As the holidays waned (and after W. W. was safely stowed away in bed)
Tintinnabulum gratified me by being willing to talk about Neil. If you
had heard us at it you would have sworn that those two had no very close
connection, that Neil was merely some interesting whipper-snapper who
had played about the house until the manlier Tintinnabulum arrived. He
was always spoken of between us as Neil, which obviously suited
Tintinnabulum’s dignity, but I wonder how I took to it so naturally
myself. I hope I am not a queer one.
By that arrangement Tintinnabulum can make artful enquiries, not
unwistful, into his own past, and I can seem (thus goes the game) not to
know that he is doing so. He can even commend Neil.
“Pretty decent of him,” he says, discussing the Bruiser Belt and the
score against Juddy’s.
“I didn’t think he had it in him,” is even stronger about the sea-trout
Neil had landed and been so proud of that he would not lie prone till it
was put in a basin by his bedside. He had then slept with one arm over
the basin.
Strongest of all is to say that Neil was mad, at present a term not only
of approval but even of endearment at the only school that counts
(Tintinnabulum speaking). Sometimes we talk of the dark period when
Neil, weeping over his first Latin grammar, used to put a merry tune on
the gramophone to accompany his woe. He continued to weep as he studied,
but always rose at the right time to change the tune. This is a
heart-breaker of a memory to me, and Tintinnabulum knows it and puts his
hand deliciously on my shoulder (that kindest gesture of man to man).
“The gander must have been mad, quite mad,” he says hurriedly.
How Neil would like to hear Tintinnabulum saying these nice things about
him.
Perhaps we all have a Neil. Have you ever wakened suddenly in the night,
certain that you heard a bell ring as it once rang or a knocking on your
door as only one could knock or a voice of long ago, quite close?
Sometimes you rise and wander the house; more often, after waiting alert
for a repetition of the sound, you decide that you have been dreaming or
that it was the creaking of a window or a board. But I daresay it was
none of these things. I daresay it was your Neil.
Perhaps you have become something quite different from what he meant to
be. Perhaps he wants to get into the house, not to gaze proudly at you
but to strike you.
Some drop their Neil deliberately and can recall clearly the day of the
great decision, but most are unaware that he has gone. For instance, it
may have been Neil who married the lady and you who gradually took his
place, so like him in appearance that she is as deceived as you. Or it
may be that she has found you out and knows who it is that is knocking
on the door trying to get back to her. You might be scared if you knew
that though she is at this moment attending to your wants with a smile
for you on her face, her passionate wish is to be done with you. On the
other hand, you may be the better fellow of the two. Let us decide that
this is how it is.
* * * * *
The last week of the holidays was darkened for Tintinnabulum and W. W.
by the shadow of a letter demanded of them by their tutor. It had to be
on one of three subjects:
(_a_) Your Favourite Walk.
(_b_) Your Favourite Game.
(_c_) What shall I do next Half?
A nasty tag attached to m’ tutor’s order said “the letter must be of
great length.” Little had they troubled about it till the end loomed,
but then they rumbled wrathfully; well was it for their tutor he heard
not what they said of him.
Tintinnabulum of course was merely lazy, or on principle resented
writing anything for less than 3_d._ Grievous, however, was the burden
on W. W., whose gifts lie not in a literary direction. He is always
undone by his clear-headed way of putting everything he knows on any
subject into the first sentence. He had a shot at (_a_), (_b_) and
(_c_).
_Attempt on (a)._ “My favourite walk is when I do not have far to go to
it.” (Here he stuck.)
_Attempt on (b)._ “The game of cricket is my favourite game, and it
consists of six stumps, two bats and a ball.” After wandering round the
table many times he added, “Nor must we forget the bails.” (Stuck
again.)
_Attempt on (c)._ “Next half is summer half, so early school will be
half an hour earlier.” (Final stick.)
He then abandoned hope and would, I suppose, have had to run away to sea
(if boys still do that) had not Help been nigh.
For a consideration (and you can now guess exactly how much it was)
Tintinnabulum offered to write W. W.’s letter for him. I did not see it
till later (as you shall learn), indeed the episode was purposely kept
dark from me. The subject chosen was “My Favourite Walk,” because
Tintinnabulum had a book entitled Walks and Talks with the Little Ones,
which never before had he thought might come in handy. Of course such a
performer by no means confined himself to purloining from this work,
though he did have something to say about how W. W. wandered along his
walk carrying a little book into which he put “interesting plants.”
