"Description of the fight between Foster and Saunders minor, written by
Lawrence Basil West, Esquire, Champion of the Lower School of Merivale,
and brother of Lieutenant Theodore Travers West, Middle-weight Boxing
Champion of the Army.
"The men came into the ring in pretty good condition, though Foster had
the advantage owing to Saunders minor getting a set back in his training
the day before the battle. The ring was cleared, and the combatants
shook hands for
"THE FIGHT.
"Round 1.--Some cautious sparring ended by Saunders letting fly with the
right and left, and missing with both. Foster then steadied his
antagonist with a light blow on the chest. More sparring followed,
then, with a round-arm blow, Saunders got home on Foster's ear, and the
men closed. They fell side by side, and on rising instantly prepared to
renew the battle; but as the round was over, the referee (Lawrence Basil
West, Esquire) ordered them to their corners.
"Round 2.--The men were very fresh and eager for business when time was
called. There was some good counter hits, and then Foster received a
prop on the nose which drew the claret. First blood for Saunders minor
claimed and allowed. The fighting became rather unscientific towards the
end of this round, and finally Foster closed and threw Saunders minor
with a cross-buttock. Both men were rather exhausted after this round.
"Round 3.--Foster, using his superior height, landed with his right on
Saunders minor's kisser. Then he repeated the dose, and in return caught
it on the left optic. Some good milling followed, with no advantage to
either side. Saunders minor got pepper towards the end of the round,
and when he was finally thrown, his seconds offered to carry him to his
corner; but he refused, and walked there.
"Round 4.--Foster came first to the scratch. Both cautious, and Saunders
minor very active on his trotters. But he gave some good blows, and
managed to hit Foster again on the left peeper. Foster in return landed
with the right on Saunders minor's smelling-bottle, and liberated a
plentiful supply of the ruby. A good round. At its conclusion,
Thwaites and Saunders minimus wanted Saunders minor to give in; but as
he was far from beaten, he very properly refused to do so.
"Round 5.--In this round Saunders minor was receiver general, and
received heavy punishment. It was claimed that Foster hit him a clean
knock-down blow, but the referee would not allow it. In the wrestle at
the close Saunders minor got the best of it, and fell on Foster, much to
Foster's surprise.
"Round 6.--Saunders minor was badly cut up in this round, and received
heavy blows on the potato trap and olfactory organs. The fighting was
very wild and unscientific, and both men fell exhausted towards the
finish.
"Round 7.--Nothing done. Both fell exhausted.
"Round 8.--Some good in-fighting. Saunders minor got his second wind,
and, making useful play with his left, landed on Foster's throat and his
right eye. It was nearly a case of shutters up with Foster. They fell
side by side with the ruby circulating freely. The sight of so much
gore upset Saunders minimus, and he had to leave the ensanguined field.
Fortescue took his place by permission of the referee. But the end was
now near at hand.
[Illustration: "THE FIGHTING WAS VERY WILD AND UNSCIENTIFIC."]
"Round 9.--Both very weak. Referee had to caution both combatants for
holding. Nothing much done, except that Saunders minor lost a tooth,
said to be loose before the fight.
"Round 10 (and last).--Foster came first to the scratch, and managed to
get home on Saunders minor's forehead and left aural appendage. Saunders
minor was almost too tired to put up his hands. He tried to fight, but
nature would not be denied, and Saunders minor fell in a very done-up
state. He was counted out by the referee, and Thwaites flung up
Saunders minor's sponge in token of defeat.
"When Foster discovered that he had won, he shed tears. But Saunders
minor, though defeated, was quite collected in his mind. The men then
shook hands and left the field with their friends.
"Remarks--
"We have seen better fights, and we have also seen worse ones. Foster
has some good useful blows, but he wants patience and practice. He is
not a born fighter, but might improve if he took pains. He had much the
best of it in height and weight, including age, being a good deal older
than his redoubtable antagonist. Though defeated, Saunders minor was by
no means disgraced. He put up a very good fight, and at one time looked
like winning; but luck was against him. Saunders minor, however, might
give a very good account of himself with a man of his own size, and we
hope soon to see him in the ring again. He has the knack of hitting
hard and getting away. He was very little marked at the end of the
battle, whereas his opponent's right eye will long bear the marks of his
prowess.
