WILLIAM AGAIN
[Illustration: "GOOD MORNING, LITTLE BOY," SAID THE VISITOR.
"UMPH!" REPLIED WILLIAM.
"WHAT'S YOUR NAME, DEAR?" SHE ASKED.
"PETER," SAID WILLIAM.]
WILLIAM AGAIN
BY
RICHMAL CROMPTON
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED BY
THOMAS HENRY
LONDON
GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED
SOUTHAMPTON ST., STRAND, W.C.
_First Published_ _June 1923_
_Reprinted_ _September 1923_
_Reprinted_ _December 1923_
_Reprinted_ _February 1924_
_Reprinted_ _July 1924_
_Reprinted_ _November 1924_
_Reprinted_ _January 1925_
_Reprinted_ _July 1925_
_Reprinted_ _November 1925_
_Reprinted_ _February 1926_
_Reprinted_ _August 1926_
_Reprinted_ _December 1926_
_Reprinted_ _July 1927_
_Reprinted_ _January 1928_
_Reprinted_ _November 1928_
_Reprinted_ _October 1929_
_Reprinted_ _October 1930_
_Reprinted_ _October 1931_
_Reprinted_ _October 1932_
_Reprinted_ _November 1933_
_Reprinted_ _December 1934_
_Reprinted_ _August 1936_
_Reprinted_ _October 1937_
_Reprinted_ _May 1939_
_Reprinted_ _February 1940_
_Printed in Great Britain by
Wyman & Sons, Limited, London, Fakenham and Reading._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WHAT DELAYED THE GREAT MAN 11
II. THE CURE 29
III. THAT BOY 44
IV. WILLIAM THE REFORMER 58
V. NOT MUCH 74
VI. WILLIAM AND THE WHITE CAT 92
VII. WILLIAM'S SECRET SOCIETY 108
VIII. THE NATIVE PROTÉGÉ 133
IX. JUST WILLIAM'S LUCK 148
X. THE GREAT DETECTIVE 166
XI. THE CIRCUS 181
XII. WILLIAM SELLS THE TWINS 197
XIII. WILLIAM'S HELPING HAND 214
XIV. WILLIAM GETS WRECKED 233
TO
TOMMY
CHAPTER I
WHAT DELAYED THE GREAT MAN
WILLIAM, taking his character as a whole, was not of the artistic
genre. He had none of the shrinking sensitiveness and delicate
imaginativeness of the true artist. But the fact remains that this
summer he was impelled by some inner prompting to write a play.
The idea had been growing in his mind for some time. He had seen plays
acted by the village amateur dramatic society which was famous more for
a touching reliance on the prompter than for any real histrionic talent.
William had considered them perfect. He had decided, after their
last performance, to go on the stage. But none of his friends could
inform him of the preliminary steps necessary for getting on the
stage. It is true that the man in the boot-shop, whose second cousin
was a scene-shifter in a provincial music-hall, had promised to use
his influence, but when William was told the next week that the second
cousin had been dismissed for appearing in a state of undeniable
intoxication and insisting on accompanying the heroine on to the stage,
he felt that all hopes from that direction must be abandoned. It was
then that he had the brilliant idea. He would write a play himself and
act in that.
William had great confidence in his own powers. He had no doubts
whatever of his ability to write a play and act in it. If he couldn't
go on _the_ stage he'd go on _a_ stage. Surely no one could object to
that. All he'd want would be some paper and ink and a few clothes.
Surely his family--bent as they always were on clouding his moments of
purest happiness--couldn't object to that?
"Jus' ink an' paper an' a few ole clothes," he said wistfully to his
mother.
She eyed him with a mistrust that was less the result of a suspicious
nature than of eleven years' experience of her younger son.
"Won't pencil do?" she said.
"Pencil!" he said scornfully. "Did--did Shakespeare or--or the man wot
wrote 'The Red Gang'--well, did _they_ write in pencil?"
Mrs. Brown, having no knowledge of the subject, shifted her point of
attack.
