life. The School had played three matches up to date, and had won them
all. In the first, an Oxford college team, containing several Old
Beckfordians, had been met and routed, Pringle contributing thirty-one
to a total of three hundred odd. But Norris had made a century, which
had rather diverted the public eye from this performance. Then the
School had played the Emeriti, and had won again quite comfortably.
This time his score had been forty-one, useful, but still not
phenomenal. Then in the third match, _versus_ Charchester, one of
the big school matches of the season, he had found himself. He ran up a
hundred and twenty-three without a chance, and felt that life had
little more to offer. That had been only a week ago, and the glow of
satisfaction was still pleasantly warm.
It was while he was gloating silently in his study over the bat with
which a grateful Field Sports Committee had presented him as a reward
for this feat, that he became aware that Lorimer, his study companion,
appeared to be in an entirely different frame of mind to his own.
Lorimer was in the Upper Fifth, Pringle in the Remove. Lorimer sat at
the study table gnawing a pen in a feverish manner that told of an
overwrought soul. Twice he uttered sounds that were obviously sounds of
anguish, half groans and half grunts. Pringle laid down his bat and
decided to investigate.
'What's up?' he asked.
'This bally poem thing,' said Lorimer.
'Poem? Oh, ah, I know.' Pringle had been in the Upper Fifth himself a
year before, and he remembered that every summer term there descended
upon that form a Bad Time in the shape of a poetry prize. A certain
Indian potentate, the Rajah of Seltzerpore, had paid a visit to the
school some years back, and had left behind him on his departure
certain monies in the local bank, which were to be devoted to providing
the Upper Fifth with an annual prize for the best poem on a subject to
be selected by the Headmaster. Entrance was compulsory. The wily
authorities knew very well that if it had not been, the entries for the
prize would have been somewhat small. Why the Upper Fifth were so
favoured in preference to the Sixth or Remove is doubtful. Possibly it
was felt that, what with the Jones History, the Smith Latin Verse, the
Robinson Latin Prose, and the De Vere Crespigny Greek Verse, and other
trophies open only to members of the Remove and Sixth, those two forms
had enough to keep them occupied as it was. At any rate, to the Upper
Fifth the prize was given, and every year, three weeks after the
commencement of the summer term, the Bad Time arrived.
'Can't you get on?' asked Pringle.
'No.'
'What's the subject?'
'Death of Dido.'
'Something to be got out of that, surely.'
'Wish you'd tell me what.'
'Heap of things.'
'Such as what? Can't see anything myself. I call it perfectly indecent
dragging the good lady out of her well-earned tomb at this time of day.
I've looked her up in the Dic. of Antiquities, and it appears that she
committed suicide some years ago. Body-snatching, I call it. What do I
want to know about her?'
'What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?' murmured Pringle.
'Hecuba?' said Lorimer, looking puzzled, 'What's Hecuba got to do with
it?'
'I was only quoting,' said Pringle, with gentle superiority.
'Well, I wish instead of quoting rot you'd devote your energies to
helping me with these beastly verses. How on earth shall I begin?'
'You might adapt my quotation. "What's Dido got to do with me, or I to
do with Dido?" I rather like that. Jam it down. Then you go on in a
sort of rag-time metre. In the "Coon Drum-Major" style. Besides, you
see, the beauty of it is that you administer a wholesome snub to the
examiner right away. Makes him sit up at once. Put it down.'
Lorimer bit off another quarter of an inch of his pen. 'You needn't be
an ass,' he said shortly.
'My dear chap,' said Pringle, enjoying himself immensely, 'what on
earth is the good of my offering you suggestions if you won't take
them?'
Lorimer said nothing. He bit off another mouthful of penholder.
'Well, anyway,' resumed Pringle. 'I can't see why you're so keen on the
business. Put down anything. The beaks never make a fuss about these
special exams.'
'It isn't the beaks I care about,' said Lorimer in an injured tone of
voice, as if someone had been insinuating that he had committed some
crime, 'only my people are rather keen on my doing well in this exam.'
'Why this exam, particularly?'
'Oh, I don't know. My grandfather or someone was a bit of a pro at
verse in his day, I believe, and they think it ought to run in the
family.'
Pringle examined the situation in all its aspects. 'Can't you get
along?' he enquired at length.
'Not an inch.'
'Pity. I wish we could swop places.'
'So do I for some things. To start with, I shouldn't mind having made
that century of yours against Charchester.'