(Signed) "LAWRENCE BASIL WEST, Esquire,
"Referee."
I read this to Saunders minor, and he agreed with it all, except the bit
about being in the ring again soon. He assured me he did not care about
fighting in a general way, or want to live for it, like West and me, but
only now and again for some very special reason, as in the case of
Foster. At any rate, though the loser, he had done all he wanted to do,
and Foster had a caution of an eye that went on turning different
colours, like a firework, till the very end of the term.
Such a wonderful, bulgy and curious eye could not of course be
overlooked even by such a blind bat as old Briggs; and, needless to say,
Browne jolly soon saw it. Then the truth came out, and that was the end
of the Good Conduct Prize as far as Foster was concerned. He was
frightfully sick about it; and when it began to appear that owing to
these extraordinary things I, of all people, must get the Good Conduct
Prize, he was sicker still, and called it a burlesque of justice,
whatever that may be.
Anyway, it actually happened, and when prize day came, it was a clear
and evident thing that I, Thwaites, had got the Good Conduct Prize in
the third form. The Doctor began to read out the name; then, evidently
under the idea that he had got it wrong, stopped and whispered to Mr.
Warren, our form master; and Mr. Warren nodded, and the Doctor put on a
puzzled look. Then he dashed at it and read out my name, and I had to
go up and get the prize.
"A pleasing and unexpected circumstance, Geoffrey Thwaites," said the
Doctor. "To be frank, that you should achieve this palm of victory
causes me no little astonishment; but I can assure you that my surprise
is only equalled by my gratification. You have not forgotten what I
said to you last term, and I hope this satisfactory amelioration of
manners may, when we reassemble, be followed by a corresponding increase
of scholastic achievement. It will be no small gratification to your
father, Geoffrey Thwaites, to welcome you under these conditions,
instead of with the usual melancholy addition of a holiday punishment."
Then the Doctor picked up the Good Conduct Prize with a sort of
innocent, inquiring air that he always puts on when giving the prizes.
He pretends to be frightfully astonished at the beauty and magnificence
of each book in turn; which, considering he chooses them all himself, is
fearful bosh, and deceives nobody but a few mothers, who sometimes come
if their sons happen to have pulled off anything.
Now Dr. Dunstan picked up a tidy-looking book, as far as its outside was
concerned.
"What have we here?" he said, as if he had just found a bird's nest.
"Why, no less a classic than Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_! Fortunate
boy! Here, bound in scarlet and gold, and richly illustrated, is a copy
of that immortal work. Know, Thwaites, that in receiving the _Pilgrim's
Progress_ you become enriched by possession of one among the noblest and
most elevated and improving masterpieces in the English language. Take
it and read it again and again, my lad; and when you shall have mastered
it, lend it to those less fortunate, that they, too, may profit by the
wisdom and piety of these luminous pages."
Then the chaps clapped and stamped, and I bowed and took the book, and
shook hands with the Doctor and cleared out.
Needless to say, my father was even more astonished than Dr. Dunstan. I
came into his study to wish him good-evening when I got home, and he
said, "Well, boy, holidays again? How have you got on? Don't--don't
tell me there's any more trouble!"
"Far from it, father," I said. "I've got a prize."
"Good Heavens!" said my father. "You--a prize. What on earth for?"
"You mightn't think it, but for good conduct," I said.
"Good _what_?" cried out my father.
"Good conduct," said my mother. "I always told you there was a mistake.
A beautiful, expensive-looking book with his name in it, written by Dr.
Dunstan himself--the name I mean--not the book."
"Wonders never cease," said my father. Then he added, "Well done,
capital! I'm more pleased to hear this than you've any idea of. You
must keep it up through the holidays, though."
"If Saunders minor had won it, his father was going to give him a silver
watch and chain," I said, just to see how that would strike my father.
"No doubt Saunders minor's father felt perfectly safe," said my father.
Which shows how people misunderstand.
