LINKLATER
I
LINKLATER came to school after Pip,--one year, to be precise,--but by
the time that both had attained to the dignity of seniors they were firm
friends. They were a curiously assorted couple. Pip at the age of
eighteen was as inscrutable and reserved as ever, though his popularity
with the school was unbounded, and his influence, when he chose to exert
it, enormous. He had already been a member of the Eleven for three
years, and should by rights this year have been captain. But alas!
though Pip had been duly washed by the high tides of promiscuous
September promotions out of the all-glorious Lower Shell into the Upper
Shell, and from the Upper Shell by the next inundation into the Fifth,
he had not as yet qualified for a Monitorship.
Linklater was a handsome, breezy, rather boisterous youth, quick of
tongue and limber of limb. He possessed his fair share of brains, but
not the corresponding inclination to use them; and he was a natural
athlete of the most attractive type,--a graceful mover, a pretty bat,
and a beautiful racquets player. But somehow he was not universally
popular. Everybody was his friend, it is true, but that was chiefly
because nobody cares to be the avowed antagonist of a man who possesses
a sharp tongue and no scruples about using it, especially when these
gifts are backed by such undoubted assets as membership of the Fifteen
and Eleven. There was something not quite right about Linklater. Perhaps
he was too grownup in his manners. He was popular, too, with masters,
which is not invariably a good sign in a boy.
Still, he was not quite so grownup at eighteen as when he first came to
Grandwich; and thereby hangs a tale.
At every public school there are certain things--each school has its own
list--which are "not done." Not done, that is, until one has achieved
fame,--until one is a "blood," or a "dook," or a "bug" (or whatever they
call it at your school, sir); until a boy has fought his way into that
aristocracy--the most exclusive aristocracy in the world--in which
brains, as such, count for nothing, birth has no part, and wealth is
simply disregarded; where genuine ability occasionally gains a
precarious footing, and then only by disguising itself as something
else; but to which muscle, swiftness of foot, and general ability to
manipulate a ball with greater dexterity than one's neighbour is
received unquestioningly, joyfully, proudly. Dear old gentlemen, who
are brought down to distribute the prizes after lunch on Speech Day,
invariably point to Simpkins major, who has obtained a prize for Greek
Iambics and another for Latin Prose, as the summit of the scholastic
universe; and they beseech Simpkins's "fellow-scholars" not to be
down-hearted because they are not like Simpkins. "We do not all
get--er--ten talents, boys," observes the old gentleman soothingly, with
a half-deferential bob towards the Head, as if to apologise for quoting
Scripture before a clerical authority. He next proceeds to hold out
strong hopes to his audience that if they work hard they may
possibly--who knows?--come some day to resemble Simpkins major. At this
all the parents, forgetful of their own youth, applaud, and the
"fellow-scholars," about fifty per cent of whom do not know Simpkins by
sight, while the remainder seldom meet him in a passage without kicking
him, grin sheepishly, and take it out of Simpkins afterwards. The real
heroes of the school, if only the dear old gentleman would realise, or
remember, the fact, are those rather dull-looking youths, with incipient
moustaches and large chests, who sit cracking nuts in the back row.
But this is by the way. Let us return to the things which are "not done"
by the proletariat. The following are a few extracts from the unwritten
but rigid code of Grandwich:--
1. You must wear your tie in a sailor's knot--not in a bow.
2. A new boy must not speak to any one unless spoken to first.
3. You must _not_ shave until you are in the Fifteen or Eleven;
after that you must shave every Saturday night, whether you need
it or not.
There was a merciful proviso attached to the last remarkable
enactment--namely, that all whose growth of hair had outrun their social
status might shave to an extent sufficient to make them presentable,
provided that the operation did not take place in public. Consequently
many undistinguished but hairy persons were compelled to shave in bed at
night after the gas was out. I have often wondered what their mothers
would have thought if they had known. Fortunately there is much in our
lives that our mothers never hear of. If they did, public schools (among
many other things) would cease to exist.
Now, Linklater, who, as has been already mentioned, was a precocious
youth,--a typical cock-of-the-walk from a preparatory school,--spent his
first few weeks at Grandwich in running foul of all the most cherished
traditions of that historic foundation. He arrived in a neat bowtie,
and proceeded to wear the same, despite the pointed criticisms of a
multitude of counsellors, for the space of a week; at the end of which
period it was taken from his neck by a self-appointed committee of the
Lower Fourth. Finding that his eccentricities were earning him a certain
amount of unpopularity, Linklater decided, like the born opportunist
that he was, to allay popular feeling by a timely distribution of
largesse. He accordingly paid a visit to the school tuck-shop, where he
expended two shillings and sixpence on assorted confectionery. On his
way back he encountered no less a person than Rumsey, the captain of the
Eleven, and, feeling that he might as well conciliate all classes while
he was about it, cried, "Catch, there!" and launched the largest sweet
he could find in the bag in the direction of Rumsey. The feelings of
that potentate on receiving a _marron glace_ in the middle of his
waistcoat from a diminutive fag deprived him for the moment of all power
to move or speak, so that the unconscious Linklater, passing on
unscathed, lived to tell the tale, and subsequently to hear it told and
retold by hysterical _raconteurs_ to delighted audiences for months
afterwards.
