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THE POLITENESS OF PRINCES
and Other School Stories
By
P. G. Wodehouse
[Transcriber's note: This selection of early Wodehouse stories was
assembled for Project Gutenberg. The original publication date of
each story is listed in square brackets in the Table of Contents.]
CONTENTS
THE POLITENESS OF PRINCES [1905]
SHIELDS' AND THE CRICKET CUP [1905]
AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR [1905]
THE GUARDIAN [1908]
A CORNER IN LINES [1905]
THE AUTOGRAPH HUNTERS [1905]
PILLINGSHOT, DETECTIVE [1910]
THE POLITENESS OF PRINCES
The painful case of G. Montgomery Chapple, bachelor, of Seymour's
house, Wrykyn. Let us examine and ponder over it.
It has been well said that this is the age of the specialist.
Everybody, if they wish to leave the world a better and happier place
for their stay in it, should endeavour to adopt some speciality and
make it their own. Chapple's speciality was being late for breakfast.
He was late not once or twice, but every day. Sometimes he would
scramble in about the time of the second cup of coffee, buttoning his
waistcoat as he sidled to his place. Generally he would arrive just as
the rest of the house were filing out; when, having lurked hidden
until Mr. Seymour was out of the way, he would enter into private
treaty with Herbert, the factotum, who had influence with the cook,
for Something Hot and maybe a fresh brew of coffee. For there was
nothing of the amateur late-breakfaster about Chapple. Your amateur
slinks in with blushes deepening the naturally healthy hue of his
face, and, bolting a piece of dry bread and gulping down a cup of cold
coffee, dashes out again, filled more with good resolutions for the
future than with food. Not so Chapple. He liked his meals. He wanted a
good deal here below, and wanted it hot and fresh. Conscience had but
a poor time when it tried to bully Chapple. He had it weak in the
first round.
But there was one more powerful than Conscience--Mr. Seymour. He had
marked the constant lateness of our hero, and disapproved of it.
Thus it happened that Chapple, having finished an excellent breakfast
one morning some twenty minutes after everybody else, was informed as
he sat in the junior day-room trying, with the help of an illustrated
article in a boys' paper, to construct a handy model steam-engine out
of a reel of cotton and an old note-book--for his was in many ways a
giant brain--that Mr. Seymour would like to have a friendly chat with
him in his study. Laying aside his handy model steam-engine, he went
off to the housemaster's study.
"You were late for breakfast to-day," said Mr. Seymour, in the horrid,
abrupt way housemasters have.
"Why, yes, sir," said Chapple, pleasantly.
"And the day before."
"Yes, sir."
"And the day before that."
Chapple did not deny it. He stood on one foot and smiled a
propitiating smile. So far Mr. Seymour was entitled to demand a cigar
or cocoanut every time.
The housemaster walked to the window, looked out, returned to the
mantelpiece, and shifted the position of a china vase two and a
quarter inches to the left. Chapple, by way of spirited repartee,
stood on the other leg and curled the disengaged foot round his ankle.
The conversation was getting quite intellectual.
"You will write out----"
"Sir, please, sir----" interrupted Chapple in an "I-represent-the
defendant-m'lud" tone of voice.
"Well?"
"It's awfully hard to hear the bell from where I sleep, sir."
Owing to the increased numbers of the house this term Chapple had been
removed from his dormitory proper to a small room some distance away.
"Nonsense. The bell can be heard perfectly well all over the house."
There was reason in what he said. Herbert, who woke the house of a
morning, did so by ringing a bell. It was a big bell, and he enjoyed
ringing it. Few sleepers, however sound, could dream on peacefully
through Herbert's morning solo. After five seconds of it they would
turn over uneasily. After seven they would sit up. At the end of the
first quarter of a minute they would be out of bed, and you would be
wondering where they picked up such expressions.
Chapple murmured wordlessly in reply. He realised that his defence was
a thin one. Mr. Seymour followed up his advantage.
"You will write a hundred lines of Vergil," he said, "and if you are
late again to-morrow I shall double them."
Chapple retired.
This, he felt, was a crisis. He had been pursuing his career of
unpunctuality so long that he had never quite realised that a time
might come when the authorities would drop on him. For a moment he
felt that it was impossible, that he could not meet Mr. Seymour's
wishes in the matter; but the bull-dog pluck of the true Englishman
caused him to reconsider this. He would at least have a dash at it.
"I'll tell you what to do," said his friend, Brodie, when consulted on
the point over a quiet pot of tea that afternoon. "You ought to sleep
without so many things on the bed. How many blankets do you use, for
instance?"
"I don't know," said Chapple. "As many as they shove on."
It had never occurred to him to reckon up the amount of his bedclothes
before retiring to rest.
"Well, you take my tip," said Brodie, "and only sleep with one on.
Then the cold'll wake you in the morning, and you'll get up because
it'll be more comfortable than staying in bed."