However, my father was jolly decent about it; and, in fact, so was
everybody.
My sister asked me if I should read the Good Conduct Prize.
"The pictures are ripping," she said. "Giants and all sorts of things."
"The pictures, as you say, are ripping," I told her; "but,
unfortunately, the story itself is far from ripping."
"How do you know if you haven't read it?" she said.
"By what the Doctor told me," I answered. "It is one of the noblest and
most improving masterpieces in the English language, so, needless to
say, I've got no use for it."
*TOMKINS ON 'TINNED COW'*
*No. XII*
*TOMKINS ON 'TINNED COW'*
Tin Lin Chow was his proper name, but we called him 'Tinned Cow,' though
he never much liked it, and said that his father would have made it hot
for us if we had been in China. But we were at Merivale School in
England, so we reckoned that Tinned Cow was near enough, that being good
English anyway.
The chap was exactly the same colour as the stomach of the guinea-pig of
Vincent Peters; and his father was allowed to wear a gold button in his
hat, so he said, that being a sign of a man who wrote books in China.
He wrote Chinese books for a living, and when we asked Tinned Cow if his
father could turn out stuff a patch on Henty or Mayne Reid, he said much
better. But he had to confess afterwards that his father was only doing
a history of China in a hundred volumes, or some such muck; so evidently
he was no real good, for all his gold button.
When the kid first came to learn English and get English ideas--owing to
his father having convinced himself that Chinese ideas were rotten--he
rather gave himself airs, and seemed to think because he was somebody at
Pekin he must be at Merivale; but the only person who made anything of
him was the Doctor. He used to bring everything round to China--even
arithmetic, and he evidently thought it was rather fine to have a
mandarin's son in the school. Especially as Tinned Cow had brothers
coming on, who might follow. What a mandarin is exactly, Tinned Cow
didn't know himself; but he seemed to think they were about equal to
dukes, which, of course, must be nonsense, because dukes can become
kings in time, whereas mandarins can't be emperors. In fact, the only
mandarins I ever heard of till then were oranges.
He was a frightful liar, but good as a maker of kites. And Browne, the
master in the lower fourth, said that both things were common to the
Chinese character. For mere lies we had Fowle and Steggles, and others,
even better than Tinned Cow, because his knowledge of English wasn't up
to lying without being found out for some terms; but at kites he could
smash anybody. His kites, in fact, were corkers, and he taught us to
kite-fight, which is not bad sport when there's nothing better on.
Chinese kites are very light, and all made of tissue-paper and cane, or
bamboo, split up fine. For a cane, Tinned Cow had the beautiful cheek
to go into Dr. Dunstan's study, when he was reading prayers in the
chapel, and rout about in the cane corner and steal a good specimen, and
hide it in the gym. That was the first thing that made me like the kid.
But he said it was nothing, and seemed surprised that I thought much of
it. He also said that over the pictures in a huge volume of Shakespeare
the Doctor had, was tissue-paper of such a choice kind that it must
undoubtedly be Chinese, and that, if so, it was the best in the world
for kites. He said that if I would allow him to be my chum, he would
get several sheets of this paper in a quiet moment, and make me the best
kite he had yet made. Well, I never guessed then what a Chinese kid
really is in the way of being a worm; so I agreed, provided he made two
kites and put my initials on them in silver paper from a packet of
chocolate--the initials, of course, being N.T. They stand for Norman
Tomkins--merely Tomkins now, but Tomkins major next term, when my young
brother comes to Merivale.
The chap was so frightfully keen to become my chum (my being captain of
the second footer eleven) that he agreed to the two kites without a
murmur, and stole the tissue paper and used the cane for the framework.
So, rather curiously, the tissue paper from a swagger Shakespeare and a
bit of one of old Dunstan's canes soared up to a frightful height over
the school; and it happened that the Doctor saw it, and, little dreaming
of what was soaring, patted Tinned Cow on the head, and greatly praised
him, and said that the art of kite-flying in China was tremendously
ancient, and that in the matter of kites, as well as many other more
important things, China had instructed the world. Yet, when Fuller tried
to sneak a quill pen for a private purpose, believing the Doctor was not
in the study at the time, whereas he had merely gone behind a screen to
find a book, Fuller got five hundred lines and the eighth Commandment to
translate into Latin and Greek, and French and German. Which shows that
to be found out is its own punishment, as Steggles told Fuller
afterwards.
