to join us. You'll like
- him, I expect.'
- Richards professed himself delighted, and shook hands with Babington
- with a fervour which seemed to imply that until he had met him life had
- been a dreary blank, but that now he could begin to enjoy himself
- again. 'I should like to join you, if you don't mind including a friend
- of mine in the party,' said Richards. 'He was to meet me here. By the
- way, he's the author of that new piece--_The Way of the World.'_
- 'Why, we've just been there.'
- 'Oh, then you will probably like to meet him. Here he is.'
- As he spoke a man came towards them, and, with a shock that sent all
- the blood in his body to the very summit of his head, and then to the
- very extremities of his boots, Babington recognized Mr Seymour. The
- assurance of the programme that the play was by Walter Walsh was a
- fraud. Nay worse, a downright and culpable lie. He started with the
- vague idea of making a rush for safety, but before his paralysed limbs
- could be induced to work, Mr Seymour had arrived, and he was being
- introduced (oh, the tragic irony of it) to the man for whose benefit he
- was at that very moment supposed to be working out examples three
- hundred to three-twenty in 'Hall and Knight'.
- Mr Seymour shook hands, without appearing to recognize him. Babington's
- blood began to resume its normal position again, though he felt that
- this seeming ignorance of his identity might be a mere veneer, a wile
- of guile, as the bard puts it. He remembered, with a pang, a story in
- some magazine where a prisoner was subjected to what the light-hearted
- inquisitors called the torture of hope. He was allowed to escape from
- prison, and pass guards and sentries apparently without their noticing
- him. Then, just as he stepped into the open air, the chief inquisitor
- tapped him gently on the shoulder, and, more in sorrow than in anger,
- reminded him that it was customary for condemned men to remain
- _inside_ their cells. Surely this was a similar case. But then the
- thought came to him that Mr Seymour had only seen him once, and so
- might possibly have failed to remember him, for there was nothing
- special about Babington's features that arrested the eye, and stamped
- them on the brain for all time. He was rather ordinary than otherwise
- to look at. At tea, as bad luck would have it, the two sat opposite one
- another, and Babington trembled. Then the worst happened. Mr Seymour,
- who had been looking attentively at him for some time, leaned forward
- and said in a tone evidently devoid of suspicion: 'Haven't we met
- before somewhere? I seem to remember your face.'
- 'Er--no, no,' replied Babington. 'That is, I think not. We may have.'
- 'I feel sure we have. What school are you at?'
- Babington's soul began to writhe convulsively.
- 'What, what school? Oh, what _school_? Why, er--I'm
- at--er--Uppingham.'
- Mr Seymour's face assumed a pleased expression.
- 'Uppingham? Really. Why, I know several Uppingham fellows. Do you know
- Mr Morton? He's a master at Uppingham, and a great friend of mine.'
- The room began to dance briskly before Babington's eyes, but he
- clutched at a straw, or what he thought was a straw.
- 'Uppingham? Did I say Uppingham? Of course, I mean Rugby, you know,
- Rugby. One's always mixing the two up, you know. Isn't one?'
- Mr Seymour looked at him in amazement. Then he looked at the others as
- if to ask which of the two was going mad, he or the youth opposite him.
- Babington's cousin listened to the wild fictions which issued from his
- lips in equal amazement. He thought he must be ill. Even Richards had a
- fleeting impression that it was a little odd that a fellow should
- forget what school he was at, and mistake the name Rugby for that of
- Uppingham, or _vice versa_. Babington became an object of
- interest.
- 'I say, Jack,' said the cousin, 'you're feeling all right, aren't you?
- I mean, you don't seem to know what you're talking about. If you're
- going to be ill, say so, and I'll prescribe for you.'
- 'Is he at Rugby?' asked Mr Seymour.
- 'No, of course he's not. How could he have got from Rugby to London in
- time for a morning performance? Why, he's at St Austin's.'
- Mr Seymour sat for a moment in silence, taking this in. Then he
- chuckled. 'It's all right,' he said, 'he's not ill. We have met before,
- but under such painful circumstances that Master Babington very
- thoughtfully dissembled, in order not to remind me of them.'
- He gave a brief synopsis of what had occurred. The audience, exclusive
- of Babington, roared with laughter.
- 'I suppose,' said the cousin, 'you won't prosecute, will you? It's
- really such shocking luck, you know, that you ought to forget you're a
- master.'
- Mr Seymour stirred his tea and added another lump of sugar very
- carefully before replying. Babington watched him in silence, and wished
- that he would settle the matter quickly, one way or the other.
- 'Fortunately for Babington,' said Mr Seymour, 'and unfortunately for
- the cause of morality, I am not a master. I was only a stop-gap, and my
- term of office ceased today at one o'clock. Thus the prisoner at the
- bar gets off on a technical point of law, and I trust it will be a
- lesson to him. I suppose you had the sense to do the imposition?'
- 'Yes, sir, I sat up last night.'
- 'Good. Now, if you'll take my advice, you'll reform, or another
- day you'll come to a bad end. By the way, how did you manage about
- roll-call today?'
- 'I thought that was an awfully good part just at the end of the first
- act,' said Babington.
- Mr Seymour smiled. Possibly from gratification.
- 'Well, how did it go off?' asked Peterson that night.
- 'Don't, old chap,' said Babington, faintly.
- 'I told you so,' said Jenkins at a venture.
- But when he had heard the whole story he withdrew the remark, and
- commented on the wholly undeserved good luck some people seemed to
- enjoy.
- [11]
- 'THE TABBY TERROR'
- The struggle between Prater's cat and Prater's cat's conscience was
- short, and ended in the hollowest of victories for the former. The
- conscience really had no sort of chance from the beginning. It was weak
- by nature and flabby from long want of exercise, while the cat was in
- excellent training, and was, moreover, backed up by a strong
- temptation. It pocketed the stakes, which consisted of most of the
- contents of a tin of sardines, and left unostentatiously by the window.
- When Smith came in after football, and found the remains, he was
- surprised, and even pained. When Montgomery entered soon afterwards, he
- questioned him on the subject.
- 'I say, have you been having a sort of preliminary canter with the
- banquet?'
- 'No,' said Montgomery. 'Why?'
- 'Somebody has,' said Smith, exhibiting the empty tin. 'Doesn't seem to
- have had such a bad appetite, either.'
- 'This reminds me of the story of the great bear, the medium bear, and
- the little ditto,' observed Montgomery, who was apt at an analogy. 'You
- may remember that when the great bear found his porridge tampered with,
- he--'
- At this point Shawyer entered. He had been bidden to the feast, and was
- feeling ready for it.
- 'Hullo, tea ready?' he asked.
- Smith displayed the sardine tin in much the same manner as the conjurer
- shows a pack of cards when he entreats you to choose one, and remember
- the number.
- 'You haven't finished already, surely? Why, it's only just five.'
- 'We haven't even begun,' said Smith. 'That's just the difficulty. The
- question is, who has been on the raid in here?'
- 'No human being has done this horrid thing,' said Montgomery. He always
- liked to introduce a Holmes-Watsonian touch into the conversation. 'In
- the first place, the door was locked, wasn't it, Smith?'
- 'By Jove, so it was. Then how on earth--?'
- 'Through the window, of course. The cat, equally of course. I should
- like a private word with that cat.'
- 'I suppose it must have been.'
- 'Of course it was. Apart from the merely circumstantial evidence, which
- is strong enough to hang it off its own bat, we have absolute proof of
- its guilt. Just cast your eye over that butter. You follow me, Watson?'
- The butter was submitted to inspection. In the very centre of it there
- was a footprint.
- '_I_ traced his little footprints in the butter,' said Montgomery.
- 'Now, is that the mark of a human foot?'
- The jury brought in a unanimous verdict of guilty against the missing
- animal, and over a sorrowful cup of tea, eked out with bread and
- jam--butter appeared to be unpopular--discussed the matter in all its
- bearings. The cat had not been an inmate of Prater's House for a very
- long time, and up till now what depredation it had committed had been
- confined to the official larder. Now, however, it had evidently got its
- hand in, and was about to commence operations upon a more extensive
- scale. The Tabby Terror had begun. Where would it end? The general
- opinion was that something would have to be done about it. No one
- seemed to know exactly what to do. Montgomery spoke darkly of bricks,
- bits of string, and horse-ponds. Smith rolled the word 'rat-poison'
- luxuriously round his tongue. Shawyer, who was something of an expert
- on the range, babbled of air-guns.
- At tea on the following evening the first really serious engagement of
- the campaign took place. The cat strolled into the tea-room in the
- patronizing way characteristic of his kind, but was heavily shelled
- with lump-sugar, and beat a rapid retreat. That was the signal for the
- outbreak of serious hostilities. From that moment its paw was against
- every man, and the tale of the things it stole is too terrible to
- relate in detail. It scored all along the line. Like Death in the poem,
- it knocked at the doors of the highest and the lowest alike. Or rather,
- it did not exactly knock. It came in without knocking. The palace of
- the prefect and the hovel of the fag suffered equally. Trentham, the
- head of the House, lost sausages to an incredible amount one evening,
- and the next day Ripton, of the Lower Third, was robbed of his one ewe
- lamb in the shape of half a tin of anchovy paste. Panic reigned.
- It was after this matter of the sausages that a luminous idea occurred
- to Trentham. He had been laid up with a slight football accident, and
- his family, reading between the lines of his written statement that he
- 'had got crocked at footer, nothing much, only (rather a nuisance)
- might do him out of the House-matches', a notification of mortal
- injuries, and seeming to hear a death-rattle through the words 'felt
- rather chippy yesterday', had come down _en masse_ to investigate.
