THE GOLDEN AGE
I
PHILIP'S life during the next ten years resembled All Gaul. It was spent
partly at a little house in Cheltenham, whither Uncle Joseph, with all
his old austerity and cynicism thawed out of him, had conducted the
Beautiful Lady two months after their marriage; partly at Red Gables;
and partly at a series of educational establishments, ranging from a
private school in the neighborhood of St. Albans, where he was initiated
into the mysteries of Latin Prose and cricket, to the great engineering
shops of the Britannia Motor Company at Coventry.
Life at Red Gables was a very pleasant business. Philip's duties as
secretary were of an elastic nature. Sometimes he wrote out cheques for
tradesmen and coaxed Mr. Mablethorpe into signing them. Sometimes he
battled with publishers about copyrights and royalties. Sometimes he
acknowledged the receipt of the letters--chiefly from seminaries for
young ladies--of those who wrote to express their admiration of Mr.
Mablethorpe's works.
"I suppose, Philip," said Mr. Mablethorpe one morning, ruefully
surveying a highly scented missive in a mauve envelope, forwarded by his
publishers, "that my books _are_ read by other people besides
schoolgirls; but why in Heaven's name should no one else ever write to
me about them? Not that I want any one to write at all,--the penny post
is the curse of modern civilization,--but I could do with a touch of
variety now and then. I have only once in my life received a letter, as
an author, from a man, and that was from a pork-butcher in the north of
England, who wrote to point out, most helpfully and sensibly, that I was
guilty of a technical error in making my hero purchase both kidneys and
bacon at the same shop. I should like to get a lot of letters like that:
they are extremely valuable. But what _do_ I get? Letters by the score
from schoolgirls--sometimes from a syndicate of schoolgirls--all asking
for my autograph and endeavouring to find out, by more or less
transparent devices, how old I am and whether I am married or not! You
can't choke them off. If you don't answer they write again, enclosing a
stamped envelope, which hangs round your neck like a millstone for
weeks. If you do, they tell all the other girls, and before you know
where you are you find you have tapped Niagara. Let us see what Zenana
has found me out now."
He opened the mauve envelope, and read the letter with savage grunts.
"This, Philip," he said, "is from Gwendoline Briggs and Clara Waddell.
You will be interested to hear that they sit up reading my innocuous
works in the dead of night, after the other girls have gone to sleep.
Well, I hope the Head Mistress catches them at it, that's all!... Here
you are: what did I tell you?
... _We often wonder what you are like. One of us thinks you are
about forty, with rather tired grey eyes_--
"Impudent minx!
--_but the other thinks you are much younger than that;
clean-shaven, with a very firm mouth_.
"This sort of thing makes me quite sick.... Yes, I thought as much; they
want my autograph.
_Will you please send two, please, as we are not sisters--only
great chums._
"Where do these brats hail from?" Mr. Mablethorpe turned back the page
and consulted the heading of the letter.
"_Bilchester Abbey School, Bilchester, Hants._ That's a new name to me.
Throw over that directory, Philip: on the third shelf, to your right.
Let me see: _Founded, 1897. Governing Body: the Lord Bishop of_----quite
so: _Head Mistress, Miss_----yes, yes: _Assistant Mistresses_--never
mind them: _Gravel soil; Gymnasium; Altitude, four hundred_--Ah, here we
are:--_Number of Pupils, two hundred and seventy-three!_ Great Heavens!
This must be stopped. Get the typewriter quickly, Philip, and take down
something!
_Mr. Julius Mablethorpe regrets deeply that he is unable to
accede to the request of Mesdames Briggs and Waddell for his
autograph. Mr. Mablethorpe had the misfortune some years ago to
be deprived of the use of his hands (owing to an explosive
fountain-pen), and now finds himself compelled to dictate all
his work into a gramophone. Mr. Mablethorpe is seventy-eight
years of age, and is still in possession of a fair proportion of
his faculties. His eyes used to be grey, as Miss Briggs (or
was it Miss Waddell?) surmises; but he now possesses only one,
having lost the other while on a visit to a Dorcas Society,
together with a portion of his scalp. He has been married four
times, and possesses sixty-nine grandchildren, reckoning
thirteen to the dozen. For further details see "Who's Who."_
"That ought to choke them off," observed Mr. Mablethorpe with childish
satisfaction, as he finished dictating this outrageous document. "Now,
what about this grubby epistle here? It does not smell so vilely as the
first, but I bet it is from another of the tribe."
He began to read:--
_Dear Mr. Mablethorpe_
_All your books are in our House Library--_
He broke off.
"I tell you what it is, Philip," he said. "I shall have to write a
really shocking novel--something unspeakably awful. Then I shall be
banned from girls' schools for ever. My circulation will probably go
down by ninety per cent, but it will be well worth it.
_My name is Elsie Hope, and I love them all. I have no father or
mother, and I have just read a story of yours about a little
girl who had no father or mother either. It made me cry._
"Snivelling brat!" commented the unfeeling author.
_I have not been here very long, and I do not know many of the
girls yet, so your books make splendid company. I thought I
would like to tell you. Good-bye._
"Gracious!" said Mr. Mablethorpe incredulously. "She hasn't asked for my
autograph! Hello, what's this?"