Pringle beamed. The least hint that his fellow-man was taking him at
his own valuation always made him happy.
'Thanks,' he said. 'No, but what I meant was that I wished I was in for
this poetry prize. I bet I could turn out a rattling good screed. Why,
last year I almost got the prize. I sent in fearfully hot stuff.'
'Think so?' said Lorimer doubtfully, in answer to the 'rattling good
screed' passage of Pringle's speech. 'Well, I wish you'd have a shot.
You might as well.'
'What, really? How about the prize?'
'Oh, hang the prize. We'll have to chance that.'
'I thought you were keen on getting it.'
'Oh, no. Second or third will do me all right, and satisfy my people.
They only want to know for certain that I've got the poetic afflatus
all right. Will you take it on?'
'All right.'
'Thanks, awfully.'
'I say, Lorimer,' said Pringle after a pause.
'Yes?'
'Are your people coming down for the O.B.s' match?'
The Old Beckfordians' match was the great function of the Beckford
cricket season. The Headmaster gave a garden-party. The School band
played; the School choir sang; and sisters, cousins, aunts, and parents
flocked to the School in platoons.
'Yes, I think so,' said Lorimer. 'Why?'
'Is your sister coming?'
'Oh, I don't know.' A brother's utter lack of interest in his sister's
actions is a weird and wonderful thing for an outsider to behold.
'Well, look here, I wish you'd get her to come. We could give them tea
in here, and have rather a good time, don't you think?'
'All right. I'll make her come. Look here, Pringle, I believe you're
rather gone on Mabel.'
This was Lorimer's vulgar way.
'Don't be an ass,' said Pringle, with a laugh which should have been
careless, but was in reality merely feeble. 'She's quite a kid.'
Miss Mabel Lorimer's exact age was fifteen. She had brown hair, blue
eyes, and a smile which disclosed to view a dimple. There are worse
things than a dimple. Distinctly so, indeed. When ladies of fifteen
possess dimples, mere man becomes but as a piece of damp
blotting-paper. Pringle was seventeen and a half, and consequently too
old to take note of such frivolous attributes; but all the same he had
a sort of vague, sketchy impression that it would be pleasanter to run
up a lively century against the O.B.s with Miss Lorimer as a spectator
than in her absence. He felt pleased that she was coming.
'I say, about this poem,' said Lorimer, dismissing a subject which
manifestly bored him, and returning to one which was of vital interest,
'you're sure you can write fairly decent stuff? It's no good sending in
stuff that'll turn the examiner's hair grey. Can you turn out something
really decent?'
Pringle said nothing. He smiled gently as who should observe, 'I and
Shakespeare.'
[5]
FARNIE GETS INTO TROUBLE--
It was perhaps only natural that Farnie, having been warned so strongly
of the inadvisability of having anything to do with Monk, should for
that very reason be attracted to him. Nobody ever wants to do anything
except what they are not allowed to do. Otherwise there is no
explaining the friendship that arose between them. Jack Monk was not an
attractive individual. He had a slack mouth and a shifty eye, and his
complexion was the sort which friends would have described as olive,
enemies (with more truth) as dirty green. These defects would have
mattered little, of course, in themselves. There's many a bilious
countenance, so to speak, covers a warm heart. With Monk, however,
appearances were not deceptive. He looked a bad lot, and he was one.
It was on the second morning of term that the acquaintanceship began.
Monk was coming downstairs from his study with Danvers, and Farnie was
leaving the fags' day-room.
'See that kid?' said Danvers. 'That's the chap I was telling you about.
Gethryn's uncle, you know.'
'Not really? Let's cultivate him. I say, old chap, don't walk so fast.'
Farnie, rightly concluding that the remark was addressed to him, turned
and waited, and the three strolled over to the School buildings
together.
They would have made an interesting study for the observer of human
nature, the two seniors fancying that they had to deal with a small boy
just arrived at his first school, and in the grip of that strange, lost
feeling which attacks the best of new boys for a day or so after their
arrival; and Farnie, on the other hand, watching every move, as
perfectly composed and at home as a youth should be with the experience
of three public schools to back him up.
When they arrived at the School gates, Monk and Danvers turned to go in
the direction of their form-room, the Remove, leaving Farnie at the
door of the Upper Fourth. At this point a small comedy took place.