- _En masse,_ that is to say, with the exception of his father, who
- said he was too busy, but felt sure it was nothing serious. ('Why, when
- I was a boy, my dear, I used to think nothing of an occasional tumble.
- There's nothing the matter with Dick. Why, etc., etc.')
- Trentham's sister was his first visitor.
- 'I say,' said he, when he had satisfied her on the subject of his
- health, 'would you like to do me a good turn?'
- She intimated that she would be delighted, and asked for details.
- _'Buy the beak's cat,'_ hissed Trentham, in a hoarse whisper.
- 'Dick, it _was_ your leg that you hurt, wasn't it? Not--not your
- head?' she replied. 'I mean--'
- 'No, I really mean it. Why can't you? It's a perfectly simple thing to
- do.'
- 'But what _is_ a beak? And why should I buy its cat?'
- 'A beak's a master. Surely you know that. You see, Prater's got a cat
- lately, and the beast strolls in and raids the studies. Got round over
- half a pound of prime sausages in here the other night, and he's always
- bagging things everywhere. You'd be doing everyone a kindness if you
- would take him on. He'll get lynched some day if you don't. Besides,
- you want a cat for your new house, surely. Keep down the mice, and that
- sort of thing, you know. This animal's a demon for mice.' This was a
- telling argument. Trentham's sister had lately been married, and she
- certainly had had some idea of investing in a cat to adorn her home.
- 'As for beetles,' continued the invalid, pushing home his advantage,
- 'they simply daren't come out of their lairs for fear of him.'
- 'If he eats beetles,' objected his sister, 'he can't have a very good
- coat.'
- 'He doesn't eat them. Just squashes them, you know, like a policeman.
- He's a decent enough beast as far as looks go.'
- 'But if he steals things--'
- 'No, don't you see, he only does that here, because the Praters don't
- interfere with him and don't let us do anything to him. He won't try
- that sort of thing on with you. If he does, get somebody to hit him
- over the head with a boot-jack or something. He'll soon drop it then.
- You might as well, you know. The House'll simply black your boots if
- you do.'
- 'But would Mr Prater let me have the cat?'
- 'Try him, anyhow. Pitch it fairly warm, you know. Only cat you ever
- loved, and that sort of thing.'
- 'Very well. I'll try.'
- 'Thanks, awfully. And, I say, you might just look in here on your way
- out and report.'
- Mrs James Williamson, nee Miss Trentham, made her way dutifully to the
- Merevale's part of the House. Mrs Prater had expressed a hope that she
- would have some tea before catching her train. With tea it is usual to
- have milk, and with milk it is usual, if there is a cat in the house,
- to have feline society. Captain Kettle, which was the name thought
- suitable to this cat by his godfathers and godmothers, was on hand
- early. As he stood there pawing the mat impatiently, and mewing in a
- minor key, Mrs Williamson felt that here was the cat for her. He
- certainly was good to look upon. His black heart was hidden by a sleek
- coat of tabby fur, which rendered stroking a luxury. His scheming brain
- was out of sight in a shapely head.
- 'Oh, what a lovely cat!' said Mrs Williamson.
- 'Yes, isn't he,' agreed Mrs Prater. 'We are very proud of him.'
- 'Such a beautiful coat!'
- 'And such a sweet purr!'
- 'He looks so intelligent. Has he any tricks?'
- Had he any tricks! Why, Mrs Williamson, he could do everything except
- speak. Captain Kettle, you bad boy, come here and die for your country.
- Puss, puss.
- Captain Kettle came at last reluctantly, died for his country in record
- time, and flashed back again to the saucer. He had an important
- appointment. Sorry to appear rude and all that sort of thing, don't you
- know, but he had to see a cat about a mouse.
- 'Well?' said Trentham, when his sister looked in upon him an hour
- later.
- 'Oh, Dick, it's the nicest cat I ever saw. I shall never be happy if I
- don't get it.'
- 'Have you bought it?' asked the practical Trentham.
- 'My dear Dick, I couldn't. We couldn't bargain about a cat during tea.
- Why, I never met Mrs Prater before this afternoon.'
- 'No, I suppose not,' admitted Trentham, gloomily. 'Anyhow, look here,
- if anything turns up to make the beak want to get rid of it, I'll tell
- him you're dead nuts on it. See?'
- For a fortnight after this episode matters went on as before. Mrs
- Williamson departed, thinking regretfully of the cat she had left
- behind her.
- Captain Kettle died for his country with moderate regularity, and on
- one occasion, when he attempted to extract some milk from the very
- centre of a fag's tea-party, almost died for another reason. Then the
- end came suddenly.
- Trentham had been invited to supper one Sunday by Mr Prater. When he
- arrived it became apparent to him that the atmosphere was one of
- subdued gloom. At first he could not understand this, but soon the
- reason was made clear. Captain Kettle had, in the expressive language
- of the man in the street, been and gone and done it. He had been left
- alone that evening in the drawing-room, while the House was at church,
- and his eye, roaming restlessly about in search of evil to perform, had
- lighted upon a cage. In that cage was a special sort of canary, in its
- own line as accomplished an artiste as Captain Kettle himself. It sang
- with taste and feeling, and made itself generally agreeable in a number
- of little ways. But to Captain Kettle it was merely a bird. One of the
- poets sings of an acquaintance of his who was so constituted that 'a
- primrose by the river's brim a simple primrose was to him, and it was
- nothing more'. Just so with Captain Kettle. He was not the cat to make
- nice distinctions between birds. Like the cat in another poem, he only
- knew they made him light and salutary meals. So, with the exercise of
- considerable ingenuity, he extracted that canary from its cage and ate
- it. He was now in disgrace.
- 'We shall have to get rid of him,' said Mr Prater.
- 'I'm afraid so,' said Mrs Prater.
- 'If you weren't thinking of giving him to anyone in particular, sir,'
- said Trentham, 'my sister would be awfully glad to take him, I know.
- She was very keen on him when she came to see me.'
- 'That's excellent,' said Prater. 'I was afraid we should have to send
- him to a home somewhere.'
- 'I suppose we can't keep him after all?' suggested Mrs Prater.
- Trentham waited in suspense.
- 'No,' said Prater, decidedly. 'I think _not_.' So Captain Kettle
- went, and the House knew him no more, and the Tabby Terror was at an
- end.
- [12]
- THE PRIZE POEM
- Some quarter of a century before the period with which this story
- deals, a certain rich and misanthropic man was seized with a bright
- idea for perpetuating his memory after death, and at the same time
- harassing a certain section of mankind. So in his will he set aside a
- portion of his income to be spent on an annual prize for the best poem
- submitted by a member of the Sixth Form of St Austin's College, on a
- subject to be selected by the Headmaster. And, he added--one seems to
- hear him chuckling to himself--every member of the form must compete.
- Then he died. But the evil that men do lives after them, and each year
- saw a fresh band of unwilling bards goaded to despair by his bequest.
- True, there were always one or two who hailed this ready market for
- their sonnets and odes with joy. But the majority, being barely able to
- rhyme 'dove' with 'love', regarded the annual announcement of the
- subject chosen with feelings of the deepest disgust.
- The chains were thrown off after a period of twenty-seven years in this
- fashion.
- Reynolds of the Remove was indirectly the cause of the change. He was
- in the infirmary, convalescing after an attack of German measles, when
- he received a visit from Smith, an ornament of the Sixth.
- 'By Jove,' remarked that gentleman, gazing enviously round the
- sick-room, 'they seem to do you pretty well here.'
- 'Yes, not bad, is it? Take a seat. Anything been happening lately?'
- 'Nothing much. I suppose you know we beat the M.C.C. by a wicket?'
- 'Yes, so I heard. Anything else?'
- 'Prize poem,' said Smith, without enthusiasm. He was not a poet.
- Reynolds became interested at once. If there was one role in which he
- fancied himself (and, indeed, there were a good many), it was that of a
- versifier. His great ambition was to see some of his lines in print,
- and he had contracted the habit of sending them up to various
- periodicals, with no result, so far, except the arrival of rejected
- MSS. at meal-times in embarrassingly long envelopes. Which he
- blushingly concealed with all possible speed.
- 'What's the subject this year?' he asked.
- 'The College--of all idiotic things.'
- 'Couldn't have a better subject for an ode. By Jove, I wish I was in
- the Sixth.'
- 'Wish I was in the infirmary,' said Smith.
- Reynolds was struck with an idea.
- 'Look here, Smith,' he said, 'if you like I'll do you a poem, and you
- can send it up. If it gets the prize--'
- 'Oh, it won't get the prize,' Smith put in eagerly. 'Rogers is a cert.
- for that.'
- 'If it gets the prize,' repeated Reynolds, with asperity, 'you'll have
- to tell the Old Man all about it. He'll probably curse a bit, but that
- can't be helped. How's this for a beginning?
- "Imposing pile, reared up 'midst pleasant grounds,
- The scene of many a battle, lost or won,
- At cricket or at football; whose red walls
- Full many a sun has kissed 'ere day is done."'
- 'Grand. Couldn't you get in something about the M.C.C. match? You could
- make cricket rhyme with wicket.' Smith sat entranced with his
- ingenuity, but the other treated so material a suggestion with scorn.
- 'Well,' said Smith, 'I must be off now. We've got a House-match on.
- Thanks awfully about the poem.'