He turned over the page. The letter continued, in a different
handwriting--prim, correct, and formal:--
_Elsie has gone to bed. I found her writing this letter, and she
showed it to me quite frankly. As the child seemed really eager
to write to you, I have undertaken to finish her letter and
explain the circumstances. I feel sure you will understand, and
pardon the liberty. Do not trouble to reply._
_Yours faithfully_
_Ellen Wardale._
Mr. Mablethorpe laid down the letter.
"Ellen Wardale is a good sort," he said. "As for Elsie Hope, she has not
asked me to write to her, so I shall do so. Now, Philip, get out "The
Lost Legacy," and we will have a go at Chapter Fourteen. It is going to
be a difficult bit. The hero, who is the greatest nincompoop that I have
yet created, finds himself suspected by the heroine of having
transferred his affections to another lady. (Between ourselves, it would
have been a very sensible thing if he had done so, but, of course, he is
incapable of such wisdom.) As the story is not half over, we can't
afford to get him out of the mess just yet; so this morning I want him
to make an even greater ass of himself than before, and so prolong the
agony to eighty thousand words. Here goes!"
After this they would work steadily until lunchtime.
II
Philip had other duties to perform. He attended to the wants of
Boanerges, and in time reduced that unreliable vehicle to quite a
surprising degree of docility.
He became gradually infected with the Romance of our mechanical age. He
saw himself, a twentieth-century Galahad, roaming through the land in a
hundred-horse-power armoured car, seeking adventure, repelling his
country's invaders, carrying despatches under cover of night, and
conveying beauteous ladies to places of safety. He spent much of his
spare time seated upon the garden wall, watching for the motors that
whizzed north and south along the straight white road. (It is
regrettable to have to record that many of these disregarded Dumps's
notice-board.) He saw poetry in the curve of a radiator, and heard music
in the whirring of a clutch.
One day, in an expansive moment, he confided these emotions to Mr.
Mablethorpe. That many-sided man did not laugh, as Philip had
half-feared he would, but said:--
"_Romance brought up the nine-fifteen_--eh? I must introduce you to a
kindred spirit."
And he led Philip to a shelf filled with a row of books. Some were bound
in dark blue, and consisted mainly of short stories; the others, smaller
and slimmer, were dark red, and contained poetry.
"There," said Mr. Mablethorpe, "are the works of the man whom I regard
as the head of our profession. Wire in!"
Philip spent the next three days learning "MacAndrew's Hymn" by heart.
There were many other books in the library, upon which Philip browsed
voraciously. Uncle Joseph's selection of literature had been a little
severe, but here was far richer fare. Philip discovered a writer called
Robert Louis Stevenson, but though he followed his narratives
breathlessly found him lacking in feminine interest. The works of Jules
Verne filled him with rapture; for their peculiar blend of high
adventure and applied science was exactly suited to his temperament. He
had other more isolated favourites--"The Wreck of the Grosvenor"; "Lorna
Doone"; "The Prisoner of Zenda"; and "To Have and to Hold," which latter
he read straight through twice. But he came back again and again to the
shelf containing the red and blue volumes, and the magician who dwelt
therein never failed him. There were two fascinating stories called "The
Ship that Found Herself," and ".007." After reading these Philip ceased
to regard Boanerges as a piece of machinery; he endowed him with a soul
and a sense of humour. There was a moving tale of love and work called
"William the Conqueror"; there was a palpitating drama of the sea called
"Bread upon the Waters"; and there was one story which he read over and
over again--it took his thoughts back in some hazy fashion to Peggy
Falconer and Hampstead Heath--called "The Brushwood Boy."
Only one book upon this shelf failed to please him. It was a complete
novel, and dealt with a love affair that went wrong and never came
right. The hero, a cantankerous fellow, became blind, and the unfeminine
independent heroine never knew, so went her own way and left him to die.
This tragic tale haunted Philip's dreams. It shocked his innate but
unconscious belief in the general tendency of things to work together
for good. He considered that the author should have compelled these two
wrong-headed people to "make allowances for one another," and so come
together at the last. He even took the opinion of Mr. Mablethorpe on the
subject. Mr. Mablethorpe said:--
"His best book, Philip. But--I read it less than any of the others."
Then he introduced Philip to "Brugglesmith," and the vapours were blown
away by gusts of laughter.
III
Philip's orthodox education was not neglected. After a year's attendance
as a day-boy at the establishment near St. Albans he was sent to
Studley, a great public school in the south of England.
Here many things surprised him.
Having spent most of his life in the company of grown men, he
anticipated some difficulty in rubbing along with boys of his own age.
Master Philip at this period of his career was surprisingly grownup: in
fact he was within a dangerously short distance of becoming a prig. But
he went to school in time. In three weeks the latent instincts of
boyhood had fully developed, and Philip played Rugby football, indulged
in unwholesome and clandestine cookery, rioted noisily when he should
have been quiescent, and generally tumbled in and out of scrapes as
happily and fortuitously as if he had been born into a vigorous family
of ten.
He achieved a respectable position for himself among his fellows, but
upon a qualification which would have surprised an older generation. The
modern schoolboy is essentially a product of the age he lives in, and
the gods he worships are constantly adding to their number. Of what does
his Pantheon consist? Foremost, of course, comes the athlete. He is a
genuine and permanent deity. His worshippers behold him every day,
excelling at football and cricket, lifting incredible weights in the
dormitory before going to bed, or running a mile in under five minutes.