This scientific plan might have worked. In fact, to a certain extent
it did work. It woke Chapple in the morning, as Brodie had predicted;
but it woke him at the wrong hour. It is no good springing out of bed
when there are still three hours to breakfast. When Chapple woke at
five the next morning, after a series of dreams, the scenes of which
were laid mainly in the Arctic regions, he first sneezed, then he
piled upon the bed everything he could find, including his boots, and
then went to sleep again. The genial warmth oozed through his form, and
continued to ooze until he woke once more, this time at eight-fifteen.
Breakfast being at eight, it occurred to him that his position with
Mr. Seymour was not improved. While he was devoting a few moments'
profound meditation to this point the genial warmth got in its fell
work once again. When he next woke, the bell was ringing for school.
He lowered the world's record for rapid dressing, and was just in time
to accompany the tail of the procession into the form-room.
"You were late again this morning," said Mr. Seymour, after dinner.
"Yes, sir. I overslebbed myselb, sir," replied Chapple, who was
suffering from a cold in the head.
"Two hundred lines."
"Yes, sir."
Things had now become serious. It was no good going to Brodie again
for counsel. Brodie had done for himself, proved himself a fraud, an
idiot. In fine, a rotter. He must try somebody else. Happy thought.
Spenlow. It was a cold day, when Spenlow got left behind. He would
know what to do. _There_ was a chap for you, if you liked! Young,
mind you, but what a brain! Colossal!
"What _I_ should do," said Spenlow, "is this. I should put my
watch on half an hour."
"What 'ud be the good of that?"
"Why, don't you see? You'd wake up and find it was ten to eight, say,
by your watch, so you'd shove on the pace dressing, and nip
downstairs, and then find that you'd really got tons of time. What
price that?"
"But I should remember I'd put my watch on," objected Chapple.
"Oh, no, probably not. You'd be half asleep, and you'd shoot out of
bed before you remembered, and that's all you'd want. It's the getting
out of bed that's so difficult. If you were once out, you wouldn't
want to get back again."
"Oh, shouldn't I?" said Chapple.
"Well, you might want to, but you'd have the sense not to do it."
"It's not a bad idea," said Chapple. "Thanks."
That night he took his Waterbury, prised open the face with a
pocket-knife as if he were opening an oyster, put the minute hand
on exactly half an hour, and retired to bed satisfied. There was
going to be no nonsense about it this time.
I am sorry to disappoint the reader, but facts are facts, and I must
not tamper with them. It is, therefore, my duty to state, however
reluctantly, that Chapple was not in time for breakfast on the
following morning. He woke at seven o'clock, when the hands of
the watch pointed to seven-thirty. Primed with virtuous resolutions,
he was just about to leap from his couch, when his memory began to
work, and he recollected that he had still an hour. Punctuality, he
felt, was an excellent thing, a noble virtue, in fact, but it was no
good overdoing it. He could give himself at least another half hour.
So he dozed off. He woke again with something of a start. He seemed
to feel that he had been asleep for a considerable time. But no. A
glance at the watch showed the hands pointing to twenty-five to eight.
Twenty-five minutes more. He had a good long doze this time. Then,
feeling that now he really must be getting up, he looked once more
at the watch, and rubbed his eyes. It was still twenty-five to eight.
The fact was that, in the exhilaration of putting the hands on, he had
forgotten that other and even more important operation, winding up.
The watch had stopped.
There are few more disturbing sensations than that of suddenly
discovering that one has no means of telling the time. This is
especially so when one has to be in a certain place by a certain hour.
It gives the discoverer a weird, lost feeling, as if he had stopped
dead while all the rest of the world had moved on at the usual rate.
It is a sensation not unlike that of the man who arrives on the
platform of a railway station just in time to see the tail-end of his
train disappear.
Until that morning the world's record for dressing (set up the day
before) had been five minutes, twenty-three and a fifth seconds. He
lowered this by two seconds, and went downstairs.
The house was empty. In the passage that led to the dining-room he
looked at the clock, and his heart turned a somersault. _It was five
minutes past nine._ Not only was he late for breakfast, but late
for school, too. Never before had he brought off the double event.
There was a little unpleasantness in his form room when he stole in at
seven minutes past the hour. Mr. Dexter, his form-master, never a
jolly sort of man to have dealings with, was rather bitter on the
subject.
"You are incorrigibly lazy and unpunctual," said Mr. Dexter, towards
the end of the address. "You will do me a hundred lines."
"Oo-o-o, sir-r," said Chapple. But he felt at the time that it was not
much of a repartee. After dinner there was the usual interview with
Mr. Seymour.
"You were late again this morning," he said.
"Yes, sir," said Chapple.
"Two hundred lines."
"Yes, sir."
The thing was becoming monotonous.
Chapple pulled himself together. This must stop. He had said that
several times previously, but now he meant it. Nor poppy, nor
mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world should make him
oversleep himself again. This time he would try a combination of
schemes.