- Left to himself, Reynolds set himself seriously to the composing of an
- ode that should do him justice. That is to say, he drew up a chair and
- table to the open window, wrote down the lines he had already composed,
- and began chewing a pen. After a few minutes he wrote another four
- lines, crossed them out, and selected a fresh piece of paper. He then
- copied out his first four lines again. After eating his pen to a stump,
- he jotted down the two words 'boys' and 'joys' at the end of separate
- lines. This led him to select a third piece of paper, on which he
- produced a sort of _edition de luxe_ in his best handwriting, with
- the title 'Ode to the College' in printed letters at the top. He was
- admiring the neat effect of this when the door opened suddenly and
- violently, and Mrs Lee, a lady of advanced years and energetic habits,
- whose duty it was to minister to the needs of the sick and wounded in
- the infirmary, entered with his tea. Mrs Lee's method of entering a
- room was in accordance with the advice of the Psalmist, where he says,
- 'Fling wide the gates'. She flung wide the gate of the sick-room, and
- the result was that what is commonly called 'a thorough draught' was
- established. The air was thick with flying papers, and when calm at
- length succeeded storm, two editions of 'Ode to the College' were lying
- on the grass outside.
- Reynolds attacked the tea without attempting to retrieve his vanished
- work. Poetry is good, but tea is better. Besides, he argued within
- himself, he remembered all he had written, and could easily write it
- out again. So, as far as he was concerned, those three sheets of paper
- were a closed book.
- Later on in the afternoon, Montgomery of the Sixth happened to be
- passing by the infirmary, when Fate, aided by a sudden gust of wind,
- blew a piece of paper at him. 'Great Scott,' he observed, as his eye
- fell on the words 'Ode to the College'. Montgomery, like Smith, was no
- expert in poetry. He had spent a wretched afternoon trying to hammer
- out something that would pass muster in the poem competition, but
- without the least success. There were four lines on the paper. Two
- more, and it would be a poem, and capable of being entered for the
- prize as such. The words 'imposing pile', with which the fragment in
- his hand began, took his fancy immensely. A poetic afflatus seized him,
- and in less than three hours he had added the necessary couplet,
- How truly sweet it is for such as me
- To gaze on thee.
- 'And dashed neat, too,' he said, with satisfaction, as he threw the
- manuscript into his drawer. 'I don't know whether "me" shouldn't be
- "I", but they'll have to lump it. It's a poem, anyhow, within the
- meaning of the act.' And he strolled off to a neighbour's study to
- borrow a book.
- Two nights afterwards, Morrison, also of the Sixth, was enjoying his
- usual during prep siesta in his study. A tap at the door roused him.
- Hastily seizing a lexicon, he assumed the attitude of the seeker after
- knowledge, and said, 'Come in.' It was not the House-master, but Evans,
- Morrison's fag, who entered with pride on his face and a piece of paper
- in his hand.
- 'I say,' he began, 'you remember you told me to hunt up some tags for
- the poem. Will this do?'
- Morrison took the paper with a judicial air. On it were the words:
- Imposing pile, reared up 'midst pleasant grounds,
- The scene of many a battle, lost or won,
- At cricket or at football; whose red walls
- Full many a sun has kissed 'ere day is done.
- 'That's ripping, as far as it goes,' said Morrison. 'Couldn't be
- better. You'll find some apples in that box. Better take a few. But
- look here,' with sudden suspicion, 'I don't believe you made all this
- up yourself. Did you?'
- Evans finished selecting his apples before venturing on a reply. Then
- he blushed, as much as a member of the junior school is capable of
- blushing.
- 'Well,' he said, 'I didn't exactly. You see, you only told me to get
- the tags. You didn't say how.'
- 'But how did you get hold of this? Whose is it?'
- 'Dunno. I found it in the field between the Pavilion and the
- infirmary.'
- 'Oh! well, it doesn't matter much. They're just what I wanted, which is
- the great thing. Thanks. Shut the door, will you?' Whereupon Evans
- retired, the richer by many apples, and Morrison resumed his siesta at
- the point where he had left off.
- 'Got that poem done yet?' said Smith to Reynolds, pouring out a cup of
- tea for the invalid on the following Sunday.
- 'Two lumps, please. No, not quite.'
- 'Great Caesar, man, when'll it be ready, do you think? It's got to go
- in tomorrow.'
- 'Well, I'm really frightfully sorry, but I got hold of a grand book.
- Ever read--?'
- 'Isn't any of it done?' asked Smith.
- 'Only the first verse, I'm afraid. But, look here, you aren't keen on
- getting the prize. Why not send in only the one verse? It makes a
- fairly decent poem.'
- 'Hum! Think the Old 'Un'll pass it?'
- 'He'll have to. There's nothing in the rules about length. Here it is
- if you want it.'
- 'Thanks. I suppose it'll be all right? So long! I must be off.'
- The Headmaster, known to the world as the Rev. Arthur James Perceval,
- M.A., and to the School as the Old 'Un, was sitting at breakfast,
- stirring his coffee, with a look of marked perplexity upon his
- dignified face. This was not caused by the coffee, which was excellent,
- but by a letter which he held in his left hand.
- 'Hum!' he said. Then 'Umph!' in a protesting tone, as if someone had
- pinched him. Finally, he gave vent to a long-drawn 'Um-m-m,' in a deep
- bass. 'Most extraordinary. Really, most extraordinary. Exceedingly.
- Yes. Um. Very.' He took a sip of coffee.
- 'My dear,' said he, suddenly. Mrs Perceval started violently. She had
- been sketching out in her mind a little dinner, and wondering whether
- the cook would be equal to it.
- 'Yes,' she said.
- 'My dear, this is a very extraordinary communication. Exceedingly so.
- Yes, very.'
- 'Who is it from?'
- Mr Perceval shuddered. He was a purist in speech. '_From whom_,
- you should say. It is from Mr Wells, a great College friend of mine.
- I--ah--submitted to him for examination the poems sent in for the Sixth
- Form Prize. He writes in a very flippant style. I must say, very
- flippant. This is his letter:--"Dear Jimmy (really, really, he should
- remember that we are not so young as we were); dear--ahem--Jimmy. The
- poems to hand. I have read them, and am writing this from my sick-bed.
- The doctor tells me I may pull through even yet. There was only one any
- good at all, that was Rogers's, which, though--er--squiffy (tut!) in
- parts, was a long way better than any of the others. But the most
- taking part of the whole programme was afforded by the three comedians,
- whose efforts I enclose. You will notice that each begins with exactly
- the same four lines. Of course, I deprecate cribbing, but you really
- can't help admiring this sort of thing. There is a reckless daring
- about it which is simply fascinating. A horrible thought--have they
- been pulling your dignified leg? By the way, do you remember"--the rest
- of the letter is--er--on different matters.'
- 'James! How extraordinary!'
- 'Um, yes. I am reluctant to suspect--er--collusion, but really here
- there can be no doubt. No doubt at all. No.'
- 'Unless,' began Mrs Perceval, tentatively. 'No doubt at all, my dear,'
- snapped Reverend Jimmy. He did not wish to recall the other
- possibility, that his dignified leg was being pulled.
- 'Now, for what purpose did I summon you three boys?' asked Mr Perceval,
- of Smith, Montgomery, and Morrison, in his room after morning school
- that day. He generally began a painful interview with this question.
- The method had distinct advantages. If the criminal were of a nervous
- disposition, he would give himself away upon the instant. In any case,
- it was likely to startle him. 'For what purpose?' repeated the
- Headmaster, fixing Smith with a glittering eye.
- 'I will tell you,' continued Mr Perceval. 'It was because I desired
- information, which none but you can supply. How comes it that each of
- your compositions for the Poetry Prize commences with the same four
- lines?' The three poets looked at one another in speechless
- astonishment.
- 'Here,' he resumed, 'are the three papers. Compare them. Now,'--after
- the inspection was over--' what explanation have you to offer? Smith,
- are these your lines?'
- 'I--er--ah--_wrote_ them, sir.'
- 'Don't prevaricate, Smith. Are you the author of those lines?'
- 'No, sir.'
- 'Ah! Very good. Are you, Montgomery?'
- 'No, sir.'
- 'Very good. Then you, Morrison, are exonerated from all blame. You have
- been exceedingly badly treated. The first-fruit of your brain has
- been--ah--plucked by others, who toiled not neither did they spin. You
- can go, Morrison.'
- 'But, sir--'
- 'Well, Morrison?'
- 'I didn't write them, sir.'
- 'I--ah--don't quite understand you, Morrison. You say that you are
- indebted to another for these lines?'
- 'Yes, sir.'
- 'To Smith?'
- 'No, sir.'
- 'To Montgomery?'
- 'No, sir.'
- 'Then, Morrison, may I ask to whom you are indebted?'
- 'I found them in the field on a piece of paper, sir.' He claimed the
- discovery himself, because he thought that Evans might possibly prefer
- to remain outside this tangle.
- 'So did I, sir.' This from Montgomery. Mr Perceval looked bewildered,
- as indeed he was.
- 'And did you, Smith, also find this poem on a piece of paper in the
- field?' There was a metallic ring of sarcasm in his voice.
- 'No, sir.'
- 'Ah! Then to what circumstance were you indebted for the lines?'
- 'I got Reynolds to do them for me, sir.'
- Montgomery spoke. 'It was near the infirmary that I found the paper,
- and Reynolds is in there.'
- 'So did I, sir,' said Morrison, incoherently.
- 'Then am I to understand, Smith, that to gain the prize you resorted to
- such underhand means as this?'
- 'No, sir, we agreed that there was no danger of my getting the prize.
- If I had got it, I should have told you everything. Reynolds will tell
- you that, sir.'