"What sort of clothes will you want?" she said.
"Oh--jus' clothes," said William vaguely.
"Yes, but what sort?"
"How can I tell," said William irritably, "till I've _wrote_ the play?"
* * * * *
William's family long remembered the silence and peace that marked the
next few afternoons. During them, William, outstretched upon the floor
of the summer-house, wrote his play with liberal application of ink
over his person and clothes and the surrounding woodwork. William was
not of that class of authors who neglect the needs of the body. After
every few words he took a deep draught from a bottle of Orange Ale that
stood on his right and a bite from an ink-coated apple on his left.
He had laid in a store of apples and sweets and chocolates under the
seat of the summer-house for his term of authorship. Every now and then
he raised a hand to his frowning brow in thought, leaving upon it yet
another imprint of his ink-sodden fingers.
"Where is he?" said his father in hushed wonder at the unwonted peace.
"He's in the summer-house writing a play," said his wife.
"I hope it's a nice long one," said her husband.
* * * * *
William had assembled his caste and assigned them their parts. Little
Molly Carter was to be the heroine, Ginger the hero, Henry the hero's
friend, Douglas a crowd of outlaws, William himself was to be the
villain, stage-manager and prompter. He handed them their parts with a
lofty frown. The parts were in a grimy exercise book.
"It's all wrote out," he said. "You jus' learn it where it says your
names. Molly's Lady Elsabina----"
"Elsabina isn't a name _I've_ ever heard," said that lady pertly.
"I didn't say it was, did I?" said William coldly. "I shu'n't be
surprised if there was lots of names you'd never heard of. An' Ginger
is Sir Rufus Archibald Green an' Henry is the Hon. Lord Leopold, an'
I'm Carlo Rupino, a villain. All you've gotter do is to learn your
parts an' Wednesday morning we'll go through it jus' to practise it,
an' Wednesday afternoon we'll do it."
"We can't three learn out of one book," said the leading lady, who was
inclined to make objections.
"Yes, you _can_," said William. "You can take turns sitting in the
middle."
Lady Elsabina sniffed.
"And such writing!" she said scornfully.
"Well, I don't count on my fingers," said William, returning scorn for
scorn, "not so's everyone can see me, at any rate."
At which public allusion to her arithmetical powers, Lady Elsabina took
refuge in another sniff, followed by a haughty silence.
* * * * *
The rehearsal was not an unqualified success. The heroine, as is the
way of heroines, got out of bed the wrong side. After a stirring
domestic scene, during which she bit her nurse and flung a basin of
bread and milk upon the floor, she arrived tearful and indignant and
half an hour late at the rehearsal.
"Can't you come a bit later?" said the stage-manager bitterly.
"If you're going to be nasty to me," returned the heroine stormily,
"I'm going back home."
"All right," muttered the stage-manager, cowed, like most
stage-managers, by the threatening of tears.
The first item on the agenda was the question of the wardrobe.
William had received an unpleasant surprise which considerably
lowered his faith in human nature generally. On paying a quiet and
entirely informal visit to his sister's bedroom in her absence, to
collect some articles of festive female attire for his heroine, he
had found every drawer, and even the wardrobe, locked. His sister had
kept herself informed of the date of the performance, and had taken
measures accordingly. He had collected only a crochet-edged towel,
one of the short lace curtains from the window, and a drawn-thread
work toilet-cover. Otherwise his search was barren. Passing through
the kitchen, however, he found one of her silk petticoats on a
clothes-horse and added it to his plunder. He found various other
articles in other parts of the house. The dressing up took place in an
outhouse that had once been a stable at the back of William's house.
The heroine's dress consisted of Ethel's silk petticoat with holes cut
for the arms. The lace curtain formed an effective head-dress, and the
toilet-cover pinned on to the end of the petticoat made a handsome
train.