Monk, after feeling hastily in his pockets, requested Danvers to lend
him five shillings until next Saturday. Danvers knew this request of
old, and he knew the answer that was expected of him. By replying that
he was sorry, but he had not got the money, he gave Farnie, who was
still standing at the door, his cue to offer to supply the deficiency.
Most new boys--they had grasped this fact from experience--would have
felt it an honour to oblige a senior with a small loan. As Farnie made
no signs of doing what was expected of him, Monk was obliged to resort
to the somewhat cruder course of applying for the loan in person. He
applied. Farnie with the utmost willingness brought to light a handful
of money, mostly gold. Monk's eye gleamed approval, and he stretched
forth an itching palm. Danvers began to think that it would be rash to
let a chance like this slip. Ordinarily the tacit agreement between the
pair was that only one should borrow at a time, lest confidence should
be destroyed in the victim. But here was surely an exception, a special
case. With a young gentleman so obviously a man of coin as Farnie, the
rule might well be broken for once.
'While you're about it, Farnie, old man,' he said carelessly, 'you might
let me have a bob or two if you don't mind. Five bob'll see me through
to Saturday all right.'
'Do you mean tomorrow?' enquired Farnie, looking up from his heap of
gold.
'No, Saturday week. Let you have it back by then at the latest. Make a
point of it.'
'How would a quid do?'
'Ripping,' said Danvers ecstatically.
'Same here,' assented Monk.
'Then that's all right,' said Farnie briskly; 'I thought perhaps you
mightn't have had enough. You've got a quid, I know, Monk, because I
saw you haul one out at breakfast. And Danvers has got one too, because
he offered to toss you for it in the study afterwards. And besides, I
couldn't lend you anything in any case, because I've only got about
fourteen quid myself.'
With which parting shot he retired, wrapped in gentle thought, into his
form-room; and from the noise which ensued immediately upon his
arrival, the shrewd listener would have deduced, quite correctly, that
he had organized and taken the leading part in a general rag.
Monk and Danvers proceeded upon their way.
'You got rather left there, old chap,' said Monk at length.
'I like that,' replied the outraged Danvers. 'How about you, then? It
seemed to me you got rather left, too.'
Monk compromised.
'Well, anyhow,' he said, 'we shan't get much out of that kid.'
'Little beast,' said Danvers complainingly. And they went on into their
form-room in silence.
'I saw your young--er--relative in earnest conversation with friend
Monk this morning,' said Marriott, later on in the day, to Gethryn; 'I
thought you were going to give him the tip in that direction?'
'So I did,' said the Bishop wearily; 'but I can't always be looking
after the little brute. He only does it out of sheer cussedness,
because I've told him not to. It stands to reason that he can't
_like_ Monk.'
'You remind me of the psalmist and the wicked man, surname unknown,'
said Marriott. 'You _can't_ see the good side of Monk.'
'There isn't one.'
'No. He's only got two sides, a bad side and a worse side, which he
sticks on on the strength of being fairly good at games. I wonder if
he's going to get his First this season. He's not a bad bat.'
'I don't think he will. He is a good bat, but there are heaps better in
the place. I say, I think I shall give young Farnie the tip once more,
and let him take it or leave it. What do you think?'
'He'll leave it,' said Marriott, with conviction.
Nor was he mistaken. Farnie listened with enthusiasm to his nephew's
second excursus on the Monk topic, and, though he said nothing, was
apparently convinced. On the following afternoon Monk, Danvers,
Waterford, and he hired a boat and went up the river together. Gethryn
and Marriott, steered by Wilson, who was rapidly developing into a
useful coxswain, got an excellent view of them moored under the shade
of a willow, drinking ginger-beer, and apparently on the best of terms
with one another and the world in general. In a brief but moving speech
the Bishop finally excommunicated his erring relative. 'For all I
care,' he concluded, 'he can do what he likes in future. I shan't stop
him.'
'No,' said Marriott, 'I don't think you will.'
For the first month of his school life Farnie behaved, except in his
choice of companions, much like an ordinary junior. He played cricket
moderately well, did his share of compulsory fielding at the First
Eleven net, and went for frequent river excursions with Monk, Danvers,
and the rest of the Mob.
At first the other juniors of the House were inclined to resent this
extending of the right hand of fellowship to owners of studies and
Second Eleven men, and attempted to make Farnie see the sin and folly
of his ways. But Nature had endowed that youth with a fund of vitriolic
repartee. When Millett, one of Leicester's juniors, evolved some
laborious sarcasm on the subject of Farnie's swell friends, Farnie, in
a series of three remarks, reduced him, figuratively speaking, to a
small and palpitating spot of grease. After that his actions came in
for no further, or at any rate no outspoken comment.