His qualifications are written on his brow, and up he goes to the
pinnacle of Olympus, where he endures from age to age. Second comes the
boy whose qualifications are equally good, but have to be accepted to a
certain extent upon hearsay--the sportsman. A reputed good shot or
straight rider to hounds is admitted to Olympus _ex officio_, and is
greatly in request, in the role of Sir Oracle, during those interminable
discussions--corresponding to the symposia in which those of riper years
indulge in clubs and mess-rooms--which invariably arise when the rank
and file of the House are assembled round a common-room fire, in the
interval, say, between tea and preparation.
There are other and lesser lights. The wag, for instance. The scholar,
as such, has no seat in the sun. His turn comes later in life, when the
athletes are licking stamps and running errands.
But the Iron Age in which we live has been responsible for a further
addition to the scholastic aristocracy--the motor expert. A boy who can
claim to have driven a Rolls-Royce at fifty miles an hour is accorded a
place above the salt by popular acclamation. No one with any claim to
social distinction can afford to admit ignorance upon such matters as
high-tension magnetos and rotary valves. The humblest fag can tell at a
glance whether a passing vehicle is a Wolseley or a Delaunay Belleville.
Science masters, for years a despised--or at the best a tolerated--race,
now achieve a degree of popularity and respect hitherto only attainable
by Old Blues, because they understand induced currents and the mysteries
of internal combustion. Most curious portent of all, a boy in the Lower
School, who cannot be trusted to work out a sum in simple arithmetic
without perpetrating several gross errors, and to whom physics and
chemistry, as such, are a sealed book entitled "Stinks," will solve in
his head, readily and correctly, such problems as relate to
petrol-mileage or the ratio of gear-wheels, and remedy quite readily and
skilfully the ticklish troubles that arise from faulty timing-wheels and
short circuits.
It was upon these qualifications that Philip originally obtained
admission to the parliament which perennially fugged and argued around
the fire on winter evenings. It was true that he had never been fined
for exceeding the speed limit in Hyde Park, like Ashley major, nor been
run into in the Ripley Road, like Master Crump; but his technical
knowledge was very complete for a boy of his age; and being an admirable
draughtsman, he could elucidate with paper and pencil mysteries which
both he and his audience realised could not be explained by the English
language.
In time, too, he became a fair athlete. Cricket he hated, but he
developed into a sturdy though clumsy forward at football; and his
boxing showed promise. His speciality was the strength of his wrist and
forearm. On gala nights, when the prefects had been entertaining a guest
at tea,--an old boy or a junior master,--Philip, then a lusty fag rising
sixteen, was frequently summoned before the quality, to give his
celebrated exhibition of poker-bending.
Having discovered that the boys at Studley were much more grown-up than
he had expected, Philip was not altogether surprised to find that some
of the masters were incredibly young--not to say childish. There was Mr.
Brett, his Housemaster. Mr. Brett was a typical product of a great
system--run to seed. British public schools are very rightly the glory
of those who understand them, but they are the despair of those who do
not. Generally speaking, they produce a type of man with no special
propensities and consequently no special fads. He has been educated on
stereotyped and uncommercial lines. He is not a specialist in any branch
of knowledge. His critics say that he is unfitted for any profession;
that he cannot write a business letter; that he is frequently incapable
of expressing himself in decent English. But--public-school tradition
has taught him to run straight and speak the truth. The fagging system
has taught him to obey an order promptly. The prefectorial system has
taught him to frame an order and see that it is carried out. Games have
taught him to play for his side and not for himself. The management of
games has instilled into him the first principles of organisation and
responsibility. Taking him all round, he is the very man we want to run
a half-educated empire.
Possibly these truths had been known to Mr. Brett in his early days.
But, as already stated, his principles had run to seed. In the vegetable
world,--of which schoolmasters are dangerously prone to become
distinguished members,--whenever judicious watering and pruning are
lacking, time operates in one of two ways. A plant either withers and
wilts, or it shoots up into a monstrous and unsightly growth. In Mr.
Brett's intellectual arboretum every shrub had wilted save two--Classics
and cricket. These twain, admirable in moderation, had grown up like
mustard trees, and now overshadowed the whole of Mr. Brett's mental
outlook. In his House he devoted his ripe scholarship and untiring care
exclusively to boys who were likely to do well in the Sixth: his
mathematicians and scientists were left to look after themselves. French
and German he openly described as "a sop to the parental Cerberus." His
Modern-Side boys forgave the slight freely--in fact, they preferred it;
and their heavily supervised classical brethren envied them their
freedom. But cricket was a different matter. Mr. Brett had probably
begun by regarding Classics as the greatest intellectual, and cricket as
the greatest moral, stimulus in the schoolboy world--a common, and, on
the whole, perfectly tenable, attitude of mind. But by the time that
Philip came under his charge it is greatly to be feared that he regarded
both as nothing more than a means to an end--Classics as an avenue to
Scholarships and House advertisement, cricket as an admirable instrument
wherewith to lacerate the feelings of other Housemasters.