"Heard the latest about that new bloke?" inquired Master Mumford of Pip
one evening, under cover of the continuous hum of conversation which
always characterised "prep" in the Hivite house.
"What new bloke?"
"Linklater. Seen him?"
Yes, Pip had seen him at nets that day, and had noticed that he was a
jolly neat bat.
"Notice his boots?" pursued Mumford.
"Can't say I did."
"Well, they were white!"
Master Mumford fairly overflowed with happy laughter at the richness of
the jest. The wearing of white buckskin boots was one of the privileges
of the First Eleven, and Linklater had run counter to custom and habit
again.
"Oh," said Pip, "I suppose he didn't know."
This childishly lenient view of the case did not appeal to Mumford, who,
with all the small-minded man's respect for the letter of the law, was
thirsting to punish the evildoer.
"Beastly side!" he ejaculated, "that's all. We are going to fill them
with soap and water after prep, and put a notice beside them telling him
not to stick on so much of it. I'm writing it now. How many _e's_ are
there in beastly?"
"Dunno," replied Pip shortly.
"Will you come and help?"
"No. He looks rather a decent chap. He's only been here a week; he may
not know about white boots."
"Ought to, then," snapped the bloodthirsty Mumford. "Other people find
things out all right."
"Not all," grunted Pip. "How about stamps?"
Master Mumford turned his back with some deliberation, and addressed
himself severely to the labours of composition. Once, during his first
week at Grandwich, he had called at the Head Master's, and having, after
a wordy encounter with an unexpected butler in the hall, succeeded in
pushing his way into the study, had endeavoured, in faithful pursuance
of the custom in vogue at his private school, to purchase a penny stamp
for his Sunday letter from the stupefied autocrat within.
Linklater's white boots were duly filled with soap and water, but Pip
was not present at the ceremony. He sought out the victim next evening
and invited him to supper--sardines, and condensed milk spread on
biscuits--in his study after prayers. An invitation from Pip was
something sought after among the Juniors in "Uncle Bill's" house, for
Pip, though only fifteen, was regarded as a certainty for his Eleven
colours this year, after his electrifying performance on last year's
house-match.
Linklater gratefully accepted the invitation, and the two became friends
from that day. They possessed opposite qualities. Pip admired
Linklater's vivacity and _bonhomie_, while Linklater was attracted by
Pip's solid muscle and undemonstrative ability to "do things." But
cricket was their common bond. Linklater was almost as promising a bat
as Pip was a bowler, and the two rose to eminence side by side. But
despite their early proficiency, it was fated that neither should be
Captain of the Eleven,--Pip for reasons already stated, and Linklater
for another, which came about in this way.
Nearly every schoolboy has a _bete noire_ among the masters, and every
master has at least one _bete noire_ among the boys. Fortunately it very
seldom happens that the antipathy is mutual. If it is, look out for
trouble, especially when the boy has a dour temper and the master is
fault-finding and finicky. Such an one was Mr. Bradshaw, late Scholar of
Balliol College, Oxford, and a born fool.
Hostilities began early. On Linklater's first appearance in the Lower
Sixth, Mr. Bradshaw remarked unfavourably on the shape of his collar,
and elicited loud and sycophantic laughter--which is always music in the
ears of men of his type--by several facetious comments on the colour of
his tie. Linklater chafed and glowered, and muttered "Swine!" under his
breath,--symptoms of discomfiture which only roused Mr. Bradshaw to
further humorous efforts. Thereafter the two waged perpetual warfare.
Linklater took his opponent's measure with great accuracy, and then
advanced to battle. He discovered that Mr. Bradshaw was deaf in his left
ear. He therefore made a point, whenever possible, of sitting on that
side and making obscene noises. Mr. Bradshaw was extremely bald, and
ashamed of the fact. Linklater had noted in his study of the Scriptures
that the prophet Elisha had suffered from the same infirmity:
consequently Mr. Bradshaw found his blackboard adorned every morning for
a month with the single word ELISHA in staring capitals. When Mr.
Bradshaw was irritable Linklater was serenely cheerful; when Mr.
Bradshaw was blandly sarcastic Linklater was densely stupid; and after
ostentatious efforts to understand his preceptor's innuendoes, would
shake his head pityingly, with a patient sigh at such ill-timed levity.
So the battle went on. Every schoolboy knows what it must have been
like. Matters were bound to come to a crisis. One morning, during a
Cicero lesson, the form came upon a Greek expression amid the Latin
text, and Mr. Bradshaw, who rather fancied himself at this sort of
thing, added a touch of distinction to his translation by rendering the
word in French. The form received this flight of scholarship without
enthusiasm, merely wondering in their hearts how any man could be such
an unmitigated ass as to be desirous of elucidating for them a language
of which they knew but little by translating it into another of which
they knew still less.
"Yes, _elan_ is exactly the right translation," quoth Mr. Bradshaw, well
pleased. "There is always a way out of every difficulty if we only look
for it. Get on!"
"Please, sir, what does _elan_ mean, exactly?" inquired Linklater, not
because he wished to know, but in the hope that "Braddy" would waste
several precious minutes in explaining.
The master rose to the bait.