The effect was completed by the crochet-edged towel pinned round her
waist. Sir Rufus Archibald Green, swathed in an Indian embroidered
table-cover, with a black satin cushion pinned on to his chest, a
tea-cosy on his head, and an umbrella in his hand, looked a princely
hero. The Hon. Lord Leopold wore the dining-room table-cloth and the
morning-room waste-paper basket with a feather, forcibly wrested from
the cock's tail by William, protruding jauntily from the middle.
Douglas, as the crowd, was simply attired in William's father's top hat
and a mackintosh.
William had quietly abstracted the top hat as soon as he heard
definitely that his father would not be present at the performance.
William's father was to preside at a political meeting in the village
hall, which was to be addressed by a Great Man from the Cabinet, who
was coming down from London specially for the occasion.
"Vast as are the attractions of any enterprise promoted by you,
William," he had said, politely at breakfast, "duty calls me elsewhere."
William, while murmuring perfunctory sorrow at these tidings, hastily
ran over in his mind various articles of his father's attire that could
therefore be safely utilised. The robing of William himself as the
villain had cost him much care and thought. He had finally decided upon
the drawing-room rug pinned across his shoulder and a fern-pot upon his
head. It was a black china fern-pot and rather large, but it rested
upon William's ears, and gave him a commanding and sinister appearance.
He also carried an umbrella.
These preparations took longer than the caste had foreseen, and, when
finally large moustaches had been corked upon the hero's, villain's and
crowd's lips, the lunch-bell sounded from the hall.
"Jus' all finished in time!" said William the optimist.
"Yes, but wot about the rehearsal," said the crowd gloomily, "wot about
that?"
"Well, you've had the book to learn the stuff," said William, "that's
enough, isn't it? I don't s'pose real acting people bother with
rehearsals. It's quite easy. You jus' learn your stuff an' then say it.
It's silly wasting time over rehearsals."
"Have you learnt wot you say, William Brown?" said the heroine shrilly.
"I _know_ wot I say," said William loftily, "I don't need to _learn!_"
"William!" called a stern sisterly voice from the house, "mother says
come and get ready for lunch."
William merely ejected his tongue in the direction of the voice and
made no answer.
"We'd better be taking off the things," he said, "so's to be in time
for this afternoon. Haf-past two it begins, then we can have a nice
long go at it. Put all the things away careful behind that box so's
bothering ole people can't get at them an' make a fuss."
"William, where _are_ you?" called the voice impatiently.
The tone goaded William into reply.
"I'm somewhere where _you_ can't find me," he called.
"You're in the stable," said the voice triumphantly.
"Seems as if folks simply couldn't leave me alone," said William
wistfully, as he removed his fern-pot and fur rug and walked with slow
dignity into the house.
"Wash yourself first, William," said the obnoxious voice.
"I _am_ washed," returned William coldly, as he entered the
dining-room, forgetting the presence of a smudgy, corked moustache upon
lips and cheeks.
* * * * *
It was an unfortunate afternoon as far as the prospects of a large
audience were concerned. Most of the adults of the place were going
to listen to the Great Man. Most of the juveniles were going to watch
a football match. Moreover, the caste, with the instincts of the very
young, had shrouded the enterprise so deeply in mystery in order to
enjoy the sensation of superiority, that they had omitted to mention
either the exact nature of the enterprise or the time at which it would
take place.
On the side-gate was pinned a notice:
[Illustration: THIS WAY TO THE BLOODY HAND ➔]
In the stable was a row of old chairs all turned out of the house at
various times because of broken backs and legs. As a matter of fact,
the caste were little concerned with the audience. The great point
was that they were going to act a play--they scarcely cared whether
anyone watched it or not. Upon a broken chair in the middle sat a small
child, attracted by the notice. Her chair had only lost one leg, so,
by sitting well on to one side, she managed to maintain an upright
position on it. At a stern demand for money from William, she had shyly
slipped a halfpenny into the fern-pot, which served the double purpose
of head-gear and pay-desk. She now sat--an enthralled spectator--while
the caste dressed and argued before her.