- 'Then what object had you in pursuing this deception?'
- 'Well, sir, the rules say everyone must send in something, and I can't
- write poetry at all, and Reynolds likes it, so I asked him to do it.'
- And Smith waited for the storm to burst. But it did not burst. Far down
- in Mr Perceval's system lurked a quiet sense of humour. The situation
- penetrated to it. Then he remembered the examiner's letter, and it
- dawned upon him that there are few crueller things than to make a
- prosaic person write poetry.
- 'You may go,' he said, and the three went.
- And at the next Board Meeting it was decided, mainly owing to the
- influence of an exceedingly eloquent speech from the Headmaster, to
- alter the rules for the Sixth Form Poetry Prize, so that from thence
- onward no one need compete unless he felt himself filled with the
- immortal fire.
- [13]
- WORK
- With a pleasure that's emphatic
- We retire to our attic
- With the satisfying feeling that our duty has been done.
- Oh! philosophers may sing
- Of the troubles of a king
- But of pleasures there are many and of troubles there are none,
- And the culminating pleasure
- Which we treasure beyond measure
- Is the satisfying feeling that our duty has been done.
- _W. S. Gilbert_
- Work is supposed to be the centre round which school life revolves--the
- hub of the school wheel, the lode-star of the schoolboy's existence,
- and a great many other things. 'You come to school to work', is the
- formula used by masters when sentencing a victim to the wailing and
- gnashing of teeth provided by two hours' extra tuition on a hot
- afternoon. In this, I think, they err, and my opinion is backed up by
- numerous scholars of my acquaintance, who have even gone so far--on
- occasions when they themselves have been the victims--as to express
- positive disapproval of the existing state of things. In the dear, dead
- days (beyond recall), I used often to long to put the case to my
- form-master in its only fair aspect, but always refrained from motives
- of policy. Masters are so apt to take offence at the well-meant
- endeavours of their form to instruct them in the way they should go.
- What I should have liked to have done would have been something after
- this fashion. Entering the sanctum of the Headmaster, I should have
- motioned him to his seat--if he were seated already, have assured him
- that to rise was unnecessary. I should then have taken a seat myself,
- taking care to preserve a calm fixity of demeanour, and finally, with a
- preliminary cough, I should have embarked upon the following moving
- address: 'My dear sir, my dear Reverend Jones or Brown (as the case may
- be), believe me when I say that your whole system of work is founded on
- a fallacious dream and reeks of rottenness. No, no, I beg that you will
- not interrupt me. The real state of the case, if I may say so, is
- briefly this: a boy goes to school to enjoy himself, and, on arriving,
- finds to his consternation that a great deal more work is expected of
- him than he is prepared to do. What course, then, Reverend Jones or
- Brown, does he take? He proceeds to do as much work as will steer him
- safely between the, ah--I may say, the Scylla of punishment and the
- Charybdis of being considered what my, er--fellow-pupils euphoniously
- term a swot. That, I think, is all this morning. _Good_ day. Pray
- do not trouble to rise. I will find my way out.' I should then have
- made for the door, locked it, if possible, on the outside, and, rushing
- to the railway station, have taken a through ticket to Spitzbergen or
- some other place where Extradition treaties do not hold good.
- But 'twas not mine to play the Tib. Gracchus, to emulate the O.
- Cromwell. So far from pouring my opinions like so much boiling oil into
- the ear of my task-master, I was content to play the part of audience
- while _he_ did the talking, my sole remark being 'Yes'r' at fixed
- intervals.
- And yet I knew that I was in the right. My bosom throbbed with the
- justice of my cause. For why? The ambition of every human new boy
- is surely to become like J. Essop of the First Eleven, who can hit a
- ball over two ponds, a wood, and seven villages, rather than to
- resemble that pale young student, Mill-Stuart, who, though he can
- speak Sanskrit like a native of Sanskritia, couldn't score a single
- off a slow long-hop.
- And this ambition is a laudable one. For the athlete is the product of
- nature--a step towards the more perfect type of animal, while the
- scholar is the outcome of artificiality. What, I ask, does the scholar
- gain, either morally or physically, or in any other way, by knowing who
- was tribune of the people in 284 BC or what is the precise difference
- between the various constructions of _cum_? It is not as if
- ignorance of the tribune's identity caused him any mental unrest. In
- short, what excuse is there for the student? 'None,' shrieks Echo
- enthusiastically. 'None whatever.'
- Our children are being led to ruin by this system. They will become
- dons and think in Greek. The victim of the craze stops at nothing. He
- puns in Latin. He quips and quirks in Ionic and Doric. In the worst
- stages of the disease he will edit Greek plays and say that Merry quite
- misses the fun of the passage, or that Jebb is mediocre. Think, I beg
- of you, paterfamilias, and you, mater ditto, what your feelings would
- be were you to find Henry or Archibald Cuthbert correcting proofs of
- _The Agamemnon_, and inventing 'nasty ones' for Mr Sidgwick! Very
- well then. Be warned.
- Our bright-eyed lads are taught insane constructions in Greek and Latin
- from morning till night, and they come for their holidays, in many
- cases, without the merest foundation of a batting style. Ask them what
- a Yorker is, and they will say: 'A man from York, though I presume you
- mean a Yorkshireman.' They will read Herodotus without a dictionary for
- pleasure, but ask them to translate the childishly simple sentence:
- 'Trott was soon in his timber-yard with a length 'un that whipped
- across from the off,' and they'll shrink abashed and swear they have
- not skill at that, as Gilbert says.
- The papers sometimes contain humorous forecasts of future education,
- when cricket and football shall come to their own. They little know the
- excellence of the thing they mock at. When we get schools that teach
- nothing but games, then will the sun definitely refuse to set on the
- roast beef of old England. May it be soon. Some day, mayhap, I shall
- gather my great-great-grandsons round my knee, and tell them--as one
- tells tales of Faery--that I can remember the time when Work was
- considered the be-all and the end-all of a school career. Perchance,
- when my great-great-grandson John (called John after the famous Jones
- of that name) has brought home the prize for English Essay on 'Rugby
- _v._ Association', I shall pat his head (gently) and the tears
- will come to my old eyes as I recall the time when I, too, might have
- won a prize--for that obsolete subject, Latin Prose--and was only
- prevented by the superior excellence of my thirty-and-one fellow
- students, coupled, indeed, with my own inability to conjugate
- _sum._
- Such days, I say, may come. But now are the Dark Ages. The only thing
- that can possibly make Work anything but an unmitigated nuisance is the
- prospect of a 'Varsity scholarship, and the thought that, in the event
- of failure, a 'Varsity career will be out of the question.
- With this thought constantly before him, the student can put a certain
- amount of enthusiasm into his work, and even go to the length of rising
- at five o'clock o' mornings to drink yet deeper of the cup of
- knowledge. I have done it myself. 'Varsity means games and yellow
- waistcoats and Proctors, and that sort of thing. It is worth working
- for.
- But for the unfortunate individual who is barred by circumstances from
- participating in these joys, what inducement is there to work? Is such
- a one to leave the school nets in order to stew in a stuffy room over a
- Thucydides? I trow not.
- Chapter one of my great forthcoming work, _The Compleat Slacker_,
- contains minute instructions on the art of avoiding preparation from
- beginning to end of term. Foremost among the words of advice ranks this
- maxim: Get an official list of the books you are to do, and examine
- them carefully with a view to seeing what it is possible to do unseen.
- Thus, if Virgil is among these authors, you can rely on being able to
- do him with success. People who ought to know better will tell you that
- Virgil is hard. Such a shallow falsehood needs little comment. A
- scholar who cannot translate ten lines of _The Aeneid_ between the
- time he is put on and the time he begins to speak is unworthy of pity
- or consideration, and if I meet him in the street I shall assuredly cut
- him. Aeschylus, on the other hand, is a demon, and needs careful
- watching, though in an emergency you can always say the reading is
- wrong.
- Sometimes the compleat slacker falls into a trap. The saddest case I
- can remember is that of poor Charles Vanderpoop. He was a bright young
- lad, and showed some promise of rising to heights as a slacker. He fell
- in this fashion. One Easter term his form had half-finished a speech of
- Demosthenes, and the form-master gave them to understand that they
- would absorb the rest during the forthcoming term. Charles, being
- naturally anxious to do as little work as possible during the summer
- months, spent his Easter holidays carefully preparing this speech, so
- as to have it ready in advance. What was his horror, on returning to
- School at the appointed date, to find that they were going to throw
- Demosthenes over altogether, and patronize Plato. Threats, entreaties,
- prayers--all were accounted nothing by the master who had led him into
- this morass of troubles. It is believed that the shock destroyed his
- reason. At any rate, the fact remains that that term (the summer term,
- mark you) he won two prizes. In the following term he won three. To
- recapitulate his outrages from that time to the present were a
- harrowing and unnecessary task. Suffice it that he is now a Regius
- Professor, and I saw in the papers a short time ago that a lecture of
- his on 'The Probable Origin of the Greek Negative', created quite a
- _furore_. If this is not Tragedy with a big T, I should like to
- know what it is.
- As an exciting pastime, unseen translation must rank very high.