Before he went to bed that night he put his watch on half an hour,
wound it up, and placed it on a chair at his bedside. Then he seized
his rug and all the blankets except one, and tore them off. Then he
piled them in an untidy heap in the most distant corner of the room.
He meant to put temptation out of his reach. There should be no genial
warmth on this occasion.
Nor was there. He woke at six feeling as if he were one solid chunk of
ice. He put up with it in a torpid sort of way till seven. Then he
could stand it no longer. It would not be pleasant getting up and
going downstairs to the cheerless junior day-room, but it was the only
thing to do. He knew that if he once wrapped himself in the blankets
which stared at him invitingly from the opposite corner of the room,
he was lost. So he crawled out of bed, shivering, washed
unenthusiastically, and he proceeded to put on his clothes.
Downstairs it was more unpleasant than one would have believed
possible. The day-room was in its usual state of disorder. The fire
was not lit. There was a vague smell of apples. Life was very, very
grey. There seemed no brightness in it at all.
He sat down at the table and began once more the task of constructing
a handy model steam-engine, but he speedily realised, what he had
suspected before, that the instructions were the work of a dangerous
madman. What was the good of going on living when gibbering lunatics
were allowed to write for weekly papers?
About this time his gloom was deepened by the discovery that a tin
labelled mixed biscuits, which he had noticed in Brodie's locker, was
empty.
He thought he would go for a stroll. It would be beastly, of course,
but not so beastly as sitting in the junior day-room.
It is just here that the tragedy begins to deepen.
Passing out of Seymour's gate he met Brooke, of Appleby's. Brooke wore
an earnest, thoughtful expression.
"Hullo, Brooke," said Chapple, "where are you off to?"
It seemed that Brooke was off to the carpenter's shop. Hence the
earnest, thoughtful expression. His mind was wrestling with certain
pieces of wood which he proposed to fashion into photograph frames.
There was always a steady demand in the school for photograph frames,
and the gifted were in the habit of turning here and there an honest
penny by means of them.
The artist soul is not always unfavourable to a gallery. Brooke said
he didn't mind if Chapple came along, only he wasn't to go rotting
about or anything. So Chapple went along.
Arrived at the carpenter's shop, Brooke was soon absorbed in his
labours. Chapple watched him for a time with the interest of a
brother-worker, for had he not tried to construct handy model
steam-engines in his day? Indeed, yes. After a while, however, the
_rôle_ of spectator began to pall. He wanted to _do_ something.
Wandering round the room he found a chisel, and upon the instant,
in direct contravention of the treaty respecting rotting, he sat down
and started carving his name on a smooth deal board which looked
as if nobody wanted it. The pair worked on in silence, broken only
by an occasional hard breath as the toil grew exciting. Chapple's
tongue was out and performing mystic evolutions as he carved the
letters. He felt inspired.
He was beginning the A when he was brought to earth again by the voice
of Brooke.
"You _are_ an idiot," said Brooke, complainingly. "That's
_my_ board, and now you've spoilt it."
Spoilt it! Chapple liked that! Spoilt it, if you please, when he had
done a beautiful piece of carving on it!
"Well, it can't be helped now," said Brooke, philosophically. "I
suppose it's not your fault you're such an ass. Anyhow, come on now.
It's struck eight."
"It's what?" gasped Chapple.
"Struck eight. But it doesn't matter. Appleby never minds one being a
bit late for breakfast."
"Oh," said Chapple. "Oh, doesn't he!"
* * * * *
Go into Seymour's at eight sharp any morning and look down the table,
and you will see the face of G. M. Chapple--obscured every now and
then, perhaps, by a coffee cup or a slice of bread and marmalade. He
has not been late for three weeks. The spare room is now occupied by
Postlethwaite, of the Upper Fourth, whose place in Milton's dormitory
has been taken by Chapple. Milton is the head of the house, and stands
alone among the house prefects for the strenuousness of his methods in
dealing with his dormitory. Nothing in this world is certain, but it
is highly improbable that Chapple will be late again. There are
swagger-sticks.
SHIELDS' AND THE CRICKET CUP
The house cricket cup at Wrykyn has found itself on some strange
mantelpieces in its time. New talent has a way of cropping up in the
house matches. Tail-end men hit up fifties, and bowlers who have never
taken a wicket before except at the nets go on fifth change, and
dismiss first eleven experts with deliveries that bounce twice and
shoot. So that nobody is greatly surprised in the ordinary run of
things if the cup does not go to the favourites, or even to the second
or third favourites. But one likes to draw the line. And Wrykyn drew
it at Shields'. And yet, as we shall proceed to show, Shields' once
won the cup, and that, too, in a year when Donaldson's had four first
eleven men and Dexter's three.