Cricket was rather overdone at Studley in those days. There were cricket
leagues and cricket cups innumerable. Play was organised exactly like
work: the control of their pastimes was taken from the hands of the boys
themselves and put into the hands of blindly enthusiastic masters.
Masters flocked on to the field every afternoon and bowled remorselessly
at every net. Healthy young barbarians who did not happen to possess any
aptitude for cricket, and whose only enjoyment of the game lay in the
long handle and blind swiping, were compelled to spend their allotted
ten minutes standing in an attitude which made it impossible for them to
slog the ball, listening giddily the while to impassioned harangues upon
the subject of playing forward and keeping a straight bat. Cricket, thus
highly officialized, soon began to be accepted by the boys as a mere
extension of school routine; and being turned from play to work was
treated by them as they treated Caesar and Euclid--that is to say, they
did just as much as they were compelled to do and no more. But their
enthusiastic preceptors took no account of this. They glowed internally
to think how unselfishly they were devoting their spare time to
improving the standard of school cricket,--as, indeed, they were,--and
cementing the _entente cordiale_ between master and boy,--as most
assuredly they were not. It did not occur to them that it is possible to
have too much of a good thing. Nine boys out of ten would have been
grateful enough for half an hour's coaching a week; but to be compelled
to spend every afternoon repressing one's natural instincts, debarred,
by that unwritten law which decrees that no boy may address his fellows
with any degree of familiarity in the presence of a master, from
exchanging the joyous but primitive repartees and impromptus of the
young, struck the most docile Studleian as "a bit too thick."
Worse still, these excellent men quarrelled among themselves as to the
respective merits of their pupils. Many a humble fag, contentedly
supping off sweet biscuits and contraband sardines in the privacy of his
study, would have been amazed (and greatly embarrassed) if he had known
that his merits as a leg-break bowler were being maintained or denied
with the utmost vehemence over Common Room port by two overheated
graduates of Oxford University. Housemasters plotted and schemed to have
the dates of matches put forward or set back, in order that some star
performer of their own, at present in the sick-house or away at a
funeral, might be enabled to return in time to take part in the fray.
Elderly gentlemen who ought to have known better rose straight from
their knees after evening prayers and besought their pupils to make runs
for the honour of the House.
Into this strange vortex the unsuspecting Philip found himself whirled.
His first term was comparatively normal. He went to Studley in January,
and being, as already recorded, a healthy young animal, soon found his
place among his fellows. Of Mr. Brett he could make little or nothing.
He was by reason of his training in many ways a grown-up boy. There were
times when the cackle of the House Common Room bored him, at which he
would have enjoyed a few minutes' conversation with an older man--say
upon the morning's news, or some book recently disinterred from the top
shelf of the House library. But intercourse with his Housemaster was not
for him. Mr. Brett, finding that Philip knew little Latin and no Greek,
had dismissed him abruptly to the Modern Side, as one of that noxious
but necessary band of pariahs whose tainted but necessary contributions
make it possible for the elect to continue the pursuit of Classics. As
for Philip's football promise, it was nothing to Mr. Brett. This most
consistent of men considered the worship of football "a fetish."
All hope of further intimacy between this antagonistic pair ended during
the following summer term, when to Philip's unutterable amazement, Mr.
Brett declined to speak to him for the space of three days, because
Philip, by inadvertently running out the most promising batsman on his
side in the course of a Junior House League match, had deprived Mr.
Brett of a possible two points out of the total necessary to secure the
Junior House Cricket Cup. The incident did not disturb Philip's peace of
mind to any extent. It merely crystallised his opinion of his
Housemaster. He possessed a large measure of his uncle's gift of terse
summarisation of character.
"This chap," he observed to himself, "is the most almighty and
unutterable sweep in the scholastic profession, besides being a silly
baby. I must turn him down, that's all."
Henceforward Philip went his own way. He met his Housemaster but seldom,
for he was naturally excluded from such unofficial hospitalities as
Sunday breakfasts and half-holiday teas. Neither did the two come into
official collision, for Philip was a glutton for work and reached the
top of the Modern Side by giant strides. The only direct result of their
strained relations was that Philip was not made a prefect when the time
came. Mr. Brett could not reconcile his conscience to placing in a
position of authority a boy who was neither in Classic nor a cricketer,
who was lacking in _esprit-de-corps_, and made a fetish of football and
science.
But Philip was contented enough. True, he could not take his meals at
the high table, neither could he set fags running errands for him, but
he possessed resources denied to most boys. He became the devoted
disciple of one of the junior Science masters, Mr. Eden, who, almost
delirious with joy at having discovered a boy who loved Science for its
own sake and not merely because the pursuit thereof excused him from
Latin Verse, took Philip to his bosom. Under his direction Philip read
widely and judiciously, and was permitted in fulness of time to embark
upon "research work"--that is, to potter about the laboratory during his
spare hours and make himself familiar with the use and manipulation of
every piece of apparatus that he encountered.