"Mean? Bless my soul, what a question! Not know? Here, tell him,
somebody--Martin, Levesley, Smith, Forbes, next, next, next!"
Various futile translations were offered, and Mr. Bradshaw stormed
again.
"Do you fellows do _anything_ in the French hour except eat bananas?" he
inquired. (Deferential sniggers.) "What are French lessons but an excuse
for idleness? Really, I must ask the Head--"
They let him run on, while the golden moments slipped by. As soon as he
showed signs of flagging, Linklater, seeing that it still wanted eight
minutes to the hour, repeated--
"But what _does_ it mean, sir?"
"Mean, you insufferable dolt! It means--it means--er, 'energy,'
'verve,' 'dash'--yes, that's it! 'dash'!"
Linklater held up a respectful hand.
"I said 'dash!' sir, the moment the question passed me," he remarked
meekly.
The form roared, and unanimously decided afterwards that "Link was one
up on Braddy." Mr. Bradshaw, after the manner of his kind, reported
Linklater to the Head for "gross impertinence." The Head, who had not
reached his present high position for nothing, took a lenient view of
the case, merely requesting Linklater to refrain in future from humour
during school hours. But for all that Linklater determined to be "even
with Braddy" for reporting him: and so successful was he in his
enterprise that he effectually destroyed his own last chance of leading
a Grandwich Eleven to Lord's.
The schoolboy is an observant animal. Mr. Bradshaw, like most men who
carry method and precision to extremes, was a mass of little
affectations and mannerisms, one of the most curious of which was his
habit of passing his right hand in one comprehensive sweep along his
bald head and down over his face. The boys knew this trick by heart:
Braddy was much addicted to it at moments of mental exaltation,--say,
when standing over a victim and thinking out the details of some
exceptionally galling punishment. Milford tertius, the licensed jester
of the Lower Fourth, had indeed been caned by the Head for a lifelike
imitation of the same, rendered to a delighted pewful of worshippers
during a particularly dull sermon in chapel.
The schoolboy, as we have said, is an observant animal. Very well, then.
One morning Mr. Bradshaw, as he entered his classroom, majestic in cap
and gown, closing the door carefully and lovingly behind him, with all
the cheerful deliberation of a Chief Tormentor who proposes to spend a
merry morning in the torture-chamber, suddenly beheld Linklater stand up
in his place and heave a "Liddell & Scott" (medium size) across the room
at an unsuspecting youth in spectacles, who was busily engaged in
putting the finishing touches to a copy of Greek Iambics.
The book, having reached its destination, rebounded in obedience to one
of the primary laws of mechanics, and fell with a heavy thud upon the
floor. The form, after the first startled flutter, settled down with a
happy sigh to witness the rare spectacle of a volcano in full eruption.
Mr. Bradshaw's eye sparkled. Assuredly the enemy was delivered into his
hand this time. Mounting his rostrum, he stood gazing, almost
affectionately, upon the perpetrator of the outrage, mentally passing in
review all the possibilities of punishment, from expulsion downwards,
and busily caressing his countenance the while.
Presently some one in the form tittered. Then another, and another, and
another. Then the whole room broke into a roar. Mr. Bradshaw, in high
good-humour, allowed them to continue for some time: he wanted to rub it
into Linklater. At last he cleared his throat.
"Your friends may well smile, sir," he began majestically. (Cheers and
laughter.) "So serene are you in your conceit and self-assurance that
you proceed to break rules, to behave like a board-school boy, without
even taking the trouble to observe if one in Authority"--he smacked his
lips--"be present or no. What is the result? Pride has a fall, my young
friend. You make a spectacle of yourself--"
Here the speaker was interrupted by a perfect tornado of merriment. A
master can always raise a snigger at the expense of a boy, but such
whole-hearted appreciation as this had not fallen to Mr. Bradshaw's lot
before.
"--a ludicrous exhibition," he continued, after the noise had subsided.
Cheers and laughter, as before.
"If you could only see yourself now, my boy, only behold the spectacle
you present--"
This time his audience became so hysterical that Braddy was conscious of
an uneasy suspicion that something must be wrong. Suddenly his eye fell
upon the pad of foolscap before him, upon which he had been emphasising
his remarks by vigorous slappings. The paper was covered with numerous
impressions of his hand, neatly outlined in some jet-black substance.
After a hasty inspection of the hand itself the awful truth began to
dawn upon him, and the now frenzied Lower Sixth were regaled with the
spectacle of a man attempting to scrutinise his own countenance by
squinting along his nose.
It must have been about this time, according to the best authorities,
that the Head came in. That benevolent despot, passing the door on his
way to his study, had been attracted by the sounds of mirth within; and
under the impression that owing to some misunderstanding Mr. Bradshaw
was not taking his form that hour, he entered the room to maintain
discipline until the errant master could be found. After his usual
punctilious knock--he was a head master of the velvet glove type--he
opened the door, and stood an interested and astonished spectator of the
scene within.
What he saw was this--
On the benches rolled thirty boys, helpless, speechless, tearful with
laughter; and upon the rostrum, with a parti-coloured bald head and a
coal-black face, there mowed and gibbered a creature, which rolled
frenzied eyes and gnashed unnaturally whitened teeth in impotent frenzy
upon the convulsed throng before him.