Given sixpence a week and no more, Farnie might have survived an entire
term without breaking any serious School rule. But when, after buying a
bicycle from Smith of Markham's, he found himself with eight pounds to
his name in solid cash, and the means of getting far enough away from
the neighbourhood of the School to be able to spend it much as he
liked, he began to do strange and risky things in his spare time.
The great obstacle to illicit enjoyment at Beckford was the four
o'clock roll-call on half-holidays. There were other obstacles, such as
half-holiday games and so forth, but these could be avoided by the
exercise of a little judgement. The penalty for non-appearance at a
half-holiday game was a fine of sixpence. Constant absence was likely
in time to lead to a more or less thrilling interview with the captain
of cricket, but a very occasional attendance was enough to stave off
this disaster; and as for the sixpence, to a man of means like Farnie
it was a mere nothing. It was a bad system, and it was a wonder, under
the circumstances, how Beckford produced the elevens it did. But it was
the system, and Farnie availed himself of it to the full.
The obstacle of roll-call he managed also to surmount. Some reckless
and penniless friend was generally willing, for a consideration, to
answer his name for him. And so most Saturday afternoons would find
Farnie leaving behind him the flannelled fools at their various
wickets, and speeding out into the country on his bicycle in the
direction of the village of Biddlehampton, where mine host of the 'Cow
and Cornflower', in addition to other refreshment for man and beast,
advertised that ping-pong and billiards might be played on the
premises. It was not the former of these games that attracted Farnie.
He was no pinger. Nor was he a pongster. But for billiards he had a
decided taste, a genuine taste, not the pumped-up affectation sometimes
displayed by boys of his age. Considering his age he was a remarkable
player. Later on in life it appeared likely that he would have the
choice of three professions open to him, namely, professional billiard
player, billiard marker, and billiard sharp. At each of the three he
showed distinct promise. He was not 'lured to the green cloth' by Monk
or Danvers. Indeed, if there had been any luring to be done, it is
probable that he would have done it, and not they. Neither Monk nor
Danvers was in his confidence in the matter. Billiards is not a cheap
amusement. By the end of his sixth week Farnie was reduced to a single
pound, a sum which, for one of his tastes, was practically poverty. And
just at the moment when he was least able to bear up against it, Fate
dealt him one of its nastiest blows. He was playing a fifty up against
a friendly but unskilful farmer at the 'Cow and Cornflower'. 'Better
look out,' he said, as his opponent effected a somewhat rustic stroke,
'you'll be cutting the cloth in a second.' The farmer grunted, missed
by inches, and retired, leaving the red ball in the jaws of the pocket,
and Farnie with three to make to win.
It was an absurdly easy stroke, and the Bishop's uncle took it with an
absurd amount of conceit and carelessness. Hardly troubling to aim, he
struck his ball. The cue slid off in one direction, the ball rolled
sluggishly in another. And when the cue had finished its run, the
smooth green surface of the table was marred by a jagged and unsightly
cut. There was another young man gone wrong!
To say that the farmer laughed would be to express the matter feebly.
That his young opponent, who had been irritating him unspeakably since
the beginning of the game with advice and criticism, should have done
exactly what he had cautioned him, the farmer, against a moment before,
struck him as being the finest example of poetic justice he had ever
heard of, and he signalized his appreciation of the same by nearly
dying of apoplexy.
The marker expressed an opinion that Farnie had been and gone and done
it.
''Ere,' he said, inserting a finger in the cut to display its
dimensions. 'Look 'ere. This'll mean a noo cloth, young feller me lad.
That's wot this'll mean. That'll be three pound we will trouble you
for, if _you_ please.'
Farnie produced his sole remaining sovereign.
'All I've got,' he said. 'I'll leave my name and address.'
'Don't you trouble, young feller me lad,' said the marker, who appeared
to be a very aggressive and unpleasant sort of character altogether,
with meaning, 'I know yer name and I knows yer address. Today fortnight
at the very latest, if _you_ please. You don't want me to 'ave to
go to your master about it, now, do yer? What say? No. Ve' well then.
Today fortnight is the time, and you remember it.'