He had his friends in the House, too. There was Desborough, a big lazy
member of the Fifth, the son of an Irish baronet, much more interested
in sport than games, though he was a passable enough athlete. Desborough
disliked the rigidity of Mr. Brett's regime, and pined occasionally for
the spacious freedom of his country home, with its dogs and guns by day,
and bridge and billiards in the evening. Then there was Laird, a Scot of
Scots, much too deeply interested in the question of his future career
as a Cabinet Minister to suffer compulsory games and unprofitable
conversation with any degree of gladness. And there was Lemaire, the
intellectual giant of the House, who, though high up in the Sixth, was
considered by Mr. Brett to have forfeited all right to a position of
authority among his fellows by having been born into the world with a
club foot. But though he could play no games, Lemaire exacted more
respect and consideration from the House than Mr. Brett dreamed of, for
he possessed a quick wit and a blistering tongue.
It was with these three that Philip foregathered during his later years
at school. The Quartette, as they were called, resembled second-year
undergraduates rather than third-year schoolboys in their attitude to
life and their methods of recreation. Being endowed with no authority
they escaped the obsession of responsibility which lies so heavily upon
the shoulders of youthful officialdom, and they conformed to the rules
of the House and School with indulgent tolerance, observing the spirit
rather than the letter of the law. Which was just as well, for boys in
their position could have done incalculable harm had they felt so
disposed. The prefects were secretly afraid of them, and left them to
themselves. The House as a whole venerated them, especially Philip and
Desborough, and would gladly have been admitted to greater intimacy. But
the Quartette would have none of them. They preferred to hold aloof from
the turbulent _camaraderie_ of the Common Room and congregate in one or
other of their studies, where it was rumoured that they talked politics.
But rumour was wrong, or at any rate only partially in possession of the
facts, as you shall hear.
IV
The Studley masters were not a particularly gregarious body. The Head
lived in secluded state with his wife and four daughters in his official
residence on the north side of the Close, emerging periodically to
overawe the Sixth, preach in Chapel, or discharge a thunderbolt in Big
School. The Housemasters dwelt severally in their own strongholds,
thanking Heaven that their Houses were not as other Houses were; and the
Junior Staff lived roundabout, in cottages and chummeries and
snuggeries, throughout Studley Village.
But once a week the whole hierarchy foregathered in the Masters' Common
Room and dined together. Usually the Head presided in person; and from
the soup to the savoury every soul present talked shop.
Schoolmasters appear to be quite unique in this respect. For three
months on end they live in everlasting contact with boys. Sleepy boys
confront them in those grisly hours of school which occur before
breakfast. Restless and inattentive boys occupy their undivided
attention from breakfast until luncheon. In the afternoon they play
games with, or watch games played by, energetic and overheated boys.
From four o'clock till six they stimulate the flagging energies of boys
who are comfortably tired and inclined to be drowsy. In their spare time
they lavish individual pains upon backward boys, or castigate sinful
boys, or fraternise with friendly boys, or comfort unhappy boys. At the
very end of the day they pray with and for all the boys together.
A man who has never been a schoolmaster might be excused for supposing
that when this overdriven band desisted from their labours and sat down
to their evening meal, they would turn with a sigh of relief to some
extraneous and irrelevant topic--politics; literature; sport; scandal,
even. But no--they never talk of anything but boys--boys' work, boys'
games, boys' pranks, boys' crimes, boys' prospects. They bore one
another intensely, these excellent men; for just as no young mother ever
desires to hear of or talk about the achievements of any other baby than
her own, so no keen cricketing coach will listen with anything but
impatience to glowing accounts of his next-door neighbour's proteges.
But they never desist. The shop varies, but boy is the only theme.
This weakness is not confined to schoolmasters, of course. All bodies of
men of the same calling herded together for protracted periods of time
are inclined to the habit, but most of them take elaborate precautions
to eradicate it. In military and naval circles, for instance, certain
subjects are tabu. Even undergraduates mulct one another in pots of beer
if the line be crossed. But schoolmasters are incorrigible. They talk
boy and nothing else. The explanation is simple. Boys are the most
interesting things in the world.
Studley Senior Common Room was no exception. At the top of the
table the Head and his senior colleagues discussed high-school
politics--scholarships, roseola, and the latest eccentricity of the
Governing Body. About the middle of the table, where housemasters and
form-masters were intermingled, a housemaster would explain to a
form-master, with studious moderation and paternal solemnity, that owing
to the incompetence, prejudice, and spite of the form-master a certain
godly and virtuous youth named Jinks _tertius_ was making no progress in
his studies, and was, moreover, acutely depressed by the injustice with
which he was being borne down. In reply to this the form-master would
point out in the most courteous and conciliatory tones, that the said
Jinks was an idle young scoundrel, and that until the housemaster
abandoned his present short-sighted and officious policy of habitually
intervening between Jinks and his deserts,--to wit, the rod,--no further
progress could possibly be expected. Why couldn't housemasters back
form-masters up a bit? And so on. Lower down the table, three
single-minded partisans were hotly disputing as to whether, upon a given
date last summer, in a given junior inter-form cricket match, one Maggs
(of the Lower Remove) did or did not feloniously give one Baggs (of the
Upper Fourth) out leg-before-wicket at the instigation of a muscular
bowler named Craggs. The only two persons at the table who were not
talking boy were Mr. Chigley and Mr. Cleeve. Mr. Chigley, between
mouthfuls, complained bitterly and unceasingly of the food; while Mr.