- Everyone who has ever tried translating unseen must acknowledge that
- all other forms of excitement seem but feeble makeshifts after it. I
- have, in the course of a career of sustained usefulness to the human
- race, had my share of thrills. I have asked a strong and busy porter,
- at Paddington, when the Brighton train started. I have gone for the
- broad-jump record in trying to avoid a motor-car. I have played
- Spillikins and Ping-Pong. But never again have I felt the excitement
- that used to wander athwart my moral backbone when I was put on to
- translate a passage containing a notorious _crux_ and seventeen
- doubtful readings, with only that innate genius, which is the wonder of
- the civilized world, to pull me through. And what a glow of pride one
- feels when it is all over; when one has made a glorious, golden guess
- at the _crux_, and trampled the doubtful readings under foot with
- inspired ease. It is like a day at the seaside.
- Work is bad enough, but Examinations are worse, especially the Board
- Examinations. By doing from ten to twenty minutes prep every night, the
- compleat slacker could get through most of the term with average
- success. Then came the Examinations. The dabbler in unseen translations
- found himself caught as in a snare. Gone was the peaceful security in
- which he had lulled to rest all the well-meant efforts of his guardian
- angel to rouse him to a sense of his duties. There, right in front of
- him, yawned the abyss of Retribution.
- Alas! poor slacker. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of
- most excellent fancy. Where be his gibes now? How is he to cope with
- the fiendish ingenuity of the examiners? How is he to master the
- contents of a book of Thucydides in a couple of days? It is a fearsome
- problem. Perhaps he will get up in the small hours and work by candle
- light from two till eight o'clock. In this case he will start his day a
- mental and physical wreck. Perhaps he will try to work and be led away
- by the love of light reading.
- In any case he will fail to obtain enough marks to satisfy the
- examiners, though whether examiners ever are satisfied, except by Harry
- the hero of the school story (Every Lad's Library, uniform edition, 2s
- 6d), is rather a doubtful question.
- In such straits, matters resolve themselves into a sort of drama with
- three characters. We will call our hero Smith.
- _Scene:_ a Study
- _Dramatis Personae:_
- SMITH
- CONSCIENCE
- MEPHISTOPHELES
- _Enter_ SMITH (_down centre_)
- _He seats himself at table and opens a Thucydides._
- _Enter_ CONSCIENCE _through ceiling_ (R.), MEPHISTOPHELES
- _through floor_ (L.).
- CONSCIENCE (_with a kindly smile_): Precisely what I was about to
- remark, my dear lad. A little Thucydides would be a very good thing.
- Thucydides, as you doubtless know, was a very famous Athenian
- historian. Date?
- SMITH: Er--um--let me see.
- MEPH. (_aside_): Look in the Introduction and pretend you did it
- by accident.
- SMITH (_having done so_): 431 B.C. _circ_.
- CONSCIENCE _wipes away a tear_.
- CONSCIENCE: Thucydides made himself a thorough master of the concisest
- of styles.
- MEPH.: And in doing so became infernally obscure. Excuse shop.
- SMITH (_gloomily_): Hum!
- MEPH. (_sneeringly_): Ha!
- _Long pause_.
- CONSCIENCE (_gently_): Do you not think, my dear lad, that you had
- better begin? Time and tide, as you are aware, wait for no man. And--
- SMITH: Yes?
- CONSCIENCE: You have not, I fear, a very firm grasp of the subject.
- However, if you work hard till eleven--
- SMITH (_gloomily_): Hum! Three hours!
- MEPH. (_cheerily_): Exactly so. Three hours. A little more if
- anything. By the way, excuse me asking, but have you prepared the
- subject thoroughly during the term?
- SMITH: My _dear_ sir! Of _course!_
- CONSCIENCE (_reprovingly_):???!!??!
- SMITH: Well, perhaps, not quite so much as I might have done. Such a
- lot of things to do this term. Cricket, for instance.
- MEPH.: Rather. Talking of cricket, you seemed to be shaping rather well
- last Saturday. I had just run up on business, and someone told me you
- made eighty not out. Get your century all right?
- SMITH (_brightening at the recollection_): Just a bit--117 not
- out. I hit--but perhaps you've heard?
- MEPH.: Not at all, not at all. Let's hear all about it.
- _CONSCIENCE seeks to interpose, but is prevented by MEPH., who eggs
- SMITH on to talk cricket for over an hour._
- CONSCIENCE _(at last; in an acid voice)_: That is a history of the
- Peloponnesian War by Thucydides on the table in front of you. I thought
- I would mention it, in case you had forgotten.
- SMITH: Great Scott, yes! Here, I say, I must start.
- CONSCIENCE: Hear! Hear!
- MEPH. _(insinuatingly)_: One moment. Did you say you _had_
- prepared this book during the term? Afraid I'm a little hard of
- hearing. Eh, what?
- SMITH: Well--er--no, I have not. Have you ever played billiards with a
- walking-stick and five balls?
- MEPH.: Quite so, quite so. I quite understand. Don't you distress
- yourself, old chap. You obviously can't get through a whole book of
- Thucydides in under two hours, can you?
- CONSCIENCE _(severely)_: He might, by attentive application to
- study, master a considerable portion of the historian's _chef
- d'oeuvre_ in that time.
- MEPH.: Yes, and find that not one of the passages he had prepared was
- set in the paper.
- CONSCIENCE: At the least, he would, if he were to pursue the course
- which I have indicated, greatly benefit his mind.
- MEPH. _gives a short, derisive laugh. Long pause._
- MEPH. _(looking towards bookshelf)_: Hullo, you've got a decent
- lot of books, pommy word you have. _Rodney Stone, Vice Versa, Many
- Cargoes._ Ripping. Ever read _Many Cargoes?_
- CONSCIENCE _(glancing at his watch)_: I am sorry, but I must
- really go now. I will see you some other day.
- _Exit sorrowfully._
- MEPH.: Well, thank goodness _he's_ gone. Never saw such a fearful
- old bore in my life. Can't think why you let him hang on to you so. We
- may as well make a night of it now, eh? No use your trying to work at
- this time of night.
- SMITH: Not a bit.
- MEPH.: Did you say you'd not read _Many Cargoes?_
- SMITH: Never. Only got it today. Good?
- MEPH.: Simply ripping. All short stories. Make you yell.
- SMITH _(with a last effort)_: But don't you think--
- MEPH.: Oh no. Besides, you can easily get up early tomorrow for the
- Thucydides.
- SMITH: Of course I can. Never thought of that. Heave us _Many
- Cargoes._ Thanks.
- _Begins to read. MEPH. grins fiendishly, and vanishes through floor
- enveloped in red flame. Sobbing heard from the direction of the
- ceiling.
- Scene closes._
- Next morning, of course, he will oversleep himself, and his Thucydides
- paper will be of such a calibre that that eminent historian will writhe
- in his grave.
- [14]
- NOTES
- Of all forms of lettered effusiveness, that which exploits the
- original work of others and professes to supply us with right
- opinions thereanent is the least wanted.
- _Kenneth Grahame_
- It has always seemed to me one of the worst flaws in our mistaken
- social system, that absolutely no distinction is made between the
- master who forces the human boy to take down notes from dictation and
- the rest of mankind. I mean that, if in a moment of righteous
- indignation you rend such a one limb from limb, you will almost
- certainly be subjected to the utmost rigour of the law, and you will be
- lucky if you escape a heavy fine of five or ten shillings, exclusive of
- the costs of the case. Now, this is not right on the face of it. It is
- even wrong. The law should take into account the extreme provocation
- which led to the action. Punish if you will the man who travels
- second-class with a third-class ticket, or who borrows a pencil and
- forgets to return it; but there are occasions when justice should be
- tempered with mercy, and this murdering of pedagogues is undoubtedly
- such an occasion.
- It should be remembered, however, that there are two varieties of
- notes. The printed notes at the end of your Thucydides or Homer are
- distinctly useful when they aim at acting up to their true vocation,
- namely, the translating of difficult passages or words. Sometimes,
- however, the author will insist on airing his scholarship, and instead
- of translations he supplies parallel passages, which neither interest,
- elevate, nor amuse the reader. This, of course, is mere vanity. The
- author, sitting in his comfortable chair with something short within
- easy reach, recks nothing of the misery he is inflicting on hundreds of
- people who have done him no harm at all. He turns over the pages of his
- book of _Familiar Quotations_ with brutal callousness, and for
- every tricky passage in the work which he is editing, finds and makes a
- note of three or four even trickier ones from other works. Who has not
- in his time been brought face to face with a word which defies
- translation? There are two courses open to you on such an occasion, to
- look the word up in the lexicon, or in the notes. You, of course, turn
- up the notes, and find: 'See line 80.' You look up line 80, hoping to
- see a translation, and there you are told that a rather similar
- construction occurs in Xenophades' _Lyrics from a Padded Cell_. On
- this, the craven of spirit will resort to the lexicon, but the man of
- mettle will close his book with an emphatic bang, and refuse to have
- anything more to do with it. Of a different sort are the notes which
- simply translate the difficulty and subside. These are a boon to the
- scholar. Without them it would be almost impossible to prepare one's
- work during school, and we should be reduced to the prosaic expedient
- of working in prep. time. What we want is the commentator who
- translates _mensa_ as 'a table' without giving a page and a half
- of notes on the uses of the table in ancient Greece, with an excursus
- on the habit common in those times of retiring underneath it after
- dinner, and a list of the passages in Apollonius Rhodius where the word
- 'table' is mentioned.