Well, I let Tinned Cow be my chum, and found him fairly decent,
considering he was a Chinaman, for two terms. Then he began to settle
down and learn English and football, and say that Merivale was better by
long chalks than China. In fact, he rather hated China really, and
said, except for toys and sweets and fireworks, that England was really
far better. I may mention that his feet were small, but not like
pictures, and he said that only wretched girls had their feet squashed
in his country. He had a sister whose feet were squashed, and he said
that she was pretty, which must have been another lie, because pictures
show all Chinese women to be exactly and hideously all alike. But he
had to admit that English girls were prettier, because Trelawny made
him, and also said that he'd tattoo a lion and unicorn on the middle of
his chest if he didn't. So he yielded; in fact, he always yielded very
readily to force, though Fowle often tried, unknown to me, to arrange a
fight for him. He had no idea even of doubling a decent fist, and said
that only wild beasts fight without proper weapons. But once he took on
Bray with single-sticks, and they chose a half-holiday and went into the
wood by the cricket ground and fought well for two hours and a half; and
a bruise on a Chinese skin is very interesting to see. Bray turned
yellow, then blue, that deepened to black on the fourth day; but Tinned
Cow, from the usual putty-like tint of his body, went lead-colour where
Bray whacked his arm and leg. And Tinned Cow's bravery surprised me; but
it was a draw, and he assured me that he didn't care a bit about being
alive, and would have gone on hammering and being hammered until Bray
had killed him if necessary. He said that in his country, when two
chaps are going to fight, they begin by cutting frightful attitudes, and
standing in rum and awful positions, and sticking out their muscles and
making faces, like Ajax defying the lightning in the Dictionary of
Antiquities. This the idiots do, each hoping to terrify the other chap,
and funk him, and so defeat him without striking a blow. Tinned Cow
said that most battles were settled in this way; and once, when Martin
minimus called him a yellow weasel, he puffed out his cheeks and
frowned, as well as you can without eyebrows, and crooked his hands like
a bird's claws and tried to horrify Martin minimus, which he did; but it
was young Martin's first term, and the kid was barely eight years old.
Now I come to that little brute Milly Dunstan, the Doctor's youngest
daughter. She didn't care much about Tinned Cow at first, for she
always takes about three terms to see what a new chap's like; but after
the mandarin in China had sent Dr. Dunstan a gift of some rusty armour
and screens and old religious books--more like window-blinds than decent
books--and a live Chinese dog with a tongue like as if it had been
licking ink, then Milly, who's the greediest little hateful wretch, even
for a girl, I ever saw, suddenly dropped Blount, whose father was merely
a lawyer, and began to encourage Tinned Cow like anything. He didn't
understand her character as I and a few other chaps did. Bruce and
Mathers and Fordyce knew her real nature, because she had pretty well
absorbed all their pocket-money for term after term; and so I told
Tinned Cow that her blue eyes and curls and little silly ways generally
were simply a whitewashed sepulchre, and certainly wouldn't last longer
than a hamper from Pekin; which, I told him, he'd jolly soon find out.
But there's nothing so obstinate as the Chinese nation; and if she'd
asked him for his pigtail, I believe Tinned Cow would have chopped it
off for her, though he would not have dared to go home to his father
after that till he'd grown a new one.
It seemed rather a horrid thing, Mathers said, a Christian girl to
encourage a chap the colour of parsnips, not to mention his eyes, which
were like buttonholes; but that was only because Milly had chucked
Mathers; and we all knew what she really was; and, as Steggles said,
she'd have sacrificed her whole family for a new sort of lemon drop; and
of course when Tinned Cow found out how mad she was after sweets, he
wrote to China, to his mother, for the best sweets in Pekin; which she
sent. But while he was waiting for them, the Chinese dog got homesick,
or something, and bit the boot-boy and was poisoned painlessly. Still
Milly stuck to Tinned Cow, and walked openly about the playing-fields on
match-days with him. And silly grown-up women, little knowing the bitter
truth, said it was just like Dr. Dunstan's dear little girl to encourage
a poor lonely foreign kid; but we knew what she was encouraging him for
well enough.