Shields' occupied a unique position at the School. It was an
absolutely inconspicuous house. There were other houses that were
slack or wild or both, but the worst of these did something. Shields'
never did anything. It never seemed to want to do anything. This may
have been due in some degree to Mr. Shields. As the housemaster is, so
the house is. He was the most inconspicuous master on the staff. He
taught a minute form in the junior school, where earnest infants
wrestled with somebody's handy book of easy Latin sentences, and
depraved infants threw cunningly compounded ink-balls at one another
and the ceiling. After school he would range the countryside with a
pickle-bottle in search of polly woggles and other big game, which he
subsequently transferred to slides and examined through a microscope
till an advanced hour of the night. The curious part of the matter
was that his house was never riotous. Perhaps he was looked on as a
non-combatant, one whom it would be unfair and unsporting to rag. At
any rate, a weird calm reigned over the place; and this spirit seemed
to permeate the public lives of the Shieldsites. They said nothing much
and they did nothing much and they were very inoffensive. As a rule,
one hardly knew they were there.
Into this abode of lotus-eaters came Clephane, a day boy, owing to the
departure of his parents for India. Clephane wanted to go to
Donaldson's. In fact, he said so. His expressions, indeed, when he
found that the whole thing had been settled, and that he was to spend
his last term at school at a house which had never turned out so much
as a member of the Gym. Six, bordered on the unfilial. It appeared
that his father had met Mr. Shields at dinner in the town--a fact to
which he seemed to attach a mystic importance. Clephane's criticism of
this attitude of mind was of such a nature as to lead his father to
address him as Archibald instead of Archie.
However, the thing was done, and Clephane showed his good sense by
realising this and turning his energetic mind to the discovery of the
best way of making life at Shields' endurable. Fortune favoured him by
sending to the house another day boy, one Mansfield. Clephane had not
known him intimately before, though they were both members of the
second eleven; but at Shields' they instantly formed an alliance. And
in due season--or a little later--the house matches began. Henfrey, of
Day's, the Wrykyn cricket captain, met Clephane at the nets when the
drawing for opponents had been done.
"Just the man I wanted to see," said Henfrey. "I suppose you're
captain of Shields' lot, Clephane? Well, you're going to scratch as
usual, I suppose?"
For the last five seasons that lamentable house had failed to put a
team into the field. "You'd better," said Henfrey, "we haven't
overmuch time as it is. That match with Paget's team has thrown us out
a lot. We ought to have started the house matches a week ago."
"Scratch!" said Clephane. "Don't you wish we would! My good chap,
we're going to get the cup."
"You needn't be a funny ass," said Henfrey in his complaining voice,
"we really are awfully pushed. As it is we shall have to settle the
opening rounds on the first innings. That's to say, we can only give
'em a day each; if they don't finish, the winner of the first innings
wins. You might as well scratch."
"I can't help your troubles. By rotten mismanagement you have got the
house-matches crowded up into the last ten days of term, and you come
and expect me to sell a fine side like Shields' to get you out of the
consequences of your reckless act. My word, Henfrey, you've sunk
pretty low. Nice young fellow Henfrey was at one time, but seems to
have got among bad companions. Quite changed now. Avoid him as much as
I can. Leave me, Henfrey, I would be alone."
"But you can't raise a team."
"Raise a team! Do you happen to know that half the house is
_biting_ itself with agony because we can't find room for all?
Shields gives stump-cricket _soirées_ in his study after prep.
One every time you hit the ball, two into the bowl of goldfish, and
out if you smash the microscope."
"Well," said Henfrey viciously, "if you want to go through the farce
of playing one round and making idiots of yourselves, you'll have to
wait a bit. You've got a bye in the first round."
Clephane told the news to Mansfield after tea. "I've been and let the
house in for a rollicking time," he said, abstracting the copy of
Latin verses which his friend was doing, and sitting on them to ensure
undivided attention to his words. "Wanting to score off old Henfrey--I
have few pleasures--I told him that Shields' was not going to scratch.
So we are booked to play in the second round of the housers. We drew a
bye for the first. It would be an awful rag if we could do something.
We _must_ raise a team of some sort. Henfrey would score so if we
didn't. Who's there, d'you think, that can play?"
Mansfield considered the question thoughtfully. "They all _play_,
I suppose," he said slowly, "if you can call it playing. What I mean
to say is, cricket's compulsory here, so I suppose they've all had an
innings or two at one time or another in the eightieth game or so. But
if you want record-breakers, I shouldn't trust to Shields' too much."
"Not a bit. So long as we put a full team into the field, that's all I
care about. I've often wondered what it's like to go in first and bowl
unchanged the whole time."
"You'll do that all right," said Mansfield. "I should think Shields'
bowling ran to slow grubs, to judge from the look of 'em. You'd better
go and see Wilkins about raising the team. As head of the house, he
probably considers himself captain of cricket."