Linklater had covered the door-handle with lampblack, and Mr. Bradshaw's
favourite mannerism had done the rest.
II
Linklater's escapade took place at the end of the Christmas term. Early
in the following January the Cricket Committee held their customary
meeting in the President's study, to elect a Captain and Secretary of
the School Eleven for the following summer term.
Usually such functions were of the most formal character. The senior
"old colour" was elected Captain, and the next man Secretary; the
Reverend William Mortimer was unanimously re-elected President (with an
ungrammatical vote of thanks for past services thrown in); and the
proceedings terminated.
But this term matters were not so simple. There were five old colours
available: Pip, sturdy, popular, just eighteen, the best bowler,
according to that infallible oracle the ground-man, that the school had
known in a generation; Linklater, a beautiful bat and a brilliant field,
with the added recommendation of a century against the County last
summer; Ellis, a steady bat and a good change bowler, a singularly
right-minded and conscientious boy, and therefore slightly unpopular;
Fagg, a wicket-keeper pure and simple; and Jarvis, a stripling of
considerably more promise than performance, who had scraped into the
Eleven at the end of the summer term on the strength of a brilliant but
fluky innings against the Authentics.
Of these five, Pip, from every conceivable point of view save one, was
the obvious and natural man for the post. But the captaincy of the
Eleven carried with it a School Monitorship, and the Law, as represented
by an inflexible head master's decree, said that no member of the school
could wear a Monitor's cap who was not a member of the Sixth. Now, Pip
was only a member of the Fifth, and occupied but a sedimentary position
in that. Consequently the Committee heaved a resigned if dissatisfied
sigh when Uncle Bill, after taking the chair, announced with real regret
that Wilmot--this, you may possibly remember, was Pip's name--was not
eligible for the post of Captain.
"Lucky thing Link got his remove this term," whispered Fagg to Jarvis,
"or he'd have been barred too."
"Dry up," said Jarvis, with a warning nudge; "Uncle Bill has got
something on his chest."
Uncle Bill indeed appeared to be labouring under some embarrassment,
for his good-humoured face was clouded, and he hesitated before
continuing his remarks.
"I have another message from the Head," he said at length. "I will give
it you exactly as I received it, without comment. It is not a pleasant
message, but you--we have no choice but to obey orders. It is this. The
next in seniority, Linklater, is a member of the Sixth, and therefore
eligible for office; but on account of his--of a regrettable incident in
connection with Mr. Bradshaw last term, the Head feels unable to make
him a Monitor, and consequently he cannot be Captain of the Eleven."
Uncle Bill had created a sensation this time. There was a startled stir
all round the table, and one or two glanced stealthily in the direction
of Linklater. He was deathly pale. He was an ambitious boy,--as he was
an ambitious man in after life,--and the snub hurt his pride more than
most of them suspected. The fact that a far better man than himself had
been passed over, too, did not occur to him. He was not that sort.
"That is not an agreeable message to have to deliver," continued Uncle
Bill, who felt the necessity of breaking the silence. "But whatever our
private feelings in the matter may be,"--Uncle Bill did not like Mr.
Bradshaw, and he was inwardly raging at the calamity which had befallen
his beloved Eleven,--"we have no choice in the matter but to obey orders
and--er--pull together for the good of the school. We have still to
elect a Captain."
"I should like to propose Ellis," said Pip at once.
"Ellis is proposed. Will somebody second?"
All eyes were turned upon Linklater, but that modern Achilles was too
mortified to respond to their mute inquiry. Accordingly, after an
awkward little pause, Ellis was seconded by Mr. Hanbury, who was present
in his capacity of Treasurer, and unanimously elected. Pip was appointed
Secretary.
"I'm sorry for Ellis," remarked Hanbury to his colleague as they sat
down for a pipe after the meeting. "It's a poor business giving orders
to two infinitely better players than yourself, especially when they
enjoy the advantage of being martyrs into the bargain."
"If I wasn't a parson I should call the whole thing d----d nonsense,"
remarked Uncle Bill with sudden heat. He had fathered the School Eleven
for fourteen years, and he was now very sore that this disaster should
have fallen upon the most promising side he had ever coached. "I don't
want that young ass Linklater particularly, although they'd have
followed him all right; but, as I said to the Head, here was a splendid
opportunity for making an exception to the rule about not appointing a
Fifth-Form fellow. If there had been a decent alternative to Pip I
should have said nothing. Ellis is not popular with the school as it is,
and the fact of his having supplanted two favourites will make his
position simply unendurable. Poor chap! For sheer moral worth I don't
suppose there are half a dozen boys in the school to compare with him.
But after all he's only a plodder. He has no more influence than--than
Bradshaw himself. The Eleven won't follow him: they think he is 'pi.'
He'll stick to his guns, but he'll be miserable all the time, and he'll
look it too, and altogether he'll cast a blight over the best Eleven I
have ever seen at Grandwich."
Hanbury, who knew that his senior would feel better if allowed to have
his say, smoked on. Presently he said--
"I think you are rather reckoning without our friend Pip. He hasn't an
ounce of jealousy or meanness in his composition. Linklater will behave
like the young sweep that he is, but Pip will back Ellis through thick
and thin. Just you see if he don't. Cheer up, old man, and we trample on
the County and St. Dunstan's yet!"