In fact, Tinned Cow had translated part of his letter home to me. It
was in Chinese characters, and went down the paper instead of along, and
looked as if you'd dipped a grasshopper in ink and then put him out to
dry. But his mother evidently understood, and sent such sweets as were
never before sucked in England--since the Christian era very likely.
And Tinned Cow had also asked for one of his mother's precious rings for
Milly; but this he didn't much expect her to send; and she didn't. So
he bought Milly a ring from a proper ring-shop with three weeks'
pocket-money; which, seeing that he had the huge sum of five bob a week,
amounted to fifteen shillings; and it had a real precious stone in it,
though no one, not even Gideon, exactly knew what.
Anyway, Milly wore it at chapel, and flashed it at Tinned Cow when the
Doctor had his back turned saying the Litany. And Blount said the flash
of it was like a knife in his heart. Which shows what a footling ass
Blount was over this wretched girl. I warned Tinned Cow, all the same,
that he'd simply chucked fifteen bob away; because she'd change again
the moment his Chinese sweets were finished. And she never gave back
presents when she changed; as Millbrook had found to his cost, being an
awfully rich chap, who gave her a bracelet that cost one pound ten--so
he said. And when she threw him over and wouldn't give it up,
Millbrook, who was certainly rich but a frightful hound, went to the
Doctor. So he got his bracelet and left soon afterwards; and Milly, much
to her horror, was sent to a boarding school for a term or two. But
then old Dunstan, who is simply an infant in Milly's hands, gave way and
let her come home again because she cried over a letter and splashed it
with tears, or more likely common water, and told him that nobody in the
world could teach her Greek but him. Which shows the cunningness of her.
And many suchlike things she did.
Myself, though I despise all girls, I never hated one worse than this.
The best a girl can be at any time is harmless; but Milly Dunstan was
brimful of trickery, and, just because her eyes were accidentally blue,
thought she could score off everybody and everything. Not that she ever
scored off me. She knew that I barred her altogether, and scorned me in
consequence, and called me "Master Tomkins" to make me waxy, me being
only about four months younger than her.
She got his mother's pet name for him out of Tinned Cow, and called him
by it in secret. Not that I ever heard it, or wanted to. And she also
gave out that anybody calling him Tinned Cow any more would be her
enemy; and one or two chaps were feeble enough actually to stop.
She utterly wrecked his character. Before, he'd been as keen as knives
about sport and so on, and there is no doubt that he would have got into
the second footer team next term if Gregson minor had passed his exam.
for the army. But Milly Dunstan didn't care a straw about footer,
though she understood cricket fairly well for a girl; and so Tinned Cow,
like a fool, gave up all hope of getting on at footer, at which he
promised to be some use, and went in like mad for cricket, at which he
never could be any earthly good whatever. And that made another row,
because Milly promised to walk twice round old Dunstan's private garden
with Street, the captain of the third eleven (cricket), if he'd give
Tinned Cow a trial in an unimportant match; and Street said "Right."
And they went, during prep., and it happened that the Doctor, coming out
of his greenhouse, caught them; and Street got five hundred lines; which
naturally made him in such a bate, thinking it was a trap, that he
refused to try Tinned Cow for ever.
I'm sure I did all I could, for, though I'd lost any feeling for him
since he let this girl sit on him, still I was his chum once. And I
tried to save him, and asked him, many a time and oft, why he let
himself go dotty about a skimpy girl. And he said that it was her
skimpiness he liked, for she put him in mind of his sister--only his
sister was smaller, and, of course, had squashed feet. To see a girl
who can walk about seems to be a fearful treat to the Chinese; so what
they let theirs all squash their feet for, the Lord knows.
