"I did it to give you pleasure, sir--on my honour."
The Doctor looked at Mathers minimus much puzzled.
"It is hard to conceive that even an immature mind, such as you possess,
could suppose that pleasure would result to any intelligent being from
so pitiful and indecent an achievement," he said. "The boy who tore this
wretched bird from its last resting-place and set it up to caricature
the entire race of _Psittacus erythacus_---- However, this is no time
to investigate your conduct, Mathers. You will join me after evening
school in the study."
Then he looked at the parrot again and cleared his throat. Mathers
slunk away to his seat, and as he did so, suddenly the Doctor started
and seemed to 'point,' like a sporting dog. I think he had discovered
there was more than met the eye about the parrot. He called up
Macmullen, who happened to catch his gaze, and told him to take 'Joe' to
the gardener.
"Direct Smith to place these remains in the spot I originally selected,"
he said; "and if anybody ventures to disturb them again the consequences
will be exceedingly serious. Now go to your classes."
He waved his hand, and Macmullen took the parrot, and nobody ever saw it
again. But to this day Mathers swears that Smith never buried him. He
believes that in some secret place in his house the gardener has 'Joe'
in a glass case; because, very truly, he says that no ordinary gardener
would be likely to resist the temptation of having a rare and beautiful
bird to decorate his house. Besides, the glass eyes. Also it is well
known that Dr. Dunstan never goes into the gardener's house; which is
really the entrance lodge to Merivale, and is full of Smith's wife and
children. So I dare say Bunny is right there.
He told me afterwards that Dunstan was very cold, but not actively angry
in the evening. Mathers said that the Doctor didn't seem to attach any
importance to the fact that he'd stuffed 'Joe' to give him a great and
sudden pleasure. Instead, he evidently thought that Bunny had done a
rather daring thing to please himself.
"'Unseemly' was the word he used," said Mathers to me. "He seemed to
think it was not a case for much punishment; but, all the same, he has
told me to write out the article on the stuffer's art from the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, which is rather rot, because I shall
certainly never want to stuff anything again in this world. I couldn't
tell him all I'd been through to do it, because he'd got a sort of
beastly idea that I _liked_ doing it; though you know that it was
nothing of the sort. On the whole it has left him against me, and he
seems to take a good deal of credit to himself for not making a lot more
row about it. But whether he's going to let it rankle in his mind, so
that I may suffer for it more or less till the end of the term, or
whether, when I've done the impot., he'll feel as usual--just neither
for me nor against me--I can't say yet. He might have tried to look at
it from my point of view."
"You could hardly expect him to do that: masters never do," I said.
"It's all the worse for him, anyway," answered Mathers minimus. "To
rebury the parrot was a slight on me in a way; because whether he liked
it or not he could have seen at a glance the hours and hours of awful
trouble, and the fearful expense it must have been to me. The eyes
alone were three shillings; and nobody in this world ever threw away
valuable money in such a cruel manner. Besides, if it had gone off well
and he'd taken it as I meant it, I fully intended other good surprises
for him."
"You'd better not surprise him again for a jolly long time," I said.
"He doesn't much like surprises--people don't when they grow up. They
have a footling way of preferring everything to drag on in a tame and
dull manner. My father hates telegrams, for instance."
"I had fully meant to get Johnson to bring him another and a better
parrot," said Mathers. "Even a pair of parrots might have been
arranged; and they would have made a nest about April, and laid eggs,
and there would gradually have been parrots for all his daughters; and
he could have taught them what he liked, even to the extent of Latin;
for it is well known that a parrot will learn anything. But it's all
over now. Never again will I try to give him pleasure--or anybody else
either. Why, even Milly hasn't pitied me much--just because it's all a
failure; whereas if he'd taken it in a manly way, and thanked me before
the school, and, perhaps, given us a half-holiday or something and sent
the parrot off at once to be measured for a glass case--how different it
all would have been! Nobody would have called me 'body-snatcher' then;
whereas now I shall be called that for life."
Which was all true enough in its way, and he was called 'body-snatcher'
for ever more. Whereas, to show what mistakes happen, I'd done that
part--simply as a friend.
*THE BANKRUPTCY OF BANNISTER*
*No. III*
*THE BANKRUPTCY OF BANNISTER*
*I*
I am Bannister, and what happened to me was a very gradual thing at
first; but it grew and grew until finally something had to be done, and
that something was called 'bankruptcy.'
Curiously enough I had heard the word before at home. In fact, as I
told Gideon, who kindly let me explain my position to him, my father had
once been bankrupted; and when he was a bankrupt my mother cried a good
deal and my father talked about 'everlasting disgrace' and 'a
bloodthirsty world,' and something in the pound. And then there came a
day when my father told my mother gladly that he had been discharged,
whatever that was, and my mother seemed much pleased. In fact, she
said, "Thank God, Gerald!" and they had a bottle of champagne for lunch.