Outside down the road came the Great Man. He had come by an earlier
train by mistake and was walking slowly towards the village hall,
intensely bored by the prospect of the afternoon. He stopped suddenly,
arrested by a notice on a side gate:
[Illustration: THIS WAY TO THE BLOODY HAND ➔]
He took out his watch. Half an hour to spare. He hesitated a moment,
then walked firmly towards the Bloody Hand. Inside an outhouse a group
of curiously-dressed children stared at him unsmilingly. One of them,
who was dressed in a rug and a fern-pot, addressed him with a stern
frown.
[Illustration: INSIDE AN OUTHOUSE A GROUP OF CURIOUSLY-DRESSED CHILDREN
STARED AT HIM UNSMILINGLY.]
"We're jus' going to begin," he said, "sit down."
The Great Man sat down obediently and promptly collapsed upon the floor.
"You shu'n't have sat on a chair with two legs gone," said William
impatiently. "You've broke it altogether now. You can manage all right
if you try one with only one gone. We're jus' going to begin."
The Great Man picked up himself and his hat and sat down carefully upon
the farthermost edge of a three-legged chair.
William, holding the mangled remains of an exercise book in his hand,
strode forward.
"'The Bloody Hand,' by William Brown," he announced in a resonant voice.
"Well, an' wot about us?" said the heroine shrilly.
"You didn't write it, did you?" said William. "I'm only saying who
wrote it."
"Well, aren't you going to say who axe it?" she said pugnaciously.
"No, I'm _not!_" said the stage-manager firmly. "You jus' say the one
wot wrote it. You don't go on saying all them wot axe it."
"Well, I'm not going to be in it, then," she said. "I'm going home."
William decided to be a woman-hater for the rest of his life.
"All right," he capitulated, "'f you're going to be so
disagreeable--jus' like a girl"--he strode forward again and raised
his voice, "'The Bloody Hand,' wrote, every bit of it, by William
Brown--acted by Molly Carter an Ginger an' Douglas an' Henry--they jus'
learnt wot William Brown wrote. Now, if you'll be quiet a minute," he
went on to his silent audience, "we'll begin. You begin," he said to
the damsel in the lace curtain.
She advanced. The rest of them stood in a corner and watched.
"She's _on_," William announced to the audience. "We're _off_. Go on!"
he repeated to her.
"I'm jus' going to," she replied irritably, "soon as you stop talking."
Then, changing her voice to one of shrill artificiality, "Ho! Where am
I? Lorst in a dreadful forest----"
"It's meant to be a forest," explained the author to the audience.
"I wish you'd stop keep on saying things," said the heroine. "I forget
where I am. Lorst in a dreadful forest. What shall I do? Ah, me!
Crumbs! Who is this who yawns upon my sight?"
"_Dawns!_" corrected the prompter.
"A fierce villain," went on the heroine, ignoring him, "methinks. I
shouldn't be surprised if it wasn't Carlo Rupino of the Bloody Hand. Oh
Lor! what shall I do? Ah me! He draws nearer."
"It is him," prompted William.
"I was jus' going to say that, if you wouldn't keep on interrupting.
It is him. I was jus' going to say it. Ah me! what shall I do? Whither
shall I flee? Nowhere. Gadzooks! He draws nearer."
"I come on now," explained William to the audience, holding on to
his plant-pot with one hand to steady it. "I'm him." He advanced
threateningly upon the maiden. "Aha!" he sneered. "Gadzooks! doest thou
happen to know who I am?"
"I am lorst in the dreadful forest," she replied. "Ah me! What shall I
do?"
"I am Carlo Rupino of the Bloody Hand. Go on, _faint!_" he urged in an
undertone.
"'F you think I'm going to faint on this dirty ole floor," she
replied, "I'm jus' not. You should have brushed it up a bit 'f you
wanted me to faint on it."
"You don't know how to," he jeered.
"I _do!_ I _can!_ I can faint beautifully on our drawing-room carpet.