Wilkins, however, took a far more modest view of his position. The
notion of leading a happy band of cricketers from Shields' into the
field had, it seemed, small attractions for him. But he went so far as
to get a house list, and help choose a really representative team. And
as details about historic teams are always welcome, we may say that
the averages ranged from 3.005 to 8.14. This last was Wilkins' own and
was, as he would have been the first to admit, substantially helped by
a contribution of nineteen in a single innings in the fifth game.
So the team was selected, and Clephane turned out after school next
day to give them a little fielding-practice. To his surprise the
fielding was not so outrageous as might have been expected. All the
simpler catches were held, and one or two of the harder as well. Given
this form on the day of their appearance in public, and Henfrey might
be disappointed when he came to watch and smile sarcastically. A
batting fiasco is not one half so ridiculous as maniac fielding.
In the meantime the first round of the house matches had been played
off, and it would be as well to describe at this point the positions
of the rival houses and their prospects. In the first place, there
were only four teams really in the running for the cup, Day's (headed
by the redoubtable Henfrey), Spence's, who had Jackson, that season a
head and shoulders above the other batsmen in the first eleven--he had
just wound up the school season with an average of 51.3, Donaldson's,
and Dexter's. All the other house teams were mainly tail.
Now, in the first round the powerful quartette had been diminished by
the fact that Donaldson's had drawn Dexter's, and had lost to them by
a couple of wickets.
For the second round Shields' drew Appleby's, a poor team. Space on
the Wrykyn field being a consideration, with three house matches to be
played off at the same time, Clephane's men fought their first battle
on rugged ground in an obscure corner. As the captain of cricket
ordered these matters, Henfrey had naturally selected the best bit of
turf for Day's _v_. Dexter's. That section of the ground which
was sacred to the school second-eleven matches was allotted to
Spence's _v_. the School House. The idle public divided its
attention between the two big games, and paid no attention to the
death struggle in progress at the far end of the field. Whereby it
missed a deal of quiet fun.
I say death struggle advisedly. Clephane had won his second-eleven cap
as a fast bowler. He had failed to get into the first eleven because
he was considered too erratic. Put these two facts together, and you
will suspect that dark deeds were wrought on the men of Appleby in
that lonely corner of the Wrykyn meadow.
The pitch was not a good one. As a sample of the groundman's art it
was sketchy and amateurish; it lacked finish. Clephane won the toss,
took a hasty glance at the corrugated turf, and decided to bat first.
The wicket was hardly likely to improve with use.
He and Mansfield opened the batting. He stood three feet out of his
ground, and smote. The first four balls he took full pitch. The last
two, owing to a passion for variety on the part of the bowler, were
long hops. At the end of the over Shields' score was twenty-four.
Mansfield pursued the same tactics. When the first wicket fell,
seventy was on the board. A spirit of martial enthusiasm pervaded
the ranks of the house team. Mild youths with spectacles leaped out
of their ground like tigers, and snicked fours through the slips.
When the innings concluded, blood had been spilt--from an injured
finger--but the total was a hundred and two.
Then Clephane walked across to the School shop for a vanilla ice. He
said he could get more devil, as it were, into his bowling after a
vanilla ice. He had a couple.
When he bowled his first ball it was easy to see that there was truth
in the report of the causes of his inclusion in the second eleven and
exclusion from the first. The batsman observed somewhat weakly, "Here,
I _say!_" and backed towards square leg. The ball soared over the
wicket-keep's head and went to the boundary. The bowler grinned
pleasantly, and said he was just getting his arm in.
The second ball landed full-pitch on the batsman's right thigh. The
third was another full pitch, this time on the top of the middle
stump, which it smashed. With profound satisfaction the batsman
hobbled to the trees, and sat down. "Let somebody else have a shot,"
he said kindly.
Appleby's made twenty-eight that innings.
Their defeat by an innings and fifty-three runs they attributed
subsequently to the fact that only seven of the team could be induced
to go to the wickets in the second venture.
"So you've managed to win a match," grunted Henfrey, "I should like to
have been there."
"You might just as well have been," said Clephane, "from what they
tell me."
At which Henfrey became abusive, for he had achieved an "egg" that
afternoon, and missed a catch; which things soured him, though Day's
had polished off Dexter's handsomely.
"Well," he said at length, "you're in the semi-final now, of all weird
places. You'd better play Spence's next. When can you play?"
"Henfrey," said Clephane, "I have a bright, open, boyish countenance,
but I was not born yesterday. You want to get a dangerous rival out of
the way without trouble, so you set Shields' to smash up Spence's. No,
Henfrey. I do not intend to be your catspaw. We will draw lots who is
to play which. Here comes Jackson. We'll toss odd man out."
And when the coins fell there were two tails and one head; and the
head belonged to the coin of Clephane.
"So, you see," he said to Henfrey, "Shields' is in the final. No
wonder you wanted us to scratch."