- These voluminous notes are apt to prove a nuisance in more ways than
- one. Your average master is generally inordinately fond of them, and
- will frequently ask some member of the form to read his note on
- so-and-so out to his fellows. This sometimes leads to curious results,
- as it is hardly to be expected that the youth called upon will be
- attending, even if he is awake, which is unlikely. On one occasion
- an acquaintance of mine, 'whose name I am not at liberty to divulge',
- was suddenly aware that he was being addressed, and, on giving the
- matter his attention, found that it was the form-master asking him to
- read out his note on _Balbus murum aedificavit_. My friend is a
- kind-hearted youth and of an obliging disposition, and would willingly
- have done what was asked of him, but there were obstacles, first and
- foremost of which ranked the fact that, taking advantage of his
- position on the back desk (whither he thought the basilisk eye of
- Authority could not reach), he had substituted _Bab Ballads_ for
- the words of Virgil, and was engrossed in the contents of that modern
- classic. The subsequent explanations lasted several hours. In fact, it
- is probable that the master does not understand the facts of the case
- thoroughly even now. It is true that he called him a 'loathsome, slimy,
- repulsive toad', but even this seems to fall short of the grandeur of
- the situation.
- Those notes, also, which are, alas! only too common nowadays, that deal
- with peculiarities of grammar, how supremely repulsive they are! It is
- impossible to glean any sense from them, as the Editor mixes up
- Nipperwick's view with Sidgeley's reasoning and Spreckendzedeutscheim's
- surmise with Donnerundblitzendorf's conjecture in a way that seems to
- argue a thorough unsoundness of mind and morals, a cynical insanity
- combined with a blatant indecency. He occasionally starts in a
- reasonable manner by giving one view as (1) and the next as (2). So far
- everyone is happy and satisfied. The trouble commences when he has
- occasion to refer back to some former view, when he will say: 'Thus we
- see (1) and (14) that,' etc. The unlucky student puts a finger on the
- page to keep the place, and hunts up view one. Having found this, and
- marked the spot with another finger, he proceeds to look up view
- fourteen. He places another finger on this, and reads on, as follows:
- 'Zmpe, however, maintains that Schrumpff (see 3) is practically insane,
- that Spleckzh (see 34) is only a little better, and that Rswkg (see 97
- a (b) C3) is so far from being right that his views may be dismissed as
- readily as those of Xkryt (see 5x).' At this point brain-fever sets in,
- the victim's last coherent thought being a passionate wish for more
- fingers. A friend of mine who was the wonder of all who knew him, in
- that he was known to have scored ten per cent in one of these papers on
- questions like the above, once divulged to an interviewer the fact that
- he owed his success to his methods of learning rather than to his
- ability. On the night before an exam, he would retire to some secret,
- solitary place, such as the boot-room, and commence learning these
- notes by heart. This, though a formidable task, was not so bad as the
- other alternative. The result was that, although in the majority of
- cases he would put down for one question an answer that would have been
- right for another, yet occasionally, luck being with him, he would hit
- the mark. Hence his ten per cent.
- Another fruitful source of discomfort is provided by the type of master
- who lectures on a subject for half an hour, and then, with a bland
- smile, invites, or rather challenges, his form to write a 'good, long
- note' on the quintessence of his discourse. For the inexperienced this
- is an awful moment. They must write something--but what? For the last
- half hour they have been trying to impress the master with the fact
- that they belong to the class of people who can always listen best with
- their eyes closed. Nor poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups
- of the world can ever medicine them to that sweet sleep that they have
- just been enjoying. And now they must write a 'good, long note'. It is
- in such extremities that your veteran shows up well. He does not betray
- any discomfort. Not he. He rather enjoys the prospect, in fact, of
- being permitted to place the master's golden eloquence on paper. So he
- takes up his pen with alacrity. No need to think what to write. He
- embarks on an essay concerning the master, showing up all his flaws in
- a pitiless light, and analysing his thorough worthlessness of
- character. On so congenial a subject he can, of course, write reams,
- and as the master seldom, if ever, desires to read the 'good, long
- note', he acquires a well-earned reputation for attending in school and
- being able to express himself readily with his pen. _Vivat
- floreatque_.
- But all these forms of notes are as nothing compared with the notes
- that youths even in this our boasted land of freedom are forced to take
- down from dictation. Of the 'good, long note' your French scholar might
- well remark: '_C'est terrible_', but justice would compel him to
- add, as he thought of the dictation note: '_mais ce n'est pas le
- diable_'. For these notes from dictation are, especially on a warm
- day, indubitably _le diable_.
- Such notes are always dictated so rapidly that it is impossible to do
- anything towards understanding them as you go. You have to write your
- hardest to keep up. The beauty of this, from one point of view, is
- that, if you miss a sentence, you have lost the thread of the whole
- thing, and it is useless to attempt to take it up again at once. The
- only plan is to wait for some perceptible break in the flow of words,
- and dash in like lightning. It is much the same sort of thing as
- boarding a bus when in motion. And so you can take a long rest,
- provided you are in an obscure part of the room. In passing, I might
- add that a very pleasing indoor game can be played by asking the
- master, 'what came after so-and-so?' mentioning a point of the oration
- some half-hour back. This always provides a respite of a few minutes
- while he is thinking of some bitter repartee worthy of the occasion,
- and if repeated several times during an afternoon may cause much
- innocent merriment.
- Of course, the real venom that lurks hid within notes from dictation
- does not appear until the time for examination arrives. Then you find
- yourself face to face with sixty or seventy closely and badly written
- pages of a note-book, all of which must be learnt by heart if you would
- aspire to the dizzy heights of half-marks. It is useless to tell your
- examiner that you had no chance of getting up the subject. 'Why,' he
- will reply, 'I gave you notes on that very thing myself.' 'You did,
- sir,' you say, as you advance stealthily upon him, 'but as you dictated
- those notes at the rate of two hundred words a minute, and as my brain,
- though large, is not capable of absorbing sixty pages of a note-book in
- one night, how the suggestively asterisked aposiopesis do you expect me
- to know them? Ah-h-h!' The last word is a war-cry, as you fling
- yourself bodily on him, and tear him courteously, but firmly, into
- minute fragments. Experience, which, as we all know, teaches, will in
- time lead you into adopting some method by which you may evade this
- taking of notes. A good plan is to occupy yourself with the composition
- of a journal, an unofficial magazine not intended for the eyes of the
- profane, but confined rigidly to your own circle of acquaintances. The
- chief advantage of such a work is that you will continue to write while
- the notes are being dictated. To throw your pen down with an air of
- finality and begin reading some congenial work of fiction would be a
- gallant action, but impolitic. No, writing of some sort is essential,
- and as it is out of the question to take down the notes, what better
- substitute than an unofficial journal could be found? To one whose
- contributions to the School magazine are constantly being cut down to
- mere skeletons by the hands of censors, there is a rapture otherwise
- unattainable in a page of really scurrilous items about those in
- authority. Try it yourselves, my beamish lads. Think of something
- really bad about somebody. Write it down and gloat over it. Sometimes,
- indeed, it is of the utmost use in determining your future career. You
- will probably remember those Titanic articles that appeared at the
- beginning of the war in _The Weekly Luggage-Train_, dealing with
- all the crimes of the War Office--the generals, the soldiers, the
- enemy--of everybody, in fact, except the editor, staff and office-boy
- of _The W.L.T._ Well, the writer of those epoch-making articles
- confesses that he owes all his skill to his early training, when, a
- happy lad at his little desk in school, he used to write trenchantly in
- his note-book on the subject of the authorities. There is an example
- for you. Of course we can never be like him, but let, oh! let us be as
- like him as we're able to be. A final word to those lost ones who
- dictate the notes. Why are our ears so constantly assailed with
- unnecessary explanations of, and opinions on, English literature? Prey
- upon the Classics if you will. It is a revolting habit, but too common
- to excite overmuch horror. But surely anybody, presupposing a certain
- bias towards sanity, can understand the Classics of our own language,
- with the exception, of course, of Browning. Take Tennyson, for example.
- How often have we been forced to take down from dictation the miserable
- maunderings of some commentator on the subject of _Maud_. A person
- reads _Maud_, and either likes it or dislikes it. In any case his
- opinion is not likely to be influenced by writing down at express speed
- the opinions of somebody else concerning the methods or objectivity and
- subjectivity of the author when he produced the work.
- Somebody told me a short time ago that Shelley was an example of
- supreme, divine, superhuman genius. It is the sort of thing Mr
- Gilbert's 'rapturous maidens' might have said: 'How Botticellian! How
- Fra Angelican! How perceptively intense and consummately utter!' There
- is really no material difference.
- [15]
- NOW, TALKING ABOUT CRICKET--
- In the days of yore, when these white hairs were brown--or was it
- black? At any rate, they were not white--and I was at school, it was
- always my custom, when Fate obliged me to walk to school with a casual
- acquaintance, to whom I could not unburden my soul of those profound
- thoughts which even then occupied my mind, to turn the struggling
- conversation to the relative merits of cricket and football.
- 'Do you like cricket better than footer?' was my formula. Now, though
- at the time, in order to save fruitless argument, I always agreed with
- my companion, and praised the game he praised, in the innermost depths
- of my sub-consciousness, cricket ranked a long way in front of all
- other forms of sport. I may be wrong. More than once in my career it
- has been represented to me that I couldn't play cricket for nuts. My
- captain said as much when I ran him out in _the_ match of the
- season after he had made forty-nine and looked like stopping. A bowling
- acquaintance heartily endorsed his opinion on the occasion of my
- missing three catches off him in one over. This, however, I attribute
- to prejudice, for the man I missed ultimately reached his century,
- mainly off the deliveries of my bowling acquaintance. I pointed out to
- him that, had I accepted any one of the three chances, we should have
- missed seeing the prettiest century made on the ground that season; but
- he was one of those bowlers who sacrifice all that is beautiful in the
- game to mere wickets. A sordid practice.