It was in holidays, and I heard it all, and tasted the champagne, and
didn't like it.
So, remembering this, when Gideon talked of me being a bankrupt, I said,
"All right, and the sooner the better."
As I say, one gets hard up very gradually, and the debts seem nothing in
themselves; but when, owing to chaps bothering, you go into it all on
paper you may often be much surprised to find how serious things are
taken altogether.
What I found was that my pocket-money was absolutely all owed for about
three terms in advance, and that Steggles, who lent me a shilling upon a
thing called a mortgage, the mortgage being my bat, was not going to
give up my bat, which was a spliced bat and cost eight shillings and
sixpence. He said what with interest and one thing and another his
shilling had gained six shillings more, and that if he didn't take the
bat at once he would be out of pocket. So he took it, and he played
with it in a match and got a cluck's egg, and I was jolly glad. Then
the tuck-woman, who is allowed to come up to the playground after school
with fruit and sweets and suchlike, was owed by me seven shillings and
fourpence, and she wouldn't sell anything more to me, and asked me
rather often to pay the money. I told her that all would be paid sooner
or later, and she seemed inclined not to believe it. Other debts were
one and six owed to Corkey minimus for a mouse that he said was going to
have young mice, but it didn't, and he had consented to take ninepence
owing to being mistaken. Tin Lin Chow, the Chinese boy, was owed four
shillings and threepence for a charm. It was a good enough charm, made
of ivory and carved into a very hideous face. All the same, it never
had done me much good, for here I was bankrupted six months after buying
it, and the charm itself not even paid for.
There was a lot of other small debts--some merely a question of pens and
caterpillars; but they all mounted up, and so I felt something must be
done, because being in such a beastly mess kept me awake a good deal at
night thinking what to do.
Therefore I went to Gideon, who is a Jew, and very rich, and well known
to lend money at interest. He is first in the whole school for
arithmetic, and his father is a diamond merchant and a banker, and many
other things that bring in enormous sums of money. Gideon has no side,
and he is known to be absolutely fair and kind even to the smallest
kids. So I went to him and I said--
"Please, Gideon, if it won't be troubling you, I should like to speak to
you about my affairs. I am very hard up, in fact, and fellows are being
rather beastly about money I owe them."
"I'm afraid I can't finance you, Bannister," said Gideon awfully kindly.
"My money's all out at interest just now, and, as a matter of fact, I'm
rather funky about some of it."
"I don't want you to finance me," I said; "and that would be jolly poor
fun for you anyway, because I've got nothing, and never shall have in
this world, as far as I can see. I only want you to advise me. I'm
fourteen and three-quarters, and when I was twelve and a half my father
got into pretty much the same mess that I'm in now; and he got out again
with ease, and even had champagne afterwards, by the simple plan of
being bankrupt."
"It's not always an honourable thing--I warn you of that," said Gideon.
"I'm sure it was perfectly honourable in my father's case," I said,
"because he's a frightfully honourable man. And I am honourable, too,
and want to do what is right and proper as soon as possible."
"Why don't you write to your father?" asked Gideon.
"Because he once warned me--when he was being bankrupted, in fact--that
if ever I owed any man a farthing he would break my neck, and my mother
said at the same time--blubbing into a handkerchief as she said it--that
she would rather see me in my coffin than in the bankruptcy court. All
the same, they both cheered up like anything after it was all over, and
father said he should not hesitate to go through it all again if
necessary; but, still, I wouldn't for the world tell them what I've
done. In fact, they think that I have money in hand and subscribe to
the chapel offertories, and do all sorts of good with my ten bob a term;
whereas the truth is that I have to pay it all away instantly on the
first day of the term, and have had to ever since two terms after I
first came."
"What you must do, then, is to go bankrupt," said Gideon thoughtfully.
"Yes," I said, "that's just the whole thing. How do you begin?"
"Generally other people begin," said Gideon. "Creditors, as a rule, do
what they think will pay them best. Sometimes they will show great
patience, if they think it is worth while, and sometimes they won't. My
father has told me about these things. He has had to bankrupt a few
people in his time, though he's always very sorry to do it."
"In my case nobody will show patience, because it's gone on too long," I
said. "In fact, the only one who has got anything out of me for three
terms is Steggles, who has taken my bat."
"He has foreclosed on a mortgage. He was quite within his rights for
once," said Gideon, who rather hated Steggles, because Steggles always
called him 'Shylock junior.'