* * * * *
The school had already regretfully resigned themselves to the prospect
of not having Pip as Captain of the Eleven, but the news that Linklater
had been barred too created a storm that was not allayed for some weeks.
Linklater, much to his own gratification, found himself a hero, and
without ado collected around him a band of sympathisers of the baser
sort, who assured him twenty times a day that he was the only
"sportsman"--overworked word!--in the school, and asserted with the
unreasoning logic of their kind that things ought to be "made warm" for
Ellis when the summer term arrived.
Pip said nothing about the matter at all. It was a way he had. He
methodically made up his fixture card for the cricket season, and
remarked to Ellis that if the present extraordinarily mild winter ended
as it had begun, they ought to be able with any luck to get up a little
net practice during the fag-end of the spring term after the Sports.
But all thoughts of cricket, and indeed of every other suggestion of
summer, were speedily brought to an end by the coming of the great and
historic frost--subsequently known as the Hot-Water Frost--which is
talked about in Grandwich to this day. It arrived rather late,--the
first week in February,--and it held continuously and unrelentingly
until the last week in March.
Morning after morning the mercury in the thermometer outside Big School
was found to have retreated unostentatiously into its bulb; day after
day a watery and apologetic sun shone forth upon a curiously resonant
and rigid world; and night after night the black frost came down like a
cast-iron pall, repairing in a moment the feeble and ineffective ravages
of the winter day.
Not very far away enthusiastic persons were endeavouring to roast an ox
whole in the middle of the Thames, and at Grandwich many an equally
unusual and delightful pastime was improvised. There was much sliding:
there was no other way of getting about; and boys and masters slid or
glid, with more or less agility and immunity from disaster, to and fro
between house and school for several weeks. There was a magnificent
slide, slightly downhill, all the way from Big School door to the
Gymnasium, which offered an exhilarating rush through the air of nearly
seventy yards--an offer of which Mr. Bradshaw, accidentally discovering
the existence of the slide when walking home from dinner one dark night,
involuntarily availed himself.
There was skating galore, for the Head, taking it for granted that each
day's frost must be the last, gave extra half-holidays with a liberality
which continued, perforce, for seven weeks. There was tobogganing, too,
down a smooth hillside ending in a plantation of young trees, against
which the adamantine heads of the youth of Grandwich crashed unceasingly
from dinnertime till tea. Every night, between "prep" and prayers, a
picked band from the Hivites house, which stood adjacent to the slope,
sallied out, often headed by their house-master in person, carrying pots
and kettles filled with hot water to pour upon the worn parts of the
toboggan-slide; rags and sacking, too, wherewith to bandage the trunks
of such of the young trees as were beginning to suffer from unceasing
collision with the heads of youthful Grandwich. Under this scientific
treatment the toboggan-slide increased rather than decreased in
excellence. The long slope, though slightly abraded towards the end of a
day, always emerged glossy and speckless with the morning's light, and
fearsome was the speed with which the toboggans rushed down to arboreal
destruction at the foot. "Monkey" Merton, the most agile boy in the
school, used to shoot down on skates, saving his life with incredible
regularity at the end of each descent by hooking on to a tree as a
street arab hooks on to a lamp-post.
And if there were joys outside there were others within. The classrooms
were so cold that the benches were deserted, and boys and master sat
round the great open fireplace in a sociable semicircle. In the houses
too, there were unlimited fires; and unlimited fires meant unlimited
other things. There was a fireplace at the end of each of the big
dormitories, and fires now blazed in these from seven o'clock every
evening. Theoretically these dormitory fires, not being stoked after 9
P.M., died a natural death shortly after the boys had retired to bed. In
practice, however, they glowed like the altars of Vesta all night long,
for every boy made it his business to convey a regular contribution of
coal to his dormitory. (Handkerchiefs were an appalling item in the
laundry-bill that term.) Their united efforts were thus sufficient to
keep the fire going all night, and the _elite_ of the dormitory used to
bivouac round it, in baths filled with bedclothes. This practice, of
course, varied in its extent, and depended entirely on the
house-master's capacity for keeping his house in order. Among the
Hivites it is sufficient to say that the nocturnal fire-worshippers were
never once disturbed during the whole seven weeks of frost.
Besides fuel, it was only natural that light refreshments should find
their way up to the dormitories, and many and festive were the
supper-parties which were held, with the senior monitor in the chair--or
rather the bath-chair--supported by the nobility and gentry sitting
well into the fire, while the fags sat and munched upon their hat-boxes
in the outer circle.
A change of routine always tugs at the bonds of discipline; for a boy,
like his noble and infinitely more useful fellow-creature, the horse,
though you may drive him daily with ease and comfort so long as you do
so under monotonously normal conditions, kicks over the traces at once
if you change his oats or take his blinkers off. Pip's house, the
Hivites, had recently changed hands. "Uncle Bill" had been promoted to
the largest house in Grandwich, and had left his flock lamenting, taking
Hanbury with him; and the house, under the benevolent sway of his
successor, Mr. Chilford, a fine scholar but no master of men, was in
that state of discipline usually described as "lax." Mr. Chilford, who
disliked boys, and saw as little of them as possible, left a good deal
of the management of his house to monitors--a sound plan, provided,
firstly, that it is adopted by the house-master to give his monitors
experience and reliability, and not to save himself trouble; and
secondly, that the monitors have the right stuff in them. But when the
monitors' excessive authority is entirely due to the house-master's lack
of the same, things are bound to happen.