What was left of Farnie then rode slowly back to Beckford. Why he went
to Monk on his return probably he could not have explained himself. But
he did go, and, having told his story in full, wound up by asking for a
loan of two pounds. Monk's first impulse was to refer him back to a
previous interview, when matters had been the other way about, that
small affair of the pound on the second morning of the term. Then there
flashed across his mind certain reasons against this move. At present
Farnie's attitude towards him was unpleasantly independent. He made him
understand that he went about with him from choice, and that there was
to be nothing of the patron and dependant about their alliance. If he
were to lend him the two pounds now, things would alter. And to have
got a complete hold over Master Reginald Farnie, Monk would have paid
more than two pounds. Farnie had the intelligence to carry through
anything, however risky, and there were many things which Monk would
have liked to do, but, owing to the risks involved, shirked doing for
himself. Besides, he happened to be in funds just now.
'Well, look here, old chap,' he said, 'let's have strict business
between friends. If you'll pay me back four quid at the end of term,
you shall have the two pounds. How does that strike you?'
It struck Farnie, as it would have struck most people, that if this was
Monk's idea of strict business, there were the makings of no ordinary
financier in him. But to get his two pounds he would have agreed to
anything. And the end of term seemed a long way off.
The awkward part of the billiard-playing episode was that the
punishment for it, if detected, was not expulsion, but flogging. And
Farnie resembled the lady in _The Ingoldsby Legends_ who 'didn't
mind death, but who couldn't stand pinching'. He didn't mind
expulsion--he was used to it, but he could _not_ stand flogging.
'That'll be all right,' he said. And the money changed hands.
[6]
--AND STAYS THERE
'I say,' said Baker of Jephson's excitedly some days later, reeling
into the study which he shared with Norris, '_have_ you seen the
team the M.C.C.'s bringing down?'
At nearly every school there is a type of youth who asks this question
on the morning of the M.C.C. match. Norris was engaged in putting the
finishing touches to a snow-white pair of cricket boots.
'No. Hullo, where did you raise that Sporter? Let's have a look.'
But Baker proposed to conduct this business in person. It is ten times
more pleasant to administer a series of shocks to a friend than to sit
by and watch him administering them to himself. He retained _The
Sportsman_, and began to read out the team.
'Thought Middlesex had a match,' said Norris, as Baker paused
dramatically to let the name of a world-famed professional sink in.
'No. They don't play Surrey till Monday.'
'Well, if they've got an important match like Surrey on on Monday,'
said Norris disgustedly, 'what on earth do they let their best man come
down here today for, and fag himself out?'
Baker suggested gently that if anybody was going to be fagged out at
the end of the day, it would in all probability be the Beckford
bowlers, and not a man who, as he was careful to point out, had run up
a century a mere three days ago against Yorkshire, and who was
apparently at that moment at the very top of his form.
'Well,' said Norris, 'he might crock himself or anything. Rank bad
policy, I call it. Anybody else?'
Baker resumed his reading. A string of unknowns ended in another
celebrity.
'Blackwell?' said Norris. 'Not O. T. Blackwell?'
'It says A. T. But,' went on Baker, brightening up again, 'they always
get the initials wrong in the papers. Certain to be O. T. By the way, I
suppose you saw that he made eighty-three against Notts the other day?'
Norris tried to comfort himself by observing that Notts couldn't bowl
for toffee.
'Last week, too,' said Baker, 'he made a hundred and forty-six not out
against Malvern for the Gentlemen of Warwickshire. They couldn't get
him out,' he concluded with unction. In spite of the fact that he
himself was playing in the match today, and might under the
circumstances reasonably look forward to a considerable dose of
leather-hunting, the task of announcing the bad news to Norris appeared
to have a most elevating effect on his spirits:
'That's nothing extra special,' said Norris, in answer to the last item
of information, 'the Malvern wicket's like a billiard-table.'
'Our wickets aren't bad either at this time of year,' said Baker, 'and
I heard rumours that they had got a record one ready for this match.'
'It seems to me,' said Norris, 'that what I'd better do if we want to
bat at all today is to win the toss. Though Sammy and the Bishop and
Baynes ought to be able to get any ordinary side out all right.'
'Only this isn't an ordinary side. It's a sort of improved county
team.'
'They've got about four men who might come off, but the M.C.C.
sometimes have a bit of a tail. We ought to have a look in if we win
the toss.'
'Hope so,' said Baker. 'I doubt it, though.'