Anything less like W. W. thus engaged I cannot conceive, unless it be
Tintinnabulum himself.
The miscreant also carefully misspelt several words, as being natural to
W. W. Unfortunately (his fatal weakness) he could not keep his own name
out of the letter, and he made W. W. say that the favourite walk was
“near the house of my kind friend Tintinnabulum, and you know him, sir,
for he is in your house, and I mess with him, which is very lucky for
me, all the scugs wanting to mess with him and nobody wanting me.”
Could brainy critics, peeled for the pounce, read that human document
they would doubtless pause to enquire into its hidden meaning. On the
surface it was written (_a_) to get 3_d._ out of W. W., (_b_) to give
relief to Tintinnabulum’s ego. To the ordinary reader (with whom to-day
we have no concern) this might suffice, but the digger would ask, what
is the philosophy of life advanced by the author, is the whole thing an
allegory and if so, what is Tintinnabulum’s Message; in short, is he,
like the commoner writers, merely saying what he says, or, like the big
chaps, something quite different?
Had his tutor considered the letter thus, we might have had a most
interesting analysis of it (and no one would have been more interested
than Tintinnabulum). But though a favourite of mine (and also of
Tintinnabulum) his tutor is just slightly Victorian, and he went for the
letter like one of the illiterate.
It was not seen by me until the two hopefuls returned to school, when I
received it from their tutor with another one which is uncommonly like
it. Investigation has elicited the following data, for which kindly
allow me to use (_a_), (_b_) and (_c_) again, as I have taken a fancy to
them.
(_a_) Letter is read and approved by W. W.
(_b_) W. W. on reflection objects to passage about the honour of messing
with Tintinnabulum.
(_c_) Ultimatum issued by Tintinnabulum that the passage must be
retained.
(_d_) MS. haughtily returned to the author.
(_e_) The author alters a few words and sends in letter as his own.
(_f_) W. W. has made a secret copy of the letter and sends it in as his,
with the objectionable passage deleted.
(_g_) Their tutor smells a rat.
(_h_) He takes me into his confidence.
(_i_) Days pass but I remain inactive.
(_j_) He puts the affair into the hands of Beverley, the head of the
house.
(_k_) Triumph of Miss Rachel.
Miss Rachel who is an old friend of ours is slight and frail, say 5 ft.
3, her biceps cannot be formidable and I question whether she could kick
the beam however favourably it was placed for her. She is such an
admirer of Tintinnabulum that he occasionally writhes, in his fuller
knowledge of the subject.
Having led a quiet and uneventful life (so far as I know), Miss Rachel
suddenly shoots into the light through her acquaintance with the
Beverleys of Winch Park, which is, as it were, nothing; but the great
Beverley, Beverley the thunderous, who is head of m’ tutor’s house, is a
scion of that family; and now you see what a swell Miss Rachel has
become. When Neil (as he then was) was entered for that great school she
wrote to Beverley—fancy knowing someone who can write to
Beverley—telling him (to Neil’s indignation) what a darling her young
friend was and hoping Beverley would look after him and make him his
dear little fag. Months elapsed before a reply came, but when it did
come it really referred to Tintinnabulum and contained these pregnant
words: “As to the person in whom you are interested, I look after him a
good deal, and the more I see of him the more I lick him.”
Miss Rachel showed me the letter with exultation. So kind of him, she
said, though she was a little distressed that a strapping fellow like
Beverley should spell so badly.
More recently I had a letter from Tintinnabulum, which I showed to her
as probably denoting the final transaction in the affair of the letter.
“W. W. and I,” it announced very cheerily, “saw Beverley yesterday in
his room and he gave each of us six of the best.”
“How charming of Beverley!” Miss Rachel said.
“The best what?” she enquired, but I cannot have heard her, for I made
no answer.
I learn that sometimes she thinks it was probably cakes and at other
times fives balls, which she knows to be in great demand at that school.
I shall not be surprised if Miss Rachel sends a dozen of the best to
Beverley.