Now, Mr. Chilford's monitors that term were not a very strong lot.
They were chiefly of the clever and rather undersized type, with
an unwholesome respect for the burly malefactors of the Fifth and
Modern Side. Their ranks had recently been stiffened by the
inclusion of Pip,--non-membership of the Sixth was no bar to a
house-monitorship,--and he and Linklater were the only representatives
of authority for whom the house could be said to have any respect
whatsoever. Pip, as junior monitor, did not participate largely in the
direction of affairs, but he backed the house's nominal head, one
Maxwell, with a good deal of unostentatious energy whenever that
incompetent official could be cajoled or reviled into doing his duty;
and he kept a quiet but effective hand upon the house-bullies.
But, as has been the case ever since history grew old enough to repeat
itself, the chief danger came not from without but within. Linklater,
second only to Pip in popularity and influence, once deposed from the
captaincy of the Eleven, became, as Ham had predicted, the prey of the
parasite and the flatterer. Such, little though they cared for their
much vaunted hero-martyr, were delighted with any policy which presented
them with an opportunity of pursuing a career of misdemeanour under
monitorial authority. Did Pip go to quell a riot in a study, Linklater
was in the midst of it; was a boy of the baser sort detected in any
particularly unlawful offence, he said that "Linklater had given him
leave."
Pip bore it all patiently, while he thought the matter over. Linklater
was his friend, the one boy in Grandwich for whom he felt any real
affection. He had an intense admiration for Linklater's superb
brilliancy in many departments of school life, and especially for the
readiness and vivacity that he himself lacked. They had fought their way
up the school together, and had stood back to back in more than one
tight place. The fact that "Link" was at present completely "off his
rocker" was entirely due to the scurvy manner in which he had been
treated by the Head--or rather by Braddy; for the Head, Pip admitted,
was bound to back weak masters up. Link would inevitably recover his
balance in time: at present allowances must be made for him.
However, there is a limit to all things. One evening, after the frost
had lasted for nearly a month, the monitors were lingering over the
tea-table in their own private apartment. A half-holiday for skating had
been granted that day, and the monitors, pleasantly replete, reclined
round the greatly lightened board, unwilling to drag themselves away
from the _debris_ of a fine veal-and-ham pie which somebody's "people"
had kindly sent for somebody's birthday.
Suddenly the door was opened with a rapid, nervous flourish, and the
Reverend James Chilford appeared on the threshold. It was plain that he
was suffering from an attack of energy. For days he would leave his
house to its own devices, and then, suddenly goaded to a sense of duty
by some slight misdemeanour, would make a lightning descent upon his
pupils, and, having thoroughly punished the wrong boy, disappear as
suddenly as he came.
"Maxwell!" he exclaimed, in his high, querulous voice, to the head boy,
"are you _quite_ incapable of maintaining discipline in the house? Here
I have a letter from the parents of Butler, complaining that their son
is being shamefully and systematically bullied by an organised gang. I
look to you to clear the matter up immediately. Come and report to me at
nine o'clock that you have detected the offenders and soundly punished
them!"
The door banged, and this paragon among house-masters was gone.
Maxwell looked round feebly.
"Well, what are we to do, you chaps?" he inquired, seeking to shift
responsibility in his turn.
"What's the good of doing anything for a swine who doesn't knock at the
door when he comes in?" grunted Blakely, the second monitor.
"I suppose we'd better have Butler in and ask him," said Maxwell, forced
to take the initiative.
"Fat lot of good that would do," put in Pip. "He wouldn't dare to tell
you even if he _has_ been bullied, which I doubt."
"Better send for Kelly and Hicks," said somebody.
Maxwell grew red, and there was a general laugh, for it was known that
he was desperately afraid of Kelly and Hicks, two bulky and muscular
libertines who did pretty well what they liked in the house.
"It's not Kelly or Hicks this time," said Pip, getting up and going to
the door, "I'm pretty sure of that."
"How do you know?"
"Had my eye on them all the time."
"Oh!" The other monitors sighed rather enviously. Their chief object in
life was not to keep their eye on Kelly and Hicks, but to keep the eye
of those freebooters off themselves.
"Where are you going? Don't clear out till we have settled something,"
said Maxwell helplessly, as Pip turned the door-handle.
"All right!" said Pip, and was gone.
He turned down a passage towards a district known as "the Colony," where
the boys' studies were situated. He was not on the track of Kelly and
Hicks this time. Another idea had occurred to him--an idea which set the
seal of certainty on a series of conjectures which had been forcing
themselves upon his reluctant mind for some weeks. After a brief sojourn
in a study _en route_--usually known as "the Pub," from the fact that it
was always full--into which he was unanimously haled to decide an acrid
dispute over certain questions connected with the Outside Edge, he
steered a course for Linklater's apartment, which was situated somewhat
remotely at the end of the passage. Linklater, by the way, had left tea
some time before Mr. Chilford's angry visit.