I'm jus' not going to faint on a dirty ole stable floor an' I'm not
going to be _in_ your nasty ole play 'f you're not going to be nice to
me."
"All right, then, don't be. You jus' take off my sister's petticoat,
an' our lace curtain an' don't be in it, if you don't want to be."
"Well, I jus' _won't_, 'f you're going on like this at me."
"Well, 'f you keep on talkin' not out of the play who's to know when
you're talkin' play an' when you're jus' talkin' yourself?"
"Anyone with any sense could----"
"Oh, get on with it," said the hero off the scenes. "You'll never get
to where I come in, if you're going on like this all day. _Pretend_
she's fainted and go on from there."
"All right," said the villain obligingly. "Aha! I hast thee in my
power. I wilt hang thee ere dawn dawns from my remote mountain lair."
The toilet-cover train caught on a nail and the petticoat tore with
an echoing sound. "That's right," he went on, "go on messin' up my
sister's things, so's she'll never be able to wear them again."
"'F you're going to keep on being nasty to me," said the heroine again,
"I'm going straight back home an' I'm not going to be _in_ your ole
play."
"Well, anyway," said William, with a mental determination that his next
play should contain no heroines, "now we go off and they come on."
The hero and his friend advanced.
"Alas!" said Sir Rufus Archibald Green, "I see no trace of her. What
canst have happened to her? I hope she hast not met yon horrible ole
villain, Carlo Rupino, of the Bloody Hand. Seest thou any footmarks of
her, the Hon. Lord Leopold?"
The Hon. Lord Leopold examined the stable floor.
"Lookin' for footmarks," explained the stage-manager to the audience.
"Ah me! None!" said the Hon. Lord Leopold. Then, looking more closely.
"Crikey! Yes!" he said. "I seest footmarks. 'Tis hers and Carlo
Rupino's. I knowest their boots."
"Ah me!" said the hero. "What cattastrop is here? Gadzooks! Let us
follow to his remote mountain lair. I will kill him dead and cut out
his foul black heart and put an end to his foul black life."
He waved Mrs. Brown's best umbrella threateningly as he spoke. "Now
they come off," explained William, "an' we come on. Here's the gallows."
He carried forward a small reading stand, taken from his father's
study, then advanced holding the hand of the fair Elsabina. The crowd
in his top hat and mackintosh stood in attendance.
"Aha!" said Carlo Rupino to his victim, "I hast thee in my power, thou
ole girl! I am now going to hang thee from yon lofty gallows! Go on!"
he addressed the crowd.
The crowd took off his top hat and uttered a feeble "Hurray!"
"You couldn't hang me from that old thing," remarked the heroine
scornfully.
"That's not in the play," said William.
"I know it isn't. I'm jus' saying that myself."
"Well, say wot's in the play."
At that point the chair, upon which the Great Man was with difficulty
sitting, collapsed suddenly, precipitating the Great Man among its
fragments. William turned upon him sternly.
"'F you're going to keep on making noises breaking chairs," he said,
"how d'you think we're going to get on?"
The Great Man raised himself from the _débris_ with a murmured apology,
brushed himself as well as he could, and sat down quietly upon an
adjacent packing-case.
"Well, go on!" said William to the heroine.
"Something about 'Oh, mercy, spare me!' an' then I've forgot what comes
after that."
"Well, why didn't you learn it?"
"I can't read your nasty old writing--all blots an' things spilt on it."
"Well, you can't write a play at all, so you needn't go making remarks
about people's writing what can."
"Oh, go on!" said the egoistical hero off the stage. "Let's get to
where I come on."
William studied his exercise-book carefully.
"Here's wot you say," he said, "'Oh, mercy, spare me----'"
"I said that."
"Be quiet! 'Oh, mercy, spare me----'"
"I _said_ that."
"Be _quiet!_ 'Oh, mercy, spare me an' let me return to my dear ole
mother an' father an' the young gentleman wot I'm going to marry. His
name is Sir Rufus Archibald Green.' That's wot you say."