I should like this story to end with a vivid description of a tight
finish. Considering that Day's beat Spence's, and consequently met
Shields' in the final, that would certainly be the most artistic
ending. Henfrey batting--Clephane bowling--one to tie, two to win, one
wicket to fall. Up goes the ball! Will the lad catch it!! He fumbles
it. It falls. All is over. But look! With a supreme effort--and so on.
The real conclusion was a little sensational in its way, but not
nearly so exciting as that.
The match between Day's and Shields' opened in a conventional enough
manner. Day's batted first, and made two hundred and fifty. Henfrey
carried his bat for seventy-six, and there were some thirties. For
Shields' Clephane and Mansfield made their usual first-wicket stand,
and the rest brought the total up to ninety-eight. At this point
Henfrey introduced a variation on custom. The match was a three days'
match. In fact, owing to the speed with which the other games had been
played, it could, if necessary, last four days. The follow-on was,
therefore, a matter for the discretion of the side which led. Henfrey
and his team saw no reason why they should not have another pleasant
spell of batting before dismissing their opponents for the second time
and acquiring the cup. So in they went again, and made another two
hundred and fifty odd, Shields' being left with four hundred and
twelve to make to win.
On the morning after Day's second innings, a fag from Day's brought
Clephane a message from Henfrey. Henfrey was apparently in bed. He
would be glad if Clephane would go and see him in the dinner-hour. The
interview lasted fifteen minutes. Then Clephane burst out of the
house, and dashed across to Shields' in search of Mansfield.
"I say, _have_ you heard?" he shouted.
"What's up?"
"Why, every man in Day's team, bar two kids, is in bed. Ill. Do you
mean to say you haven't heard? They thought they'd got that house cup
safe, so all the team except the two kids, fags, you know, had a feed
in honour of it in Henfrey's study. Some ass went and bought a bad
rabbit pie, and now they're laid up. Not badly, but they won't be out
for a day or two."
"But what about the match?"
"Oh, that'll go on. I made a point of that. They can play subs."
Mansfield looked thoughtful.
"But I say," he said, "it isn't very sporting, is it? Oughtn't we to
wait or something?"
"Sporting! My dear chap, a case like this mustn't be judged by
ordinary standards. We can't spoil the giant rag of the century
because it isn't quite sporting. Think what it means--Shields' getting
the cup! It'll keep the school laughing for terms. What do you want to
spoil people's pleasure for?"
"Oh, all right," said Mansfield.
"Besides, think of the moral effect it'll have on the house. It may
turn it into the blood house of Wrykyn. Shields himself may get quite
sportive. We mustn't miss the chance."
The news having got about the school, Clephane and Mansfield opened
their second innings to the somewhat embarrassed trundling of Masters
Royce and Tibbit, of the Junior School, before a substantial and
appreciative audience.
Both played carefully at first, but soon getting the measure of the
bowling (which was not deep) began to hit out, and runs came quickly.
At fifty, Tibbit, understudying Henfrey as captain of the side,
summoned to his young friend Todby from short leg, and instructed him
to "have a go" at the top end.
It was here that Clephane courteously interfered. Substitutes, he
pointed out, were allowed, by the laws of cricket, only to field, not
to bowl. He must, therefore, request friend Todby to return to his
former sphere of utility, where, he added politely, he was a perfect
demon.
"But, blow it," said Master Tibbit, who (alas!) was addicted to the
use of strong language, "Royce and I can't bowl the whole blessed
time."
"You'll have to, I'm afraid," said Clephane with the kindly air of a
doctor soothing a refractory patient. "Of course, you can take a spell
at grubs whenever you like."
"Oh, darn!" said Master Tibbit.
Shortly afterwards Clephane made his century.
* * * * *
The match ended late on the following afternoon in a victory for
Shields' by nine wickets, and the scene at the School Shop when Royce
and Tibbit arrived to drown their sorrows and moisten their dry
throats with ginger beer is said by eyewitnesses to have been
something quite out of the common run.
The score sheet of the match is also a little unusual. Clephane's
three hundred and one (not out) is described in the _Wrykinian_
as a "masterly exhibition of sound yet aggressive batting." How
Henfrey described it we have never heard.
AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR
PART 1
The whole thing may be said to have begun when Mr. Oliver Ring of New
York, changing cars, as he called it, at Wrykyn on his way to London,
had to wait an hour for his train. He put in that hour by strolling
about the town and seeing the sights, which were not numerous. Wrykyn,
except on Market Day, was wont to be wrapped in a primaeval calm which
very nearly brought tears to the strenuous eyes of the man from
Manhattan. He had always been told that England was a slow country, and
his visit, now in its third week, had confirmed this opinion: but even
in England he had not looked to find such a lotus-eating place as
Wrykyn. He looked at the shop windows. They resembled the shop windows
of every other country town in England. There was no dash, no initiative
about them. They did not leap to the eye and arrest the pedestrian's
progress. They ordered these things, thought Mr. Ring, better in the
States. And then something seemed to whisper to him that here was the
place to set up a branch of Ring's Come-One Come-All Up-to-date Stores.