"To begin," continued Gideon, "two things generally happen, I believe;
there is a meeting of creditors, and soon afterwards the bailiffs come
in."
"I remember my father mentioning bailiffs wildly to my mother," I said,
"but I don't think they ever came in; if they did, I never saw them."
"Then no doubt the meeting of creditors decided against it; and a
meeting of creditors is what you'd better have," declared Gideon. "Tell
everybody you owe money to that there is to be a meeting in the gym. on
Thursday evening to go into the affair. I will be there, if you like,
as I understand these things pretty well."
I thanked Gideon very much indeed and asked him if he could tell what
happened next after the meeting.
"The claims are put in against you," he explained, "and then you say
what you've got to say, and give a reason why you can't pay; and then
your assets are stated."
"What are assets?" I asked.
"What you've got to pay with, or what you hope to have in course of
time."
"I've got nothing at all," I said, "and never shall have until I'm old
enough to go into an office and earn money."
"Then the assets will be nil," said Gideon. "But they can't be
absolutely nil in your case. For instance, you have a watch, and you
have that Chinese charm you bought from Tin Lin Chow and various other
things, including the green lizard you found on the common last
Saturday, if it's still alive."
"I can't give up the watch," I said, "it isn't mine. It's only lent to
me by my mother. The lizard died yesterday, I'm sorry to say, owing to
not liking captivity."
"Well, at any rate, the thing is to declare something in the pound,"
Gideon told me.
"It may be," I said, "but first get your pound. You can't declare
anything in the pound if you haven't got a pound. At least, I don't see
how."
He seemed doubtful about that and changed the subject.
"Anyway, I'll be at the meeting of creditors," he promised; and I felt
sure he would be, because Gideon was never known to lie.
*II*
A good deal happened before the meeting of creditors. Among other
things I went down three places in my form, because my mind was so much
occupied with going bankrupt; and I also got into a beast of a row with
the Doctor, which was serious, and might have been still more serious if
he had insisted on knowing the truth. It was at a very favourite lesson
of the Doctor's--namely, the Scripture lesson, and, as a rule, he simply
takes the top of the class and leaves the bottom pretty much alone,
because at the top are Macmullen and Richmond and Prodgers, all fliers
at Scripture, and their answers give the Doctor great pleasure; and at
the bottom are me and Willson minor and West and others, and our answers
don't give him any pleasure at all. But sometimes he pounces down upon
us with a sudden question, to see if we are attending; and he pounced
down upon me, to see if I was attending, and I was not, because my mind
was full of the meeting of creditors, who were more important to me for
the minute than the people in the Old Testament.
So when the Doctor suddenly said, "Tell us what you know of Gideon,
Bannister, if you please," I clean forgot there was more than one
Gideon, and said--
"Gideon is an awfully decent sort, sir, and he has advised me to offer
something in the pound."
Naturally the Doctor did not like this. In fact, he liked it so little
that he made me go straight out of the class and wait for him in his
study. Then he caned me for insolence, combined with irreverence, and
made me write out about Gideon and the dew upon the fleece twenty-four
times; which I did.
I also asked our Gideon if he was by any chance related to the Bible
Gideon, and he said that it was impossible to prove that he was not, and
that it was also impossible to prove that he was. In any case, he said,
such things did not trouble him, though a friend of his father's,
wanting to prove that he was related to a man who died in the year 734
A.D., went to a place called the Herald's Office and gave them immense
sums of money, and they proved it easily. He said also that it was a
jolly good thing the Doctor did not ask for particulars, because if he
had known that I was a bankrupt and just about to offer something in the
pound, he would probably have expelled me on the spot.
Gideon asked me if I had done anything about the bankruptcy, and I told
him privately that I had. But I did not tell him what. I had, in fact,
taken a desperate step and written a letter to my grandmother. I marked
it "Private" in three places, and begged her, on every page, not to tell
my father; because my father was her son, and he had often told me that
if I wrote to her for money he would punish me in a very terrible
manner, How, he never mentioned, but he meant it, and so I had to make
my grandmother promise not to tell him. I wrote the letter seven or
eight times before I got it up to the mark, then I borrowed one of
Foster's envelopes, already stamped with pink stamps for writing home,
and sent it off. It was the best letter I ever wrote, or ever shall
write, and this is how it went--
"MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,
"I write this line, though very busy, to hope that you are exceedingly
well and enjoying the fine weather. I hope your lovely, little clever
dog, 'Fido,' is well also. I never see such a clever and beautiful dog
anywhere else. My parents write to me that they are well. I am quite
well. At least, I am quite well in body, though I have grown rather
thin lately through not being able to eat enough food. This is not the
fault of the food. It is my _mind_. You will be very sorry to hear,
dear grandmother, that I am a bankrupt. I hope you may never know what
it is to be one, for it is very terrible, especially if you are
honourable and honest, as I am, owing to the books you always give me so
very kindly at Christmas. To be a bankrupt is to be called upon at any
moment to have to pay something in the pound, and this is a dreadful
position, but even more dreadful in my case than in some others. For
instance, when dear father was bankrupted he paid something in the pound
and had plenty over for a bottle of champagne; but in my case _I have
not got the pound_.