Cleeve remorselessly conducted an inattentive audience, hole by hole,
step by step, stroke by stroke, through the intricacies of a battle
fought by himself against apparently incredible odds that afternoon--and
of a victory snatched away on the last green, seemingly by the sudden
and officious intervention of Providence, after what must have been one
of the worst and most uninteresting exhibitions of golf ever seen.
Dinner ended, the company dispersed abruptly, summoned back from
refreshment to the neverending labours of the schoolmaster, by
House-prayers, scholarship coaching, or the necessity of administering
justice. Mr. Brett and two other housemasters were invited by the Head
to a rubber of bridge.
"By the way," observed the great man as they cut for partners, "you
fellows must really see that your boys wear greatcoats on their way up
to and down from football. Last Saturday I noticed four or five young
idiots, in a most overheated condition, standing about on Big Side
watching the Fifteen without so much as a sweater among them. It nearly
gave me pneumonia to look at them. You and I, I think, Brett. We have
choice of seats."
"I think I will sit away from the fire," said Mr. Brett. "My deal, I
think. Will you cut to me, Haydock? Personally, I never permit any boy
in my House to go up to the playing-fields without his greatcoat.
Hearts!"
"My feeling in the matter," said Mr. Allnutt, on Brett's left, "has
been, and always will be, that we coddle boys a great deal too much. In
my young days at--"
"Hearts!" repeated Mr. Brett loudly.
"In my young days at Chiddleham," pursued Mr. Allnutt, quite unruffled,
"sweaters had not been invented, and"--he threw out his chest
proudly--"we were none of us a penny the worse. Shall I play to a heart,
partner?"
"If you please," said Mr. Haydock patiently.
Mr. Brett played the hand and won the odd trick.
"The nuisance about occasional apparel, such as a greatcoat," said Mr.
Haydock, gathering up the cards, "is that a boy wears his some wet
morning up to school, and at the end of the hour, finding that the sun
is shining and being a forgetful animal, comes down without it. Net
result--a greatcoat kicking about in a passage till it is lost or
appropriated. Your deal, partner."
"It is merely a matter of taking a little trouble," said Mr. Brett
precisely. "Once boys have been taught to grasp the fact that rules are
made to be obeyed and not ignored, the thing is simple. My House--"
"Partner, I leave it to you," said Mr. Allnutt, _fortissimo_.
"No trumps!" said Mr. Haydock.
"As a matter of fact, Brett," observed the Head, as the dummy was laid
down,--he was a genial despot, and Mr. Brett's pedantic fussiness was a
perpetual thorn in his flesh,--"the boys I saw on Saturday were yours."
Mr. Allnutt laughed loudly, and Mr. Brett, greatly put out, omitted to
return the Head's lead, with the result that his opponents made four odd
tricks.
"Game!" announced Mr. Allnutt, quite superfluously. "Thank you, partner.
Pretty work!"
"It was a pity you did not return my diamond, Brett," remarked the Head
mildly. He was counted one of the great Headmasters of his time, but he
was as human as the rest of us where lost tricks were concerned. "I had
the game in my hand."
Mr. Brett stiffly expressed regret, and continued:
"Would you mind giving me the names of the boys you saw? I simply can't
understand it. I think there must be some mistake. No boy in my House--"
"As a matter of fact," said Haydock,--he was the acknowledged peacemaker
and mediator of the Staff,--"it is very difficult to get boys to wear
their greatcoats. I can't help sympathising with them. They usually
don't require them at all, for they run straight up to their game and
straight down again. But when, as sometimes happens, they find an
exciting match going on on Big Side, they can't resist the temptation of
waiting for a minute or two--"
Mr. Allnutt interrupted. Listening to other people was not a foible of
his.
"Nonsense!" he said with great gusto, as the Head began to deal the next
hand. "You can't tether healthy boys with red tape. Always disregard red
tape--that's my motto!" (By red tape Mr. Allnutt meant instructions from
headquarters which did not happen to meet with his approval.) "Now, _my_
boys--"
"Spades!" said the Head, gloomily.
"Shall I play to a spade, partner?" asked Mr. Haydock.
"Certainly, so far as I am concerned," said Mr. Allnutt. "Glad to be out
of it!"
Mr. Brett, whose hand contained four aces, flung his cards upon the
table and glared at his superior.
"Very sorry, Brett," said the Head, "but it had to be done. I had
nothing above a nine in my hand. I was afraid they would double anything
you declared. My cut, I think, Haydock."
For the next ten minutes, fortunately, Mr. Brett was too much chagrined
to speak, and the topic of the overcoats was allowed to drop.
The game continued for another few rounds, with the luck fairly evenly
divided and the scoring low. Presently the Head, who usually contrived
to achieve a good deal of quiet legislation during these social
evenings, remarked:--
"We shall have to create three new School monitors at the end of the
term. Have you any candidates, Allnutt?"
"You can select any boy in my House you like," replied Allnutt. He was
habitually truculent to those set in authority over him,--he regarded
them as a humanised form of red tape,--but the shrewd Head, who knew
that Allnutt was a good man at bottom, suffered him with humourous
resignation. "They are all equally incompetent. Luckily I am in the
habit of looking after my House myself, and not leaving it to half-baked
policemen."
"Thank you," said the Head. "That leaves me with a comfortably free
hand. Have you any one to recommend, Brett?"
