I
If Corkey minor had been at school that term the thing would never have
come about; but Corkey minor was always one of the lucky chaps, and just
when, in the ordinary course of events, he would have had to begin
fagging for an exam., something happened to his right lung, and he had
to go on an awful fine trip to Australia in a sailing ship. That left
Corkey major, who was a mere learning machine in the Sixth, and Corkey
minimus, who was ten, and in the Lower Fourth.
It began like this. After Bray had licked Derbyshire and Bethune, which
he did one after the other on the same half-holiday, chaps gave him
“best,” as a matter of course, and he became cock of the lower school.
He was solid muscle all through, and harder than stone, and he had a
brother in London who was runner-up in the amateur “light-weight”
championship two years following. Bray fancied himself a bit, naturally,
and was always roaming about seeking fellows to punch. But once, out of
bounds in a private wood, a keeper caught him and licked him, which was
seen by two other fellows, and remembered against Bray afterwards when
he put on too much side.
He and Corkey minimus were in the same class, because Bray, though
thirteen, didn’t know much. At first they were great chums, and Bray
bossed Corkey and palled with him; and when Browne, the under
mathematical master, told Corkey minimus that he was “the least of all
the Corkeys, and not worthy to be called a Corkey,” because he couldn’t
do rule-of-three, or some rot, Bray said a thing that Browne overheard,
and got sent up. But by degrees the friendship of Bray and Corkey
minimus cooled off, and the matter of Milly settled it.
The Doctor had four daughters, and Milly was the youngest. Mabel and
Ethel held no dealings with any fellows under the Sixth, and Mary had
something wrong with her spine and didn’t count. But I never cared for
any of them myself, because you couldn’t tell what they meant. Beatrice,
for instance, was absolutely engaged to Morris, for he told his sister
so in the holidays, and his sister told Morris minor, and he told me the
next term. Morris was the head of the school, and he had her photograph
fixed into a foreign nut which he wore on his watch-chain. But when he
left, and she found out he was gone into a bank at £80 a year, she
dropped him like a spider. Mind you, Morris had told her he was
descended, on his mother’s side, from a race of old Irish kings, which
may have unsettled her. Anyway, when she found he came, on his father’s
side, from a race of church curates, she wrote and said it was off.
But there were other things that upset the chumming of Bray and Corkey
minimus before the Milly row, and they ought to be taken in turn. First,
there was the Old Testament prize, which was the only thing Bray had the
ghost of a chance of getting. But Corkey beat him by twenty-three marks;
and Bray said afterwards that Corkey had cribbed a lot of stuff about
Joshua, and Corkey said he hadn’t, and even declared he knew as much
about Joshua as Bray, and a bit over. Then, on top of that, came the
match with neckties, which was rather a rum match in its way. Both of
them used to be awfully swagger about their neckties, and each fancied
his own. So one bet the other half a crown he would wear a different
necktie every day for a month. The month being June, that meant thirty
different neckties each, and the chap who wore the best neckties would
win. A fellow called Fowle was judge, being the son of an artist; and
neither Bray nor Corkey was allowed to buy a single new tie or add to
the stock he had in his box. At the end of a fortnight they stood about
equal, though Corkey’s ties were rather more artistic than Bray’s, which
were chiefly yellow and spotted. But then came an awful falling away,
and some of the affairs they wore were simply weird. The test for these
was if the tie passed in class. Then the terms of the match were
altered, and they decided to go on wearing different things till one or
other was stopped by a master. Any concern not noticed was considered a
necktie “in the ordinary acceptation of that term,” as Fowle put it. At
the end of the third week Corkey minimus came out in an umbrella cover
done in a sailor’s knot, but nobody worth mentioning spotted it; and the
next day Bray wore a bit of blue ribbon off a chocolate box, which also
passed. They struggled on this sort of way till Bray got bowled over. I
think Corkey was wearing a yard-measure dipped in red ink that morning,
but it looked rather swagger than not. Class was just ended, when old
Briggs, of all people--a man who wore two pairs of spectacles at one
time very often--said to Bray:
“What is that round your neck, boy?” And Bray said:
“My tie, sir.”
Then Briggs said:
“Is it, sir? Let me see it, please. I have noticed an increasing
disorder about your neck arrangements for a week past. You insult me and
you insult the class by appearing here in these ridiculous ties.”
“It sha’n’t happen again, sir,” said Bray, trying to edge out of the
class-room.
“No, Bray, it shall not,” said old Briggs. “Bring me that thing at once,
please.”