He gave his usual heavy thump on the door, and walked in.
Linklater was at home. He sat in an armchair with his back to the door.
In his hand he held a red-hot poker, the end of which swayed gently
backwards and forwards not more than two inches from the paralysed
countenance of Master Butler, who, cut off from retreat by an
intervening table, and rigid with terror, was staring helplessly at the
glowing point with the thoroughness of a fascinated rabbit.
III
Hearing the door open, Linklater looked round. Almost simultaneously a
brown and muscular hand reached over his right shoulder and whipped the
poker from his grasp.
"You can clear out, Butler," said Pip.
Master Butler departed like a panic-stricken rocket, and Pip and
Linklater were left alone.
Linklater eyed his friend furtively, with an uneasy grin. He knew that
he had to deal with a boy who was his superior in every way, and the
fact that the boy was his best friend did not make the coming interview
appear any less unpleasant.
Pip sat down and used the poker, which he still held in his hand, to
burn elaborate holes in his host's mantelpiece. At length he remarked,--
"Link, old man, you are making a bally ass of yourself."
"Thanks!" said Linklater laconically.
"You are putting me in an awful hole over it, too."
"Indeed? Why?"
"Well, this sort of thing has got to stop, and I don't quite know how to
set about it."
"Is it absolutely necessary for you to try? Are you head of the house?"
"No, I'm not. But Maxwell is. He's a rabbit, and the next four are
rabbits, too. That leaves you and me. By rights you ought to be the man
to keep the house on its legs. But you seem rather inclined to--to leave
it to me. See?"
Linklater glared.
"It's a large order for one monitor," continued Pip, "but I'm going to
do it, my son."
Pip finished a rather ornate pattern on the mantelpiece, laid down the
poker, and continued talking, looking straight into the fire.
"What sort of state do you think the house will be in by the end of the
term if it's to be run by Kelly, Hicks, and--you in your present state?
Rotten! I've seen that sort of thing before. Kendall's house went just
the same way four years ago, and--look at it now! _We_ aren't going that
way if I can help it. If only you'll pull yourself together--"
"What the blazes do you mean?" broke out Linklater passionately. "Do you
think I'm going to stop taking it out of an idle little hog of a fag
just to please you?"
"Oh, Butler? I wasn't talking about him," said Pip. "Listen a minute.
Lately I've been able to get no good out of you at all, and you don't
seem to have had much use for me either. It's not my business to jaw,
but I think you have rather allowed yourself to be talked over by a
pretty rotten lot--sorry, if they're friends of yours!--and the result,
to be quite frank, is that you are simply playing Hades with the house."
"What have I done?" snapped Linklater.
"Well, the monitors are a weak enough gang in all conscience, and it
takes them all their time to run things as it is; but when they find you
in the middle of every riot and row they're told to suppress, I don't
wonder that they all go about looking as if they wanted to blub. Then,
one night last week in the dormitory I woke up--about two in the
morning, I think--when you were still sitting with some of your pals
round the fire. As far as I remember there were you and Hicks and Kelly
and little Redgrave--"
"You ought to set up as a private detective," said Linklater, in tones
which were meant to be sarcastic, but which only succeeded in sounding
rather frightened.
"I happen to know," said Pip, "because you were talking rather loud--at
the top of your voices, in fact. And to judge by your conversation you
were brewing whiskey-punch."
He stopped, and looked at his friend inquiringly.
"I wonder you didn't rush and tell Chilly," said Linklater witheringly.
"I might have done," agreed Pip, "only it happens to be rather a
serious matter for a monitor to be nabbed in a business like that."
"So you thought you'd give me a pi-jaw instead! That was decent of you."
Pip took this affront quite impassively.
"Don't talk rot," he said. "You know perfectly well that this isn't a
pi-jaw. They're not in my line. We--we are both people of the same sort
of character. The only difference is that at present you happen to be
rather off your oats owing to the Head's treatment of you, and that
fills you with a desire to raise Cain and drink punch in the
dormitory--eh?"
This exceedingly handsome way of putting things appealed even to
Linklater's selfish soul.
"Well, perhaps you are right," he growled. "But why can't you be a
sportsman and join in?"
Pip laughed.
"I wonder how many good chaps have gone to the devil through fear of not
being thought 'sportsmen,'" he said. "No, Link, old man, I won't join
in. I have my vices, but whiskey-punch in tooth-mugs at 2 A.M. isn't one
of them."
"Very well," said Linklater ungraciously. "Sorry to have disturbed your
slumbers. I'll tell the chaps to meet in the East Dormitory tonight.
Sure Maxwell will be pleased to see us!"
Pip stood up and sighed heavily. He knew he was dealing what would
probably be its deathblow to one of the few friendships he really
valued, but this was no time for ignoble compromises. He leaned rather
dejectedly against the mantelpiece, this David, and looked down upon the
unworthy Jonathan before him.
"Link, the whole business has got to be dropped--absolutely. Surely
you've got the sense to see that."
He spoke almost appealingly, still clutching at the fast receding hope
that his friend would pull himself together yet. But he saw in a moment
that the hope was a vain one. Linklater's teeth shut with a snap, and
his eyes blazed.
"Drop it, must I? Indeed? And who is going to stop me? You, I suppose,
you--you swab!"