Tinned Cow confessed to me that Milly Dunstan was pretty sharp, and had
been reading up all about China in one of the Doctor's books. In fact,
he confessed also that she knew a lot more about China in general than
he did. And some things she liked, and some she hated; and especially
the marriage customs she hated; and she told Tinned Cow that unless he
let her father marry them in a proper Christian church when the time
came, it was off. So he promised; and he also promised, though very
reluctantly, not to say a word about it to Dr. Dunstan until he got to
be head of the sixth and the school. But he knew that at the rate he
was going, he would never get there till he was at least fifty years
old. And sons of mandarins marry very early indeed in their own
country, so he said--as soon as they like, in fact--so Tinned Cow
promised about getting to the top of the sixth reluctantly. Then he
took to working and swatting; yet all his swatting only got him into the
lower fourth in three terms. Then, seeing what a lot it meant getting
into the sixth, and what a frightful hard thing it was, especially for a
foreigner, to do it, Tinned Cow fell back upon the customs of his
country; and his methods of cribbing were certainly fine and new. But
they couldn't get him into the sixth, let alone to the top of it; and he
tried still other Chinese customs in an arithmetic exam, and attempted
to bribe Mr. Thwaites with four weeks' pocket-money--a pound, in
fact--if he would arrange to let him get enough marks to go up a form.
Of course, everybody knew that Mr. Thwaites had a wife and hundreds of
small children at Merivale, and, though a sixteenth wrangler in olden
times, was at present frightfully hard up. But what is a paltry pound
to a sixteenth wrangler? Anyway Mr. Thwaites raged with great
fierceness and took Tinned Cow to the Doctor; and as the Doctor hates
strategy of this kind, he made it jolly hot for Tinned Cow and flogged
him pretty badly. I asked if it hurt, being the first time the Doctor
had ever flogged him, and he said the only thing that hurt was the
horrid feeling that he'd offered too little to Thwaites. He said that in
his country, and especially among mandarins, offering too little was
almost as great a crime as offering too much, and that he deserved to be
flogged on the feet as well as elsewhere. He said that his father was
such a good judge of people that he always offered just the right sum;
and he felt certain that in the case of Thwaites not a penny less than
ten pounds ought to have been offered. It was the well-known
hard-upishness of Thwaites that made him think a pound would do; but
now, seeing what a little way money seemed to go with a man, he felt
about the only chap within reach of being bribed was the drill sergeant;
and of course he couldn't help Tinned Cow to get into the sixth.
Besides, the drill sergeant had fought in China in his early days, and
he had a sort of warlike repugnance against Tinned Cow that would have
taken at least several pounds to get over.
So things went on until the arrival of the sweets from China; and they
were all right, though Tinned Cow told me that Milly wasn't as keen
about them as he expected, or at any rate she pretended not to be. The
truth is that some of the very swaggerest Chinese sweets take nearly a
lifetime thoroughly to like; and by the time that Milly began to feel
the remarkable splendour of this sort, she'd finished them. However,
she was fairly just--for her, and didn't throw the beggar over before
the taste of the last sweet was out of her mouth, as you might have
expected. In fact, she kept friendly for a matter of several weeks; and
then she began to get rather sick of his Chinese ways--so she said--and
cool off towards him, even though in his despair he promised to become a
Christian and get her idols and fireworks and many other curiosities
that probably wouldn't have been sent even if he'd written home for
them.
But Chinese chaps have quite different ideas to English chaps, owing to
their bringing-up; and things we utterly bar and consider caddish, such
as sneaking, a Chinese chap will do freely without the least idea he is
making a beast of himself. I didn't know this, or else I should never
have allowed Tinned Cow to be my chum, but at last I discovered the
fatal truth; and the worst of it was that he sneaked against my
bitterest enemy, called Forrester, thinking that he was doing a right
and proper thing towards me.