During his stroll he had gathered certain pieces of information. To wit,
that Wrykyn was where the county families for ten miles round did their
shopping, that the population of the town was larger than would appear
at first sight to a casual observer, and, finally, that there was a
school of six hundred boys only a mile away. Nothing could be better.
Within a month he would take to himself the entire trade of the
neighbourhood.
"It's a cinch," murmured Mr. Ring with a glad smile, as he boarded his
train, "a lead-pipe cinch."
Everybody who has moved about the world at all knows Ring's Come-one
Come-all Up-to-date Stores. The main office is in New York. Broadway,
to be exact, on the left as you go down, just before you get to Park
Row, where the newspapers come from. There is another office in
Chicago. Others in St. Louis, St. Paul, and across the seas in London,
Paris, Berlin, and, in short, everywhere. The peculiar advantage about
Ring's Stores is that you can get anything you happen to want there,
from a motor to a macaroon, and rather cheaper than you could get it
anywhere else. England had up to the present been ill-supplied with
these handy paradises, the one in Piccadilly being the only extant
specimen. But now Mr. Ring in person had crossed the Atlantic on a
tour of inspection, and things were shortly to be so brisk that you
would be able to hear them whizz.
So an army of workmen invaded Wrykyn. A trio of decrepit houses in the
High Street were pulled down with a run, and from the ruins there
began to rise like a Phoenix the striking building which was to be the
Wrykyn Branch of Ring's Come-one Come-all Up-to-date Stores.
The sensation among the tradesmen caused by the invasion was, as may
be imagined, immense and painful. The thing was a public disaster. It
resembled the advent of a fox in a fowl-run. For years the tradesmen
of Wrykyn had jogged along in their comfortable way, each making his
little profits, with no thought of competition or modern hustle. And
now the enemy was at their doors. Many were the gloomy looks cast at
the gaudy building as it grew like a mushroom. It was finished with
incredible speed, and then advertisements began to flood the local
papers. A special sheaf of bills was despatched to the school.
Dunstable got hold of one, and read it with interest. Then he went in
search of his friend Linton to find out what he thought of it.
Linton was at work in the laboratory. He was an enthusiastic, but
unskilful, chemist. The only thing he could do with any real certainty
was to make oxygen. But he had ambitions beyond that feat, and was
continually experimenting in a reckless way which made the chemistry
master look wan and uneasy. He was bending over a complicated mixture
of tubes, acids, and Bunsen burners when Dunstable found him. It was
after school, so that the laboratory was empty, but for them.
"Don't mind me," said Dunstable, taking a seat on the table.
"Look out, man, don't jog. Sit tight, and I'll broaden your mind for
you. I take this bit of litmus paper, and dip it into this bilge, and
if I've done it right, it'll turn blue."
"Then I bet it doesn't," said Dunstable.
The paper turned red.
"Hades," said Linton calmly. "Well, I'm not going to sweat at it any
more. Let's go down to Cook's."
Cook's is the one school institution which nobody forgets who has been
to Wrykyn. It is a little confectioner's shop in the High Street. Its
exterior is somewhat forbidding, and the uninitiated would probably
shudder and pass on, wondering how on earth such a place could find a
public daring enough to support it by eating its wares. But the school
went there in flocks. Tea at Cook's was the alternative to a study
tea. There was a large room at the back of the shop, and here oceans
of hot tea and tons of toast were consumed. The staff of Cook's
consisted of Mr. Cook, late sergeant in a line regiment, six foot
three, disposition amiable, left leg cut off above the knee by a
spirited Fuzzy in the last Soudan war; Mrs. Cook, wife of the above,
disposition similar, and possessing the useful gift of being able to
listen to five people at one and the same time; and an invisible
menial, or menials, who made toast in some nether region at a
perfectly dizzy rate of speed. Such was Cook's.
"Talking of Cook's," said Dunstable, producing his pamphlet, "have you
seen this? It'll be a bit of a knock-out for them, I should think."
Linton took the paper, and began to read. Dunstable roamed curiously
about the laboratory, examining things.
"What are these little crystal sort of bits of stuff?" he asked,
coming to a standstill before a large jar and opening it. "They look
good to eat. Shall I try one?"
"Don't you be an idiot," said the expert, looking up. "What have you
got hold of? Great Scott, no, don't eat that stuff."
"Why not? Is it poison?"
"No. But it would make you sick as a cat. It's Sal Ammoniac."
"Sal how much?"
"Ammoniac. You'd be awfully bad."
"All right, then, I won't. Well, what do you think of that thing?
