_Letter from a Private Schoolboy to a Public Schoolboy_
ST. JAMES, _March 4, 1885_.
Dear Chinee,
Thanks awfuly for your letter. Eton must be jolly. I am glad I’m coming
next term instead of at Micalmass. I shall be glad to leave this
beastly hole. Wilson ma. has got a scholarship at Westminster and we
were going to have a whole holiday extra only now its stopped worse
luck! Yesterday the Head went to London and Mac sent a message to the
First Div. to say we wernt to dig in Wilderness while the Head was
away. Middleton brought the message and Wilson ma. told him to go and
ask Mac if the message was genuine. Middleton thought he was ragging
but he said: “You must take my message you Second Division squit if you
don’t I’ll smack your head.” So Middleton did. Mac was in an awful wax
and sent for Wilson and asked him what he meant by it. Wilson said it
was a joke--he never thought Middleton would take the message.
When the Head came back we were all sent for after tea and there was a
pi-jaw. Wilson had his First Div. privileges taken away for the rest of
the term, and the Holiday was stopped.
The other day Mason missed three Guatemalar green parrots from his
stamp collexion which he had swoped with Jackson for a toad. It was
a beastly swindel because the toad was blind. Jackson who is always
sucking up to Colly sneeked about the stamps and Mac said he knew it
was someone in his Div. who had bagged the stamps and if the chap
didn’t own up he’d give the whole Div. an electric shock with his
beastly battery.
Nobody owned up and the whole Second Div. had to join hands and they
said Mac gave them the biggest shock theyd ever had. They didnt care
but when it was over Middleton took the battery and threw it at Mac’s
head. We all thought hed be expelled but Mac didn’t even sneek to
the Head which was jolly decent of him. Mac can be awfully decent
sometimes. After this Butler began to blub and then he said he had
bagged the stamps but he meant to give them back. Mac told Butler he
would find himself in Queer Street. We all knew what that meant and
didnt we just tell him! Nothing happened till Monday morning--then at
reeding over the Head gave the Second Div. a jaw. He said they were
mutinus and as bad as feenians--a feenian is a man who eats mustard
with mutton--and that Butler was a thief and a traitor worse than
Gladstone. Butler’s pater is a liberal and some of the chaps say he’s
a pal of Gladstone’s and you can just think how the Head gave it
him. Butler was swished. Simpson ma. and Pearse held him down and he
squeeled like anything. The Head gave him fifteen from the shoulder
which Gordon says is against the law. The Head had a glass of shery
before the swishing.
Last week there was elexions going on. The Head got a notice from the
Reding Club asking him to vote for the Lib. Wasnt he waxy! He read us
out the letter at tea and jawed about the Church and State and said he
would send back the letter with some coppers in it so that they would
have to pay 8_d._ He said a radical was worse than a feenian. We were
taken to the elexion and we all wore blue ribbons in our buttonholes.
The Libs werent allowed to go. There are only seven but I believe
Rowley’s pater is a lib. although he swears he isnt.
Next week we are going to have athletic sports. I think I shall win the
hurdel race and the high. Campbell’s sister’s name is Ann. Mason saw it
at the end of a letter. Now we all call him Mary Ann. He’s awfully sick
about it.
There’s a new chap called Gunter--a little beast. He’s the cheekiest
squit I’ve ever seen. Colly reported him for stealing sugar from the
pantry and he was warned that if he did anything again he would be
turned out of the choir and swiped although it was his first term. He
_has_ got cheek! He called Alston who is now top of the First Div. and
captain of the Eleven, Piggy. Alston smacked his head. Fancy a Fourth
Div. squit calling Alston piggy! Only the Head dares do that. He’s
awfully dirty too and never washes. Colly nabbed him smacking Melton
mi. with a slipper and he was reported again so he was swished. The
Head said it was the first time a new chap had ever been swished and
afterwards he kicked the Head’s straw hat through the Hall. We don’t
know yet what will happen but we think he’ll be expeled.
I got into a row with Mac last week. While we were having tea he passed
up that Bell and me were to stop talking. It never got to us and Mac
sent for me afterwards and said he knew what I was up to and I’d better
look out or I’d find myself in Queer Street and he stopped me talking
for a week.
The Head’s reading us out an awfully good Book called “Tresure
Island” and he’s just finished a better one called “The Last Abot of
Glasconbury.” In the First Div. we do have to swot but in the First
Set with Colly for maths and French we don’t do a stroke of work. You
should hear Lambert the frenchy cheek him. He goes up to him and asks
him whether one ought to pronounce _yeux_ youks or yeks and Colly
doesn’t dare pronounce it and says he ought to know. Then Lambert says
“I’ve forgotten Sir I really don’t know how to.”
Yesterday in school we lit some patent pills which you burn and a snake
comes out. Colly who is awfully blind asked what I was doing. I just
had time to put it in my desk and said I had dropped my pen. Only one
bung and he believed it! On Valentine’s Day we sent Colly some sweets
with biter alows inside them the stuff Mac puts on Watson’s fingers
when he bites his nails and he eat them.
Last week the Choir expedition came off. They went to Reding to see
the biskits made and then to Bath. If I was staying on next term I
should be in the Eleven and get my flanels.
I forgot to tell you another awful row there’s been. Hetherington who
is a new chap sits next to Ferguson at dinner. Ferguson always bags
his sausage at breakfast on Sundays. The other day the Matron found a
letter in Ferguson’s drawer written by Hetherington to Ferguson saying,
“Dear Mister Ferguson. May I please have my sausage next Sunday. I’m so
hungry.” Ferguson was swished but he didn’t care a rap. The Head says
he’s callus. I had an awfully good catty. I shot Hichens mi. in the
back of his head by mistake and it bled awfuly. I thought I was in for
it but the Head only bagged my catty for the rest of the term. We sent
for a lot of snakes and green lizzards from Covent Garden and most of
us bought some. I bought a Salamander but it died. Up to the Head one
can’t keep a toad in one’s desk as we used to when we were in Colly’s
div. We still have Hashed Cat and Dead Fly pudding on Thursdays and
nobody eats it and Mac still asks us why we arnt hungry. But I’m in
training now for the sports and don’t eat pudding at all. None of us
do.
Please write and tell me about the sort of things a chap ought to know
before going to Eton.
Yours ever,
P. SMITH.
I’m Smith ma. now because my minor’s here. He isnt bad.