- Later on, the persistence with which my county ignored my claims to
- inclusion in the team, convinced me that I must leave cricket fame to
- others. True, I did figure, rather prominently, too, in one county
- match. It was at the Oval, Surrey _v_. Middlesex. How well I
- remember that occasion! Albert Trott was bowling (Bertie we used to
- call him); I forget who was batting. Suddenly the ball came soaring in
- my direction. I was not nervous. I put down the sandwich I was eating,
- rose from my seat, picked the ball up neatly, and returned it with
- unerring aim to a fieldsman who was waiting for it with becoming
- deference. Thunders of applause went up from the crowded ring.
- That was the highest point I ever reached in practical cricket. But, as
- the historian says of Mr Winkle, a man may be an excellent sportsman in
- theory, even if he fail in practice. That's me. Reader (if any), have
- you ever played cricket in the passage outside your study with a
- walking-stick and a ball of paper? That's the game, my boy, for testing
- your skill of wrist and eye. A century _v_. the M.C.C. is well
- enough in its way, but give me the man who can watch 'em in a narrow
- passage, lit only by a flickering gas-jet--one for every hit, four if
- it reaches the end, and six if it goes downstairs full-pitch, any pace
- bowling allowed. To make double figures in such a match is to taste
- life. Only you had better do your tasting when the House-master is out
- for the evening.
- I like to watch the young cricket idea shooting. I refer to the lower
- games, where 'next man in' umpires with his pads on, his loins girt,
- and a bat in his hand. Many people have wondered why it is that no
- budding umpire can officiate unless he holds a bat. For my part, I
- think there is little foundation for the theory that it is part of a
- semi-religious rite, on the analogy of the Freemasons' special
- handshake and the like. Nor do I altogether agree with the authorities
- who allege that man, when standing up, needs something as a prop or
- support. There is a shadow of reason, I grant, in this supposition, but
- after years of keen observation I am inclined to think that the umpire
- keeps his bat by him, firstly, in order that no unlicensed hand shall
- commandeer it unbeknownst, and secondly, so that he shall be ready to
- go in directly his predecessor is out. There is an ill-concealed
- restiveness about his movements, as he watches the batsmen getting set,
- that betrays an overwrought spirit. Then of a sudden one of them plays
- a ball on to his pad. '_'s that_?' asks the bowler, with an
- overdone carelessness. 'Clean out. Now _I'm_ in,' and already he
- is rushing up the middle of the pitch to take possession. When he gets
- to the wicket a short argument ensues. 'Look here, you idiot, I hit it
- hard.' 'Rot, man, out of the way.' '!!??!' 'Look here, Smith,
- _are_ you going to dispute the umpire's decision?' Chorus of
- fieldsmen: 'Get out, Smith, you ass. You've been given out years ago.'
- Overwhelmed by popular execration, Smith reluctantly departs,
- registering in the black depths of his soul a resolution to take on the
- umpireship at once, with a view to gaining an artistic revenge by
- giving his enemy run out on the earliest possible occasion. There is a
- primeval _insouciance_ about this sort of thing which is as
- refreshing to a mind jaded with the stiff formality of professional
- umpires as a cold shower-bath.
- I have made a special study of last-wicket men; they are divided into
- two classes, the deplorably nervous, or the outrageously confident. The
- nervous largely outnumber the confident. The launching of a last-wicket
- man, when there are ten to make to win, or five minutes left to make a
- draw of a losing game, is fully as impressive a ceremony as the
- launching of the latest battleship. An interested crowd harasses the
- poor victim as he is putting on his pads. 'Feel in a funk?' asks some
- tactless friend. 'N-n-no, norrabit.' 'That's right,' says the captain
- encouragingly, 'bowling's as easy as anything.'
- This cheers the wretch up a little, until he remembers suddenly that
- the captain himself was distinctly at sea with the despised trundling,
- and succumbed to his second ball, about which he obviously had no idea
- whatever. At this he breaks down utterly, and, if emotional, will sob
- into his batting glove. He is assisted down the Pavilion steps, and
- reaches the wickets in a state of collapse. Here, very probably, a
- reaction will set in. The sight of the crease often comes as a positive
- relief after the vague terrors experienced in the Pavilion.
- The confident last-wicket man, on the other hand, goes forth to battle
- with a light quip upon his lips. The lot of a last-wicket batsman, with
- a good eye and a sense of humour, is a very enviable one. The
- incredulous disgust of the fast bowler, who thinks that at last he may
- safely try that slow head-ball of his, and finds it lifted genially
- over the leg-boundary, is well worth seeing. I remember in one school
- match, the last man, unfortunately on the opposite side, did this three
- times in one over, ultimately retiring to a fluky catch in the slips
- with forty-one to his name. Nervousness at cricket is a curious thing.
- As the author of _Willow the King_, himself a county cricketer,
- has said, it is not the fear of getting out that causes funk. It is a
- sort of intangible _je ne sais quoi_. I trust I make myself clear.
- Some batsmen are nervous all through a long innings. With others the
- feeling disappears with the first boundary.
- A young lady--it is, of course, not polite to mention her age to the
- minute, but it ranged somewhere between eight and ten--was taken to see
- a cricket match once. After watching the game with interest for some
- time, she gave out this profound truth: 'They all attend specially to
- one man.' It would be difficult to sum up the causes of funk more
- lucidly and concisely. To be an object of interest is sometimes
- pleasant, but when ten fieldsmen, a bowler, two umpires, and countless
- spectators are eagerly watching your every movement, the thing becomes
- embarrassing.
- That is why it is, on the whole, preferable to be a cricket spectator
- rather than a cricket player. No game affords the spectator such unique
- opportunities of exerting his critical talents. You may have noticed
- that it is always the reporter who knows most about the game. Everyone,
- moreover, is at heart a critic, whether he represent the majesty of the
- Press or not. From the lady of Hoxton, who crushes her friend's latest
- confection with the words, 'My, wot an 'at!' down to that lowest class
- of all, the persons who call your attention (in print) to the sinister
- meaning of everything Clytemnestra says in _The Agamemnon_, the
- whole world enjoys expressing an opinion of its own about something.
- In football you are vouchsafed fewer chances. Practically all you can
- do is to shout 'off-side' whenever an opponent scores, which affords
- but meagre employment for a really critical mind. In cricket, however,
- nothing can escape you. Everything must be done in full sight of
- everybody. There the players stand, without refuge, simply inviting
- criticism.
- It is best, however, not to make one's remarks too loud. If you do, you
- call down upon yourself the attention of others, and are yourself
- criticized. I remember once, when I was of tender years, watching a
- school match, and one of the batsmen lifted a ball clean over the
- Pavilion. This was too much for my sensitive and critical young mind.
- 'On the carpet, sir,' I shouted sternly, well up in the treble clef,
- 'keep 'em on the carpet.' I will draw a veil. Suffice it to say that I
- became a sport and derision, and was careful for the future to
- criticize in a whisper. But the reverse by no means crushed me. Even
- now I take a melancholy pleasure in watching school matches, and saying
- So-and-So will make quite a fair _school-boy_ bat in time, but he
- must get rid of that stroke of his on the off, and that shocking
- leg-hit, and a few of those _awful_ strokes in the slips, but that
- on the whole, he is by no means lacking in promise. I find it
- refreshing. If, however, you feel compelled not merely to look on, but
- to play, as one often does at schools where cricket is compulsory, it
- is impossible to exaggerate the importance of white boots. The game you
- play before you get white boots is not cricket, but a weak imitation.
- The process of initiation is generally this. One plays in shoes for a
- few years with the most dire result, running away to square leg from
- fast balls, and so on, till despair seizes the soul. Then an angel in
- human form, in the very effective disguise of the man at the school
- boot-shop, hints that, for an absurdly small sum in cash, you may
- become the sole managing director of a pair of _white buckskin_
- boots with real spikes. You try them on. They fit, and the initiation
- is complete. You no longer run away from fast balls. You turn them
- neatly off to the boundary. In a word, you begin for the first time to
- play the game, the whole game, and nothing but the game.
- There are misguided people who complain that cricket is becoming a
- business more than a game, as if that were not the most fortunate thing
- that could happen. When it ceases to be a mere business and becomes a
- religious ceremony, it will be a sign that the millennium is at hand.
- The person who regards cricket as anything less than a business is no
- fit companion, gentle reader, for the likes of you and me. As long as
- the game goes in his favour the cloven hoof may not show itself. But
- give him a good steady spell of leather-hunting, and you will know him
- for what he is, a mere _dilettante_, a dabbler, in a word, a worm,
- who ought never to be allowed to play at all. The worst of this species
- will sometimes take advantage of the fact that the game in which they
- happen to be playing is only a scratch game, upon the result of which
- no very great issues hang, to pollute the air they breathe with verbal,
- and the ground they stand on with physical, buffooneries. Many a time
- have I, and many a time have you, if you are what I take you for, shed
- tears of blood, at the sight of such. Careless returns, overthrows--but
- enough of a painful subject. Let us pass on.
- I have always thought it a better fate for a man to be born a bowler
- than a bat. A batsman certainly gets a considerable amount of innocent
- fun by snicking good fast balls just off his wicket to the ropes, and
- standing stolidly in front against slow leg-breaks. These things are
- good, and help one to sleep peacefully o' nights, and enjoy one's
- meals. But no batsman can experience that supreme emotion of 'something
- attempted, something done', which comes to a bowler when a ball pitches
- in a hole near point's feet, and whips into the leg stump. It is one
- crowded second of glorious life. Again, the words 'retired hurt' on the
- score-sheet are far more pleasant to the bowler than the batsman. The
- groan of a batsman when a loose ball hits him full pitch in the ribs is
- genuine. But the 'Awfully-sorry-old-chap-it-slipped' of the bowler is
- not. Half a loaf is better than no bread, as Mr Chamberlain might say,
- and if he cannot hit the wicket, he is perfectly contented with hitting
- the man. In my opinion, therefore, the bowler's lot, in spite of
- billiard table wickets, red marl, and such like inventions of a
- degenerate age, is the happier one.