"Yes," said Brett. "I have. I have considered the matter most
carefully. I have at least four boys who would make admirable
monitors--"
"Game all!" said Mr. Allnutt impatiently. "Your deal, Brett."
--"And I have decided," continued Mr. Brett, bending his brows
judicially, "to recommend Ericson and Smythe."
"Nincompoops, both of them," observed Mr. Allnutt at once.
"I fancy Brett was addressing the Headmaster," said Haydock drily.
"Oh, this is quite an informal discussion," said Mr. Allnutt cheerfully.
"The best boys in your House, Brett, are Meldrum and Lemaire. Why
don't you recommend them?"
With a great effort Mr. Brett kept his temper.
"They do not happen to be House prefects," he replied stiffly, "and are
therefore ineligible for monitorships."
Much to Mr. Brett's discomfiture, all three of his companions turned and
gazed at him in undisguised astonishment.
"Why, man," burst out Mr. Allnutt, "Lemaire is the most brilliant boy in
the School!"
"His bodily infirmity"--began Mr. Brett majestically.
"I see, I see," said Allnutt. "Bodily infirmity is a bar to promotion in
your House; but not mental infirmity--eh? I suppose you have noticed
that Ericson is a congenital idiot?"
Mr. Brett, pursing his lips, began to deal the cards with great
stateliness.
"And what about Meldrum?" continued Mr. Allnutt, following up his
attack. "He has more character than all the rest of your House put
together."
"Unfortunately," replied Mr. Brett icily, "he has no brains."
Here Mr. Brett made a serious blunder. He offended the only man in the
room who might have felt inclined to protect him from the bludgeonings
of Mr. Allnutt. Mr. Haydock happened to be senior mathematical master at
Studley, and like all broad-minded men hated anything like intellectual
snobbery.
"Meldrum," he remarked, "is the soundest mathematician in the School,
and quite the most brilliant scientist we have had for ten years."
"Possibly, possibly," said Mr. Brett; "but that does not affect my
point. No trumps!"
Mr. Haydock flushed red at this gratuitous piece of offensiveness. But
he said nothing, and took up his cards.
"Shall I play to no trumps, partner?" enquired Mr. Allnutt.
Mr. Haydock glanced over his hand, and sighed to himself, softly and
gratefully.
"I shall double no trumps," he said.
Mr. Brett grew greatly excited.
"I shall redouble!" he exclaimed.
"And I," replied Mr. Haydock gently, "shall double again."
The Head, upon whom the asperities of the last ten minutes (since he
might not take part therein himself) had begun to pall, sat up,
startled, and the game began--at ninety-six points a trick.
Mr. Brett's hand contained eight spades, to the ten, knave, queen, king;
the aces of clubs, hearts, and diamonds; and two small clubs. It was a
tempting but treacherous hand, for singleton aces are but broken reeds.
Mr. Haydock had nine hearts to the knave, queen, king; the ace of
spades; and the king of clubs, singly guarded. His hope of salvation
was founded on the sure and certain knowledge that Mr. Allnutt would
lead him a heart, for they conformed to the heart convention. Assuming
that Mr. Brett held the ace, the hearts could be established in a single
round. After this he looked to his ace of spades or king of clubs to
regain the lead for him. Of course if Brett held an overwhelming hand of
diamonds the game was lost. There was also the possibility that Allnutt
had no heart to lead. But there seemed to be a good sporting chance of
success.
And sure enough the Fates--very justly, considering his recent behaviour
to Mr. Haydock--fought against Mr. Brett. Mr. Allnutt led a small
heart; the Head, with a rueful smile, laid down a hand containing two
knaves and a ten; Mr. Haydock played the king; and Mr. Brett, having
nothing else, took the trick with the ace.
Then Mr. Brett, scrutinising his hand and putting two and two together,
broke into a gentle perspiration.
The ace of spades--the one card necessary to give him every trick but
two--was in the hands of the enemy. Still, eight spades to the ten,
knave, queen, king, mean seven tricks once you have forced the ace out.
Hoping blindly for the best, and pretending not to hear the contented
rumblings of Mr. Allnutt, the wretched Mr. Brett played the ten of
spades.
Mr. Haydock promptly took the trick with the ace, and then proceeded to
make eight tricks in hearts. After this he graciously permitted Mr.
Brett to make his other two aces and remaining spade.
"Three tricks," said Mr. Haydock. "Game and rubber."
"Hard luck, partner," murmured the Head heroically.
"What exactly," enquired Mr. Allnutt, brimming over with happy laughter,
"does three times ninety-six come to? Two hundred and eighty-eight?
Thanks. What a lightning calculator you are, Haydock. A mathematician
has his points--eh, Brett?"
V
It was nearly ten o'clock. Most of the boys were in their dormitories by
this time, either in bed or cultivating the rites of Mr. Sandow. Only
the seniors lingered downstairs. Various young gentlemen who shortly
meditated a descent upon one of the Universities sat in their studies
with curtains closely drawn, painfully translating a Greek not spoken in
Greece into an English not spoken anywhere. The Quartette were all
together in Philip's study, engaged in one of the commonest recreations
of English gentlemen.
Presently Desborough uncoiled his long legs from under the table, and
stretched himself.