Bray handed it up, and Briggs examined it as if it was a botanical
specimen or something.
“This,” he announced, “is not a necktie at all. You’re wearing a piece
of Brussels carpet, wretched boy--a fragment of the new carpet laid down
yesterday in the Doctor’s study. You will kindly take it to him
immediately, say who sent you, and state the purpose to which you were
putting it.”
So Bray, by the terms of the match, lost, and Corkey minimus won with
the yard measure.
Then the feeling between them grew, especially after Bray said that he
could only pay his half-crown in instalments of a penny a week.
Now we come to Milly. You see she was Corkey minor’s great pal the term
before, but now that he was at sea, and thousands of miles off, she
chucked him and turned to Corkey minimus. That shows what she was
really. Anyway, in a bad moment for young Corkey, she told him he had
eyes like an eagle’s, and it simply turned his head. As an eagle’s eyes
are yellow, I couldn’t see myself what there was to be so jolly pleased
about; but he was, and, to show you what a chap may come to if a girl
collars him, I know for a fact that Corkey minimus tried to paint a
picture for her. Whether he actually succeeded I cannot say, but he went
down four places in class, and got awfully dropped on by Browne.
Then came that attempt of Bray to cut Corkey out, and, being myself a
tremendous personal chum of Corkey’s, I wished he had succeeded; but he
didn’t, and even his fighting didn’t take Milly. After a month of giving
her things to eat and so on, he said it was his red hair that stood
between them, and told Fowle he didn’t care a straw about her; but from
the way he went on to Corkey minimus, any fool could see he really cared
a lot. The chap called Fowle comes in here. This “obscene Fowle,” as we
called him out of Virgil, being really a term in a crib applied to
harpies, though he would have run if a mouse had squeaked at him, was
yet responsible for more fights than any fellow in the school. He
sneaked about, asking chaps if they gave one another “best,” and when at
last he found two who didn’t funk each other, though they might be
perfectly good friends, he never rested until there was a fight. He got
kicked sometimes, but not enough. That was owing to the fact that his
hampers from home were most extraordinary. They came on Roman feast
days, because he was a Roman Catholic by religion; and some fellows even
said the more you kicked Fowle the more you were likely to get from the
hampers. That was rot, of course, and a jolly suspicious thing happened
once. Newnes--a chap in the lower Fifth--kicked Fowle the very morning
before a hamper came; and that same evening, after prayers, Fowle gave
Newnes about half a whacking big melon, and the next day Newnes jolly
near died. Fowle swore he hadn’t put anything in the melon, but it is
bosh to say that half a melon, if it’s all right, is going to do a chap
any harm. Anyway, we rather funked Fowle’s hampers afterwards.
Well, this wretched, obscene Fowle met me one day licking his fat lips
and showing great excitement. So I knew he’d probably worked up a fight;
but it wasn’t that, though something worse. He said:
“Where’s Corkey minimus? Bray wants him.”
“What for?” I said. I may mention that I am called McInnes.
“As a matter of fact, he’s heard something, and he says, though he’s
sorry, he’s got to lick Corkey.”
Fowle smacked his beastly mouth as if he’d got pine-apple drops in it.
“What’s Corkey done?” I said.
“It’s about Milly Dunston. Young Corkey talks jolly big with her, and
doesn’t even speak civil of his friends. By quite an accident I was
passing through the shrubbery from Browne’s house to the chapel
yesterday, and I went by the summer-house, which is out of bounds, and
couldn’t help overhearing Milly and Corkey minimus, who were there. And
Corkey distinctly said that Bray was as fiery as his hair, and that he
had no more control of himself than a burning mountain; and Milly
laughed.”
“And you sneaked off and told Bray?”
“As his chum I had to.”
“Ah, then I shall tell Corkey what you heard, being his chum.”
“I shouldn’t,” said Fowle. “It’s only making mischief. Besides, Bray
won’t take an apology now. He says he’s stood all that flesh and blood
can stand. Those were his very words. In fact, I’m looking for Corkey
minimus at this moment to tell him that Bray wants him up in the ‘gym.’”
“To lick him?”
Fowle smacked his lips again.
“He’s brought it on himself.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll give the message. You can go back and tell Bray
you’ve told me.”
“I’d rather have done it myself,” said Fowle, regretfully, as though he
was being robbed of tuck.
“Well, you won’t,” I answered him, being pretty sick with the worm of a
chap by that time. “You go back and say that Corkey will turn up in ten
minutes.”
Then he cleared out reluctantly, leaving this tremendous responsibility
entirely on my hands.