This chap Forrester I hated for many reasons, but chiefly because he'd
beaten me, by about ten marks only, in a Scripture exam, owing to
knowing the names of the father and mother of Moses, which are not
generally known. I always had a fixed idea, funnily enough, that Moses
was the son of Pharaoh's daughter; and I said so, and I added, as a
shot--for shots often come off, though they are dangerous--that Holy
Writ was quite silent concerning the father of Moses. And the Doctor
frightfully hates a shot that misses, so I had to write out the whole
business of Moses fifty times, till I was sick of the very name of the
man; whereas Forrester won the prize. Well, this Forrester kept
sardines in his desk and ate them freely during Monsieur Michel's class.
But one tin, already opened, he forgot for several weeks, owning to its
getting hidden behind his paint-box and caterpillar cage. And these
sardines--being rather doubtful of them when he found them again--he
gave to Milly Dunstan's Persian kitten; and Tinned Cow saw him do it.
Well, the kitten showed that Forrester was quite right to be doubtful
about the sardines by dying. It disappeared from that very hour, and
was believed to have gone next door to die, as cats are generally very
unwilling to die in their own homes, and always go next door to do so,
curious to say. And Milly was in an awful bate when Tinned Cow told
her, thinking it would please me; whereas, if anything could have made
me get friends with Forrester again, it would have been to know he'd got
this terrific score off Milly Dunstan. But her rage against Forrester
was pretty frightful--especially, she said, because a boy whose strong
point was Scripture could have done this thing; and she made Tinned Cow
tell the Doctor; and such was his piffling weakness where she was
concerned, that he did. But old Dunstan, who hated cats, and did not
mind the kitten going in the least, said it was a case of circumstantial
evidence--whatever that is--and the proofs of the cat's death were too
slight, seeing the body couldn't be found, and also remembering a cat's
power of eating sardines, even when a bit off. Then he turned against
Tinned Cow, and told him that the character of an informer ill became
any pupil of Dunstan's, and that to try and undo a fellow-student might
be Oriental but was far from English, and so on--all in words that you
can find in dictionaries, but nowhere else that I ever heard of.
Which showed the Doctor wasn't so keen about Tinned Cow as he used to
be; and that was chiefly because Tinned Cow's younger brother was not
coming to be educated in England after all, as Dr. Dunstan had hoped,
but was going to Germany instead.
Anyway, when it was found out that Tinned Cow was a sneak--by birth, as
you might say--chaps naturally flung him over; and Maynard refused to
let the kid fag for him any more; and I, of course, told him that I was
no longer his chum. He made a frightful fuss about this, and implored me
to go on being his chum, and offered me a Chinese charm that had
undoubtedly been the eye of a Buddhist idol in its time; but he was such
an utter worm, and took such a Chinese view of things, that I had to
refuse the charm and let him go. He was frightfully down about it, and
slunk about in corners and offered to make kites for the smallest kids
in the school--simply that he might have somebody friendly to him.
Then, when I think he was beginning to change his mind about England
being better than China, the last straw came in the shape of a new boy
called Vernon Vere--a chap of a good age--sixteen at least. He was the
nephew of a viscount, or a marquis, or some such person, and he
explained that with any luck he would be a marquis himself some day,
because his only brother, though older, having shaky lungs, for which he
was in the Canary Islands at that moment, might pass away and lose his
turn.
I heard what followed from Corkey minimus, who was Milly's spy and
carrier, for which he got a peach from the Doctor's orchard-house now
and again in summer; but only ones that fell off. He told me that Milly
received no less than three letters from Vernon Vere before he'd been at
Merivale a month. And the third she answered.
So we knew that Tinned Cow was done for; and very soon he found it out
himself, and then he turned several shades yellower and moped in the
gymnasium for hours together, and lost all hope of doing any good at
work, and sank down to the bottom of the lower fourth and spent all his
spare time doing impositions. He went about like a dog that's
frightened of being kicked; and many chaps did kick him, out of sheer
cheerfulness, because he seemed as if he only wanted a kick to complete
the picture. Then, one day, very civilly, he asked Freckles for his
celebrated bowie-knife, that he goes bush-ranging with on half-holidays,
and Freckles very kindly lent it, after Tinned Cow had promised not to
cut anything harder than wood with it. Then Tinned Cow thanked him and
went into the gym., saying that he only wanted to cut something soft.