- And here, glowing with pride of originality at the thought that I have
- written of cricket without mentioning Alfred Mynn or Fuller Pilch, I
- heave a reminiscent sigh, blot my MS., and thrust my pen back into its
- sheath.
- [16]
- THE TOM BROWN QUESTION
- The man in the corner had been trying to worry me into a conversation
- for some time. He had asked me if I objected to having the window open.
- He had said something rather bitter about the War Office, and had hoped
- I did not object to smoking. Then, finding that I stuck to my book
- through everything, he made a fresh attack.
- 'I see you are reading _Tom Brown's Schooldays_,' he said.
- This was a plain and uninteresting statement of fact, and appeared to
- me to require no answer. I read on.
- 'Fine book, sir.'
- 'Very.'
- 'I suppose you have heard of the Tom Brown Question?'
- I shut my book wearily, and said I had not.
- 'It is similar to the Homeric Question. You have heard of that, I
- suppose?'
- I knew that there was a discussion about the identity of the author of
- the Iliad. When at school I had been made to take down notes on the
- subject until I had grown to loathe the very name of Homer.
- 'You see,' went on my companion, 'the difficulty about _Tom Brown's
- Schooldays_ is this. It is obvious that part one and part two were
- written by different people. You admit that, I suppose?'
- 'I always thought Mr Hughes wrote the whole book.'
- 'Dear me, not really? Why, I thought everyone knew that he only wrote
- the first half. The question is, who wrote the second. I know, but I
- don't suppose ten other people do. No, sir.'
- 'What makes you think he didn't write the second part?'
- 'My dear sir, just read it. Read part one carefully, and then read part
- two. Why, you can see in a minute.'
- I said I had read the book three times, but had never noticed anything
- peculiar about it, except that the second half was not nearly so
- interesting as the first.
- 'Well, just tell me this. Do you think the same man created East and
- Arthur? Now then.'
- I admitted that it was difficult to understand such a thing.
- 'There was a time, of course,' continued my friend, 'when everybody
- thought as you do. The book was published under Hughes's name, and it
- was not until Professor Burkett-Smith wrote his celebrated monograph on
- the subject that anybody suspected a dual, or rather a composite,
- authorship. Burkett-Smith, if you remember, based his arguments on two
- very significant points. The first of these was a comparison between
- the football match in the first part and the cricket match in the
- second. After commenting upon the truth of the former description, he
- went on to criticize the latter. Do you remember that match? You do?
- Very well. You recall how Tom wins the toss on a plumb wicket?'
- 'Yes.'
- 'Then with the usual liberality of young hands (I quote from the book)
- he put the M.C.C. in first. Now, my dear sir, I ask you, would a school
- captain do that? I am young, says one of Gilbert's characters, the
- Grand Duke, I think, but, he adds, I am not so young as that. Tom may
- have been young, but would he, _could_ he have been young enough
- to put his opponents in on a true wicket, when he had won the toss?
- Would the Tom Brown of part one have done such a thing?'
- 'Never,' I shouted, with enthusiasm.
- 'But that's nothing to what he does afterwards. He permits, he actually
- sits there and permits, comic songs and speeches to be made during the
- luncheon interval. Comic Songs! Do you hear me, sir? COMIC SONGS!! And
- this when he wanted every minute of time he could get to save the
- match. Would the Tom Brown of part one have done such a thing?'
- 'Never, never.' I positively shrieked the words this time.
- 'Burkett-Smith put that point very well. His second argument is founded
- on a single remark of Tom's, or rather--'
- 'Or rather,' I interrupted, fiercely,' or rather of the wretched
- miserable--'
- 'Contemptible,' said my friend.
- 'Despicable, scoundrelly, impostor who masquerades as Tom in the second
- half of the book.'
- 'Exactly,' said he. 'Thank you very much. I have often thought the same
- myself. The remark to which I refer is that which he makes to the
- master while he is looking on at the M.C.C. match. In passing, sir,
- might I ask you whether the Tom Brown of part one would have been on
- speaking terms with such a master?'
- I shook my head violently. I was too exhausted to speak.
- 'You remember the remark? The master commented on the fact that Arthur
- is a member of the first eleven. I forget Tom's exact words, but the
- substance of them is this, that, though on his merits Arthur was not
- worth his place, he thought it would do him such a lot of good being in
- the team. Do I make myself plain, sir? He--thought--it--would--do--
- him--such--a--lot--of--good--being--in--the--team!!!'
- There was a pause. We sat looking at one another, forming silently with
- our lips the words that still echoed through the carriage.
- 'Burkett-Smith,' continued my companion, 'makes a great deal of that
- remark. His peroration is a very fine piece of composition. "Whether
- (concludes he) the captain of a school cricket team who could own
- spontaneously to having been guilty of so horrible, so terrible an act
- of favouritismical jobbery, who could sit unmoved and see his team
- being beaten in the most important match of the season (and, indeed,
- for all that the author tells us it may have been the only match of the
- season), for no other reason than that he thought a first eleven cap
- would prove a valuable tonic to an unspeakable personal friend of his,
- whether, I say, the Tom Brown who acted thus could have been the Tom
- Brown who headed the revolt of the fags in part one, is a question
- which, to the present writer, offers no difficulties. I await with
- confidence the verdict of a free, enlightened, and conscientious public
- of my fellow-countrymen." Fine piece of writing, that, sir?'
- 'Very,' I said.
- 'That pamphlet, of course, caused a considerable stir. Opposing parties
- began to be formed, some maintaining that Burkett-Smith was entirely
- right, others that he was entirely wrong, while the rest said he might
- have been more wrong if he had not been so right, but that if he had
- not been so mistaken he would probably have been a great deal more
- correct. The great argument put forward by the supporters of what I may
- call the "One Author" view, was, that the fight in part two could not
- have been written by anyone except the author of the fight with
- Flashman in the school-house hall. And this is the point which has led
- to all the discussion. Eliminate the Slogger Williams episode, and the
- whole of the second part stands out clearly as the work of another
- hand. But there is one thing that seems to have escaped the notice of
- everybody.'
- 'Yes?' I said.
- He leant forward impressively, and whispered. 'Only the actual fight is
- the work of the genuine author. The interference of Arthur has been
- interpolated!'
- 'By Jove!' I said. 'Not really?'
- 'Yes. Fact, I assure you. Why, think for a minute. Could a man capable
- of describing a fight as that fight is described, also be capable of
- stopping it just as the man the reader has backed all through is
- winning? It would be brutal. Positively brutal, sir!'
- 'Then, how do you explain it?'
- 'A year ago I could not have told you. Now I can. For five years I have
- been unravelling the mystery by the aid of that one clue. Listen. When
- Mr Hughes had finished part one, he threw down his pen and started to
- Wales for a holiday. He had been there a week or more, when one day, as
- he was reclining on the peak of a mountain looking down a deep
- precipice, he was aware of a body of men approaching him. They were
- dressed soberly in garments of an inky black. Each had side whiskers,
- and each wore spectacles. "Mr Hughes, I believe?" said the leader, as
- they came up to him.
- '"Your servant, sir," said he.
- '"We have come to speak to you on an important matter, Mr Hughes. We
- are the committee of the Secret Society For Putting Wholesome
- Literature Within The Reach Of Every Boy, And Seeing That He Gets It.
- I, sir, am the president of the S.S.F.P.W.L.W.T.R.O.E.B.A.S.T.H.G.I."
- He bowed.
- '"Really, sir, I--er--don't think I have the pleasure," began Mr
- Hughes.
- '"You shall have the pleasure, sir. We have come to speak to you about
- your book. Our representative has read Part I, and reports unfavourably
- upon it. It contains no moral. There are scenes of violence, and your
- hero is far from perfect."
- '"I think you mistake my object," said Mr Hughes; "Tom is a boy, not a
- patent medicine. In other words, he is not supposed to be perfect."
- '"Well, I am not here to bandy words. The second part of your book
- must be written to suit the rules of our Society. Do you agree, or
- shall we throw you over that precipice?"
- '"Never. I mean, I don't agree."
- '"Then we must write it for you. Remember, sir, that you will be
- constantly watched, and if you attempt to write that second part
- yourself--"' (he paused dramatically). 'So the second part was written
- by the committee of the Society. So now you know.'
- 'But,' said I, 'how do you account for the fight with Slogger
- Williams?'
- 'The president relented slightly towards the end, and consented to Mr
- Hughes inserting a chapter of his own, on condition that the Society
- should finish it. And the Society did. See?'
- 'But--'
- 'Ticket.'
- 'Eh?'
- 'Ticket, please, sir.'
- I looked up. The guard was standing at the open door. My companion had
- vanished.
- 'Guard,' said I, as I handed him my ticket, 'where's the gentleman who
- travelled up with me?'
- 'Gentleman, sir? I haven't seen nobody.'
- 'Not a man in tweeds with red hair? I mean, in tweeds and owning red
- hair.'
- 'No, sir. You've been alone in the carriage all the way up. Must have
- dreamed it, sir.'
- Possibly I did.
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