There were three Percys at Merivale, and they were all there together;
and to masters they were, of course, known as Percy major, Percy minor,
and Percy minimus, but we called them "the Three Maniacs."
Though mad, they were nice chaps in a way, and did unexpected things and
always interested everybody because of their surprises. They were all
very different but very original, owing to their father being a
well-known actor. And Percy major was already an actor by nature, and
could imitate anything with remarkable exactness, from Dr. Dunston to a
monkey on a barrel organ. He could even imitate a hen with chickens,
but he was going for much higher flights when he went on the stage, and
knew the parts of Hamlet and Macbeth and Richard III by heart; though he
said to Travers, and I heard him, that it would probably be many a long
day before he got a chance to act these great tragical characters before
a London audience. His father, on the contrary, was a comedian, and
Blades had once seen him in a pantomime and liked him, and said that he
was good.
Percy minor was not going on the stage, though when he liked he could be
awfully funny. Only he was generally serious, and meant to be a
painter. His great hope was to take likenesses, and he was always
practising it, and his school books were full of portraits of chaps and
masters. Some you could recognize.
As for Percy minimus, he was the maddest of the lot, and my special
friend. We were in the Lower Third; and Forbes minimus was also our
special friend. But he chucked Merivale, as his parents went to the
Cape of Good Hope and took him, and then Percy and I were left.
Percy never came out much while his brothers were at Merivale, and his
only strong point was singing in the choir. At music he was an
undoubted dab, and he liked it, and he said that, if his voice turned
into anything worth mentioning after it cracked, he should very likely
be an opera singer of the first water. And if it failed and fizzled
away to nothing after cracking, as treble voices sometimes do, then he
was going to be a clergyman--if his father would let him.
He certainly sang like the devil, and Mr. Prowse, our music-master, was
fearfully keen on him, and arranged solos in chapel for him. And people
came from long distances on Sundays to hear him sing, though old Dunston
always thought, when outsiders turned up to the chapel services, it was
to hear him preach. But far from it.
Well, this Percy minimus was what you may call sentimental, and he
certainly was a bit of a girl in some ways. I hated that squashy side
of him, and tried to cure it; but I forgave him, because he liked me,
and not many chaps did, owing to my having a stammer.
Percy minimus was frightfully interested in my stammer, and said it
would very likely be cured when I grew up. He said that people who
stammer when they talk can often sing quite well; so I tried and found
it was so. But here, again, there was a drawback, because my singing
voice, though quite without any stammer, was right bang off as a voice,
and even funnier than my stammer.
Percy minimus said it was just the sound a fly made before it died, when
it was caught by a spider; so naturally I chucked it.
But this about Percy, not me. He had very kind instincts, and was of a
gentle disposition. For instance, when three of the masters went to the
war, and Dr. Dunston said he was going to fill the breach and do extra
work and take our class; while we much regretted it, Percy minimus
thought it was fine of the Doctor.
He said:
"Though it is bad hearing for us, Cornwallis, we are bound to admit it
is sporting of him. Because, at his great age, it must be very tiring to
do a lot of extra work; and no doubt to take the Lower Third must be
fairly deadly for such a learned man as him."
"It will be deadlier for us," I said; and, of course, it was. But that
shows the queer views that Percy gets--hardly natural, I call it. And
then, when the Doctor threw up the sponge and got a new master called
Peacock to help and fill the gap till after the War, when Hutchings and
Meadows would come back, if alive, Percy minimus was queer again.
This Peacock was old and dreadfully humble. I don't think he'd ever
been a master before, and he was very unlike his name in every way, and
had no idea of keeping order, but went in for getting our affection. He
tried frantically to be friendly; but he failed, because he was too
wormlike, being a crushed and shabby man with a thin, grey beard. And
when he attempted to fling himself into a game of hockey and be young
and dashing, he hurt himself and had to go in and get brandy.
I believe he was a sort of charity on old Dunston's part, really, for
Mr. Peacock told Pegram that he had a wife and six children, and his
eldest son was at the War, and his second son was in the General Post
Office, and his eldest daughter was a schoolmistress at Bedford.
Fancy telling Pegram these things! All Pegram did afterwards was to
make fun of Peacock and treat him with scorn, and many did the same; but
Percy minimus encouraged him, and he liked Percy minimus, and told him
several things about the General Post Office not generally known.
Peacock, finding that me and Percy minimus were rather above the common
herd, told us that he was very anxious about his son at the War, and was
very interested about the War in general, and made us interested in it,
too. He read us a letter from his son at the Front, and Percy minimus
said it brought home the horrors--especially in the matters of food.
Though not a great eater, Percy liked nice food better than any other
kind, and then, owing to this great feeling for nice food, there
happened the curious, and in fact most extraordinary, adventure of his
life.
He came to me much excited one day with a newspaper. It was a week old,
but otherwise perfect in every way, and it had started a scheme for
sending the men at the Front a jolly good Christmas gift. For the sum of
five shillings the newspaper promised to send off tobacco and cigarettes
and sweets and chocolate and a new wooden pipe, all in one parcel; and
so, as Percy minimus pointed out, if you could only rake up that amount
and send it to the paper, it meant that one man in the trenches on
Christmas Day would have the great joy of receiving all these luxuries
in one simultaneous parcel from an unknown friend at home.