He didn't come back, and when the bell rang, Freckles and I--he being
rather anxious about his bowie-knife--went up to the gym. to see what
Tinned Cow was after. Suddenly Freckles shouted out from the
shower-bath room, and, hearing him yell, I rushed in. And there was the
wretched Tinned Cow in a most horrible mess. He'd taken off his shirt
and given himself a dig in the ribs, or possibly two, and he was lying
in a comfortable position bleeding to death. At least, so he hoped; and
he begged us earnestly to mind our own business and leave him to 'salute
the world,' as he said, without any bother. But we hooked it for
Thwaites and Browne and Mannering; and they came and carried him in; and
ruined their clothes with Chinese gore.
Of course we all thought Tinned Cow was booked, and Freckles, knowing
the deadly sharpness of his knife, said the kid must kick to a certainty
if he'd used the knife with proper care. Yet, strange to relate, he
didn't die, but lived; which seemed to show that the knife of Freckles
wasn't nearly such a fine one as he fancied. But he said that it only
showed Tinned Cow had lost his nerve, and funked what he was doing at
the critical moment.
Two mornings afterwards Dr. Dunstan told us all about it after prayers.
"This unhappy Asiatic," he said, "this young Celestial, from the pagan
fastnesses of his native land, despite months not a few of tuition in
this our manly and civilized atmosphere of Merivale, has relapsed upon
the degraded and barbaric customs of a great but benighted country--a
proof of the natural cowardice and baseness of the human heart when
unillumined by the light of Christianity. The vain folly, which led him
to his rash act is not for your ears. Let it suffice that Tin Lin Chow
in a fit of mental infirmity, not to say active insanity, sought to
deliver himself from imaginary miseries by the act of
self-destruction--the 'hari-kari,' or 'happy dispatch,' as we translate
it, of the Chinese. Thanks to fear at the crucial moment, or an
ignorance of his own anatomy, or, as we should rather believe, the
direct interposition of a merciful Providence that still has work for
him to do, Tin Lin Chow failed of his fearful project and is now out of
danger. For the rest, I may inform you that your comrade, when fit to
travel, will return to his native land, and I can only hope and pray
that the traditions of Merivale, its teaching and its tone, will cleave
to him and leave their mark upon his character."
Of course the thing that was not for our ears was the reason why this
little Chinese idiot had tried to kill himself. And that was because
Milly Dunstan and everybody else had chucked him, but especially Milly.
Anyway, his vitals healed up in a fortnight, and after six weeks or so
had passed by, he was back at school again. But only for a few days.
Then a ship sailed from London for China and, as Steggles very truly
said, the only 'happy dispatch' that Tinned Cow got was a dispatch back
to his native land. And probably he liked it better than England, when
all was said and done; because the schools out there have got no sixth
forms, so he told us. Therefore he'll be all right very likely--and
live to thank his stars that he didn't kill himself after all. Though
myself, I think he honestly tried and the fault was in the knife.
Still, after two such sickening failures--I mean Milly Dunstan, and the
attempt to hari-kari himself--I expect the kid won't ever want to make
friends with girls again, or try to gash open his stomach, but just lead
an ordinary sort of life without fuss, like other people do.
I made it up with him in a sort of way after his attempt to kill himself
failed; and he explained to me how he ought to have done it; but the
details were no use to me, because I wouldn't do it myself for all the
girls in the world. Then Tinned Cow left, and he seemed sorry to go at
the last moment; and he promised to send me some chopsticks and some
chrysanthemum and other flower seeds of beautiful plants--knowing how
frightfully keen I was about flowers--and materials for birds'-nest soup
and other interesting things. But he never sent one of them; and I
never thought he would, and didn't count upon it in the least, because,
once back in his own country, where everybody tells lies from morning
till night, simply from the habit of centuries and centuries, owing to
China being the birthplace of civilization, you couldn't expect the
beggar to keep his word.
And I expect nobody in this country will ever hear of him again. Not
that that matters. But if I ever go to China, which I very likely shall
do when I have time, I may look him up, I think--just to see if he got
any good from coming over here. But I shouldn't think he really did.