"Well, you've said it, so I needn't say it all over again."
"'F you think I'm going to say all your stuff for you----" began
William.
Elsabina, bored with the question, pointed an accusing finger at the
Great Man.
"Look at him!" she said. "He's come in without paying any money."
Overcome by embarrassment, the Great Man hastily took out a case and
handed a ten-shilling note to William. A half-crown would have won
rapturous gratitude. A ten-shilling note was beyond their ken. The
entire caste gathered round it.
"It's paper money," said Douglas, impressed.
"I don't suppose it's _real_," said William gloomily. "Well, where're
we got to?"
He turned quickly, and the fern-pot descended sharply, extinguishing
his head. He struggled with it without success.
"Can't anyone do anything?" said his muffled voice from inside the
fern-pot. "I can't go on acting like this--people can't _see_ me. Well,
isn't anyone going to _do_ anything?"
The caste pulled without success.
"I didn't say pull my head off," said the stern, sarcastic voice from
inside the pot, "I said pull the _thing_ off!"
The Great Man arose from his packing-case and came to the rescue.
Finally William's face appeared. William put his hands to his head.
"Any one'd think you wanted to pull my nose an' ears off--the way you
did it," he said. "Now let's get on." He turned to the heroine. "'No, I
will not spare thee. I hatest thy mother and thy father and the young
gentleman thou ist going to marry. Thy mother, thy father, and the
young gentleman thou ist going to marry wilt see thy lifeless body
dangling on my remote mountain lair ere dawn dawns. Gadzooks!' Now go
on! Scream!"
The heroine screamed.
The crowd took off his top hat and cheered.
"'I will keep thee in a deep, dark dungeon, with all sorts of rats an'
things crawling about till even, and then--and then----'" He consulted
his exercise-book, "'and then I'll'--I've forgot this bit, and I can't
read wot comes next----"
"_Yah!_" yelled the heroine in shrill triumph.
"Shut up!" retorted William. "Now, you come on," to the hero. "Let's do
the rest as quick as we can. I'm getting a bit tired of it. Let's go
down to the pond an' race boats when we've done."
"Golly! Yes--_let's!_" said the crowd enthusiastically.
"Girls won't be allowed," said William to Elsabina.
Elsabina elevated her small nose.
"'S if I wanted to sail _boats!_" she said scornfully.
* * * * *
William's father entered the house hastily.
"Surely the meeting isn't over, dear?" said William's mother.
"He hasn't come," said Mr. Brown. "Everybody's waiting. We met the
train, but he wasn't on it. The station-master says that he came by an
earlier one and walked up, but no one can find him. He must have lost
his way."
"William seems to have collected an old tramp in the stable," said Mrs.
Brown; "he may have seen him on the road."
"I'll go and see," said Mr. Brown.
In the stable a fight was going on between his son in a fur rug and his
son's friend in a table-cloth and a tea-cosy. Upon both faces were the
remains of corked moustaches. A broken fern-pot and a battered top hat
were on the floor. Another boy in a mackintosh and a little girl in a
lace curtain were watching.
[Illustration: "THOU BEASTLY OLE ROBBER," DOUGLAS WAS SHOUTING, "I WILL
KILL THEE DEAD AND CUT OUT THY FOUL, BLACK HEART."]
"Thou beastly ole robber," Douglas was shouting, "I will kill thee dead
and cut out thy foul, black heart."
"Nay!" yelled his son. "I will hang thee from my mountain ere dawn
dawns and thy body shall dangle from the gallows----"
A wistful-looking old man on a packing-case was an absorbed spectator
of the proceedings. When he saw William's father he took out his watch
with a guilty start.
"Surely----" he said. "I'd no idea--_Heavens!_"
He picked up his hat and almost ran.
* * * * *
The Great Man rose to address his audience.
"Ladies and gentlemen--I must begin by apologising for my late
arrival," he said with dignity. "I have been unavoidably delayed."
He tried not to meet William's father's eye as he made the statement.