Pip put his last regrets from him, and answered briskly--
"Correct!"
"And why?"
"Because--well, because I happen to be rather fond of this old
house,--we've both had a good time in it, Link,--and I don't want to see
it turned into a fully-licensed pub. Also, because I don't like to see
my friends make asses of themselves. Also, because--I suppose I ought to
have mentioned this first--because it happens to be what I was made a
monitor for."
"O lor!" said Linklater, turning up his eyes; "talking about his 'duty'
now. We shall have a prayer next!"
"Yes, horrid word, 'duty,' isn't it?" said Pip. "I know no sportsman
would ever use it. But I'm going to do mine for all that, my lad."
"May I venture to inquire how?"
"Well, there you rather have me. But I shall begin by going round the
house with a stick and making myself deuced unpleasant."
"How the house will love you!"
"They'll thank me in the end," said Pip stoutly.
"What else will you do?"
"Well, if I can't stiffen up the other monitors enough to get things
right again, I shall have to make Maxwell report some of the worst
people to Chilly."
"Maxwell? He'd never dare."
"Then I'll do it myself."
"Go and blab! That's right. Great Scott! you must have got religious
mania, or something."
"But of course," said Pip reassuringly, "I should only do that as a last
resource. I should try the other way first. To begin with--but, by the
bye, where do you get your whiskey?"
"What the devil has that got to do with you?" roared Linklater.
"Lots. I'm going to cut off the supply."
"Find out where it comes from first."
"I'm going to. Do you get it from the butler?"
"Find out."
"Right-o! But if I accuse him of supplying smuggled whiskey to the
house, and he happens to be innocent, it's possible he may consider it
his duty to mention the matter to Chilly. Won't you be rather landed if
he does?"
He gazed inquiringly at Linklater, and the latter, thus suddenly
cornered, lowered his eyes.
"It isn't the butler," he growled.
"Who is it?"
A pause. Then--"Atkins." (Atkins was the gate porter.)
"Thanks," said Pip. "I'll tell Atkins that if he supplies another bottle
I'll report him to the Head. But all that is by the way. What I want to
say is this, Link: will you promise me on your honor to drop all this
monkey-business and back me up in putting the house in decent order
again? This long frost is playing Old Harry with the place; but if
you--if we play the man this day, the bottom will drop out of the
opposition completely. Will you promise, Link?"
Pip was extremely red in the face. One cannot strain the foundations of
an ancient friendship without feeling it.
Linklater looked at him for a moment, and then gazed into the fire.
"Supposing I don't," he said at length.
"But you will?"
"Yes; but supposing I _don't_?"
"Then," said Pip deliberately, "I should have to give you a thundering
good licking, Link."
Linklater was no coward, but Pip's slow words dropped into his heart
like ice. He felt miserably petty and mean, and he knew that he looked
it. He raised the ghost of a laugh.
"Wha--what the blazes do you mean, old man?" he queried uneasily. "Rum
way to treat your friends, isn't it?" It was the first time that he had
admitted their friendship during that interview.
"Yes, filthy," said Pip. "But there's only one alternative--to report
you to Chilly, and I don't want to do that. The less masters have to do
with this job the better."
Linklater plucked up courage. Pip seemed so good-tempered and serene.
"Well, old chap," he said easily, "I absolutely refuse to fight you. The
idea's absurd. So there!"
He leaned back in his chair with the air of a man who has neatly turned
an awkward corner.
Pip looked at him grimly.
"I didn't say fight," he explained. "I said I should have to give you a
licking,--an ordinary, low-down caning, that is,--a monitor's
lamming,--in here. Of course, if you resist, I shall have to knock you
down till you give in; and then I--I shall bend you over in the usual
way, that's all."
He did not speak boastfully, but quietly and evenly, with his serious
blue eyes fixed upon the boy in front of him. He had figured out the
situation, and settled on his course of action. To him Linklater had
ceased to be a friend, and was now an abstract problem, to be solved at
all costs. He was prepared to knock Linklater senseless, if necessary,
until he purged him of the evil spirit that possessed him. And Linklater
knew it.
There was a pause, and then Linklater's weaker nature suddenly crumpled
up like a wet rag before Pip's overbearing steadiness.
"All right!" he replied petulantly. "Anything you like. You've beaten
me! I'll give in, curse you! And for Heaven's sake stop staring at me
like that!"
His overstrained nerves could endure no more, and he rushed from the
study, leaving his guest master of the situation.
Pip sighed heavily, and diverted his devastating gaze into the fire.
He had lost a friend, but he had saved the house.
IV
Thereafter there was no more trouble with the unruly element. Bereft of
pseudo-monitorial support, Messrs. Hicks and Kelly found the ground
slipping from under them. They were routed on several occasions, for Pip
exercised a good deal of quite unconstitutional authority, and wielded
the rod in a manner which they regarded as excessively unfair. The
half-hearted monitors took courage; presently the house began to
understand the meaning of the word obedience, and its self-appointed
leaders came to the reluctant conclusion that the game was not worth the
candle. To crown all, the frost broke, and the long-deferred joys of
football soon dissipated the last relics of discontent and
insubordination for everybody.
For everybody but Linklater, that is. