“You wouldn’t,” he said, “a kid like you. But I do. It’s a sonnit, and
an extramly fine one. I _hate_ the chap, but it’s no good pretending
he’s not a poet, because this jolly well proves he is. Look at the rimes
and the smoothness!”
It seemed a heroik thing of Bradwell to say that, feeling as he did to
Browne. He thought for a bit, but told me not to go.
“Of corse,” he said, “this must be returned. All’s fair in--in a case of
this kind, but--”
Then he thought very deeply and read the sonnit again. Suddenly he took
a bit of paper and copied down Browne’s poem word for word. Then he told
me to cut back like lightning to Browne’s study, and to put the poem
back on his desk if I could--if not, to most carefully keep it till the
first chance of getting it back to Browne’s room without being spotted.
“You’re a splendid fag,” he said, “and I shan’t forget this. It’s the
sort of thing that squires did for their knights in olden times; and
they got good rewards too. Now hook it.”
It’s worth a lot, mind you, to get praise like that from such a chap as
Bradwell.
When I got back, Browne was rumaging over his table and sweering a good
deal in a loud wisper. He told me to wait a minute, and went off to look
in his bedroom. Then I seezed my opportunity, and slipped the sonnit on
his table under some papers. When he came back he was worried, and went
on hunting till he found it. Then he said “Ah!” to himself, and got
pleasanter and asked me what I wanted. I told him my Latin grammar, and,
being in a very happy state now, owing to finding the poem, he gave my
book back and told me to clear out; which I did.
After prep. I met Bradwell going in to prayers, and he handed me a note
for Mabel to put in the usual place. He looked awfully rum when he gave
it to me, and he saw that I saw he looked rum. So he said:
“I don’t mind letting you know, owing to your being such a good fag and
my trusting you as I do. You may read the letter in prayers, then seal
it down and put it behind the pot of ferns in the hall in the usual
place.”
Of corse, it wasn’t really a letter, or Bradwell wouldn’t have let me
read it. It was just Browne’s sonnit coppied out by Bradwell word for
word; and at the bottom where the words, “What about poetry now?--A. T.
B.” A. T. B. are Bradwell’s initials, his full name being Arthur Thomas
Bradwell. You see, he didn’t exsaxtly say he’d _written_ the sonnit. He
only said, “What about poetry now?”
The excitement of it all kept me awake for hours and hours through the
night. I don’t suppose any fag ever did more for a big fellow than I had
done for Bradwell that day. Then I began to wonder when Browne would
send off his poem, and wether Mabel would get them both together or one
at a time. You see, of corse, Browne would send her the thing as
original, and there was nothing in Bradwell’s letter to exsaxtly say he
hadn’t written it; and puzzling the thing out for hours and hours, I at
last came to the conklusion that she would find it very difficult which
to believe, because how could she know which was telling the truth to
her? Then, about three or four in the morning almost, I began to feel
rather terrible over it, because I thought of what frightful trouble
Browne must have had to write the sonnit. He might have taken terms and
terms over it for all I could tell, not, of corse, knowing myself how
long it took to write poetry. I felt rather sorry for Browne; but after
all a chap’s duty is to the fellow he fags for before masters; and
feeling that, I went to sleep.
Three days later Bradwell had me in his room and told me the end of it
all, which shows that a girl never does what you might exspect.
“As a lesson to you, young Watson,” said Bradwell, “I may tell you that
my career has been utterly blighted and my life ruined by that business
of the sonnit.”