"Fairly average frowst in here," he observed. "Anybody mind if I open
the window?"
Silence gave consent. The curtains slid back, and some much-needed
oxygen was admitted. A long ray of light shot out into the darkness of
the night.
It fell across the path of Mr. Brett, returning from his bridge party.
The evening breezes played about his brow, but failed to cool it. He was
in a towering rage. His management of his own House; his powers of
selecting suitable lieutenants; these things had been called into
question that night--called into question and condemned. And--he had
lost five-and-sixpence to Allnutt.
Suddenly his homeward way was illumined by electric light. It came from
the window of Philip Meldrum's study, which was situated upon the ground
floor. Mr. Brett paused, drew near, and surveyed the scene within. In
the confined space of the study he beheld four boys sitting closely
round a table.
A minute later he was fumbling for his latchkey at his own front door.
He was in a frenzy of excitement. He did not pause to reflect. Humour
was not his strong point, or it might possibly have occurred to him that
the present situation possessed a certain piquancy of its own. Had Mr.
Allnutt been present he would have made an apposite reference to the Old
Obadiah and the Young Obadiah. All that Mr. Brett realised was the fact
that Providence had most unexpectedly put into his hand the means of
vindicating his own infallibility as a judge of boy character, and--of
scoring off Allnutt for all time.
With eager steps he passed through his own quarters, and hurried down
the long panelled corridor in which the boys' studies were situated. He
opened Philip's door quickly, without knocking, and stood glaring
balefully through his spectacles upon the culprits.
Their heads were sunk upon their chests, but not with shame. In fact
they entirely failed to observe Mr. Brett's avenging presence.
The first person to speak was Philip, who was sitting with his back to
the door. He threw his cards down upon the table and said cheerfully:--
"Well done, partner! Three tricks, doubled--that's seventy-two. Game and
rubber, and you owe me fourpence, young Laird of Cockpen! Now, what
about bed?"
VI
No one was expelled, though in the first frenzy of his triumph Mr. Brett
was for telephoning for four cabs on the spot.
The Head gave judgment in due course, and though he had no particular
difficulty in dealing with the criminals, he experienced some trouble in
handling the counsel for the prosecution.
To him the overheated Brett pointed out that the delinquents had been
caught redhanded in the sin of betting and gambling. He explained that
smoking, drinking, and cards invariably went together, and that
consequently nothing remained but to request the respective parents and
guardians of the Quartette to remove them with all possible despatch
before they contaminated any of the Classics or Cricketers in the House.
The Head heard him out, and remarked drily:--
"Mr. Brett, you should cultivate a sense of proportion. It is a useful
quality in a schoolmaster. Your scheme of retribution, if I may say so,
is a little lacking in elasticity. There are degrees of crime, you know.
Under your penal code the man who has been caught playing pitch-and-toss
is hurried to the gallows with the same celerity as the man who has
garotted an Archbishop. Don't you think that this scheme of yours of
uniform penalty for everything rather encourages the criminal to go the
whole hog and have his money's worth? Now observe: the offence of these
boys was a purely technical one. A game of cards between gentlemen for
stakes which they can reasonably afford"--the Quartette played for
twopence a hundred--"is not in itself an indictable offence. I only wish
that boys would always employ their spare time so profitably!" added the
Head regretfully. "Personally, I should sincerely like to see every boy
in this School grounded systematically in the elements of whist or
bridge. It would improve his memory and inculcate habits of observation
and deduction, and would at least furnish him with an alternative to the
cinematograph on a wet afternoon in the holidays. Unfortunately we have
the British parent to deal with. However, that is a digression. These
boys are not of the stuff that debauchees are made of. The trouble lies
in the fact that they are rather more mature than their fellows. Do you
know, I expect they play bridge because they like it, and find it a more
pleasant relaxation at the end of the day than cooking unholy messes
over their study fires or gossiping in the dormitory? I must also point
out to you that by not appointing them to a position of authority you
have thrown them more or less on their own resources. They may not
associate with the aristocracy of the House, and they are more than a
cut above the common herd. So they form themselves into a very snug and
exclusive little coterie, and I for one don't blame them. But send them
along to me, and I will deal faithfully with them."
To the Quartette the Head pointed out that there is a time and place for
everything, and that rules, if not enforced, bring mockery and discredit
upon their authors.
"Bridge is an excellent game," he said, "and a true mental gymnastic.
But there happens to be a regulation here which forbids the playing of
cards by boys among themselves. We need not go into the soundness of
that regulation: the only relevant point is that you have broken it. You
are big boys, and the bigger the boy the bigger the offence. I am going
to make the punishment fit the crime by asking Mr. Brett to turn you out
of your studies for the rest of the term. For the next four weeks you
will consort with the _profanum vulgus_ in your House Common Room, where
I fancy that bridge and other intellectual pursuits are not much
cultivated. Now you can go."
The Quartette turned dismally towards the door. It was a stiff sentence.
But the Head had not quite finished.
"It would be interesting," he added drily, "to know whether you play
bridge because you like it or because you think it a grand thing to do.
Come and dine with me on Saturday night, and we will have a rubber."
"Sportsman, the old Head!" commented Philip, as they walked across the
quadrangle.
"My word, yes!" said the other three.