It'll be rough on Cook's, won't it? You see they advertise a special
'public-school' tea, as they call it. It sounds jolly good. I don't
know what buckwheat cakes are, but they ought to be decent. I suppose
now everybody'll chuck Cook's and go there. It's a beastly shame,
considering that Cook's has been a sort of school shop so long. And
they really depend on the school. At least, one never sees anybody
else going there. Well, I shall stick to Cook's. I don't want any of
your beastly Yankee invaders. Support home industries. Be a patriot.
The band then played God Save the King, and the meeting dispersed.
But, seriously, man, I am rather sick about this. The Cooks are such
awfully good sorts, and this is bound to make them lose a tremendous
lot. The school's simply crawling with chaps who'd do anything to get
a good tea cheaper than they're getting now. They'll simply scrum in
to this new place."
"Well, I don't see what we can do," said Linton, "except keep on going
to Cook's ourselves. Let's be going now, by the way. We'll get as many
chaps as we can to promise to stick to them. But we can't prevent the
rest going where they like. Come on."
The atmosphere at Cook's that evening was heavily charged with gloom.
ExSergeant Cook, usually a treasury of jest and anecdote, was silent
and thoughtful. Mrs. Cook bustled about with her customary vigour, but
she too was disinclined for conversation. The place was ominously
empty. A quartette of school house juniors in one corner and a
solitary prefect from Donaldson's completed the sum of the customers.
Nobody seemed to want to talk a great deal. There was something in the
air which
_said as plain as whisper in the ear,
"The place is haunted._"
and so it was. Haunted by the spectre of that hideous, new, glaring
red-brick building down the street, which had opened its doors to the
public on the previous afternoon.
"Look there," said Dunstable, as they came out. He pointed along the
street. The doors of the new establishment were congested. A crowd,
made up of members of various houses, was pushing to get past another
crowd which was trying to get out. The "public-school tea at one
shilling" appeared to have proved attractive.
"Look at 'em," said Dunstable. "Sordid beasts! All they care about is
filling themselves. There goes that man Merrett. Rand-Brown with him.
Here come four more. Come on. It makes me sick."
"I wish it would make _them_ sick," said Linton.
"Perhaps it will.... By George!"
He started.
"What's up?" said Linton.
"Oh, nothing. I was only thinking of something."
They walked on without further conversation. Dunstable's brain was
working fast. He had an idea, and was busy developing it.
* * * * *
The manager of the Wrykyn Branch of Ring's Come-one Come-all Stores
stood at the entrance to his shop on the following afternoon spitting
with energy and precision on to the pavement--he was a free-born
American citizen--and eyeing the High Street as a monarch might gaze
at his kingdom. He had just completed a highly satisfactory report to
headquarters, and was feeling contented with the universe, and the way
in which it was managed. Even in the short time since the opening of
the store he had managed to wake up the sluggish Britishers as if they
had had an electric shock.
"We," he observed epigrammatically to a passing cat, which had stopped
on its way to look at him, "are it."
As he spoke he perceived a youth coming towards him down the street.
He wore a cap of divers colours, from which the manager argued that
he belonged to the school. Evidently a devotee of the advertised
"public-school" shillingsworth, and one who, as urged by the small
bills, had come early to avoid the rush. "Step right in, mister," he
said, moving aside from the doorway. "And what can I do for _you_?"
"Are you the manager of this place?" asked Dunstable--for the youth
was that strategist, and no other.
"On the bull's eye first time," replied the manager with easy
courtesy. "Will you take a cigar or a cocoa-nut?"
"Can I have a bit of a talk with you, if you aren't busy?"
"Sure. Step right in."
"Now, sir," said the manager, "what's _your_ little trouble?"
"It's about this public school tea business," said Dunstable. "It's
rather a shame, you see. Before you came bargeing in, everybody used
to go to Cook's."
"And now," interrupted the manager, "they come to us. Correct, sir. We
_are_ the main stem. And why not?"
"Cook's such a good sort."
"I should like to know him," said the manager politely.
"You see," said Dunstable, "it doesn't so much matter about the other
things you sell; but Cook's simply relies on giving fellows tea in the
afternoon----"
"One moment, sir," said the man from the States. "Let me remind you of
a little rule which will be useful to you when you butt into the big,
cold world. That is, never let sentiment interfere with business. See?
Either Ring's Stores or your friend has got to be on top, and, if I
know anything, it's going to be We. We! And I'm afraid that's all I
can do for you, unless you've that hungry feeling, and want to sample
our public-school tea at twenty-five cents."
"No, thanks," said Dunstable. "Here come some chaps, though, who look
as if they might."
He stepped aside as half a dozen School House juniors raced up.
"For one day only," said the manager to Dunstable, "you may partake
free, if you care to. You have man's most priceless possession, Cool
Cheek. And Cool Cheek, when recognised, should not go unrewarded. Step
in."
"No thanks," said Dunstable. "You'll find me at Cook's if you want
me."
"Kindness," said he to himself, as Mrs. Cook served him in the
depressed way which had now become habitual with her, "kindness having
failed, we must try severity."