"I don't mean, of course, my dear grannie, that I want anybody to _give_
me the pound; but the terrible thing is, I can't be a bankrupt without
it, and so really I don't know what will happen to me if I don't get it.
If by any wonderfully kind and lucky chance you could _lend_ me a pound,
my dreadful situation would, of course, improve at once, and I should,
no doubt, get fatter and cheerfuller in a few days; but as it is I lie
awake and sigh all night, and even wake chaps with the loudness of my
sighs, which fling things at me for keeping them awake. But I cannot
help it. I don't tell you these things to worry you, dear grannie, as
very likely you have worries of your own; but it would not be honest not
to tell you how very badly I want a pound just for the moment. There is
to be a meeting of my creditors in the gymnasium in a few days, and how
I am going to declare anything in the pound I don't know. It makes me
feel terribly _old_, and I have gone down several places in my class and
been _terribly caned_ by Dr. Dunstan. But nothing matters if I can
honourably get that pound. It would change the whole course of my life,
in fact. My beautiful bat has gone, you will be sorry to hear, owing to
a mortgage, and I hope you may never know what a mortgage is. I have to
borrow it now when I play cricket. But I am playing very badly this
term, because you cannot be in good form if the brain is worrying about
a pound. I shall lose my place in the second eleven, I expect. I have
missed several catches lately, and I fancy my _eyes_ are growing _dim
and old_, owing to being awake worrying so much at night about that
pound.
"Of course if you can give any sort of idea where I can get that pound I
shall be very thankful. Unfortunately, in this case, five shillings
would be no good, and even ten would be no good, strange though it may
seem. Only a pound is any use. I must now conclude, my dear grannie,
with best love and good wishes from your very affectionate grandson,
"ARTHUR MORTIMER BANNISTER.
"P.S.--Though all this fearful brain worry has thrown me back a lot in
class, still _my Scripture is all right_, and I shall be able to say the
Kings of Israel, either backwards or forwards, next holidays, in a way
that, I hope, will surprise you. I have been a good deal interested in
Gideon and the dew upon the fleece lately."
Well, I sent off this ripping letter, which was far, far the longest and
best I had ever written in my life; and before sending it I printed at
the top of each page, "Don't tell father," feeling that to be very
important. Then I waited and hoped that my grandmother would read the
letter in the way I meant her to, and great was my relief when I found
that she had. On the very morning of the meeting of creditors she wrote
a whacking long letter and sent a postal order for a pound; and the
letter I put away for future reading and the postal order I took to Mr.
Thwaites, who always changes postal orders into money for boys.
Me seemed surprised at the great size of the postal order, but gave me a
golden pound and told me to be careful of it. I was so excited that I
very nearly got kept in at morning school, but I escaped; and when the
time came I went to Gideon, and he walked up to the gym. with me to meet
the creditors.
*III*
Ten chaps were assembled for the bankruptcy, but I jolly soon cleared
out Stopford, because the sixpence he said I owed him had been paid at
the beginning of the term, and Westcott was able to prove it. So
Stopford went, but reluctantly. Steggles also went. He wanted me to
take back my mortgaged bat and owe him about six shillings instead, but,
knowing Steggles, I felt sure that something must have gone wrong with
the bat, and when I examined it, I found that it was so. In fact, the
bat was badly sprung; and Gideon said it was like Steggles, and a
beastly, paltry thing to try to do. So Steggles also went, and that
left eight fellows. These eight chaps were told to make their claims,
and when they had, Gideon made me examine them to see they were all
right. Only four claimed too much, and Mathers, who is an awfully
kind-hearted chap, claimed too little.
So I said, "I'm afraid I owe you one and nine, not one and three,
Mathers."
And he said, "That's all right. I knocked off a tanner when you won the
house match against Browne's a week ago." Which shows the sort of chap
that Mathers was.
I said, "Does anybody else feel inclined to knock off anything owing to
my winning the house match against Browne's?"
But nobody did, and seeing that five of the creditors actually belonged
to Browne's house I couldn't expect that they would.
"When you've admitted the claims," said Gideon, "I'll add them up
myself."
So I went through the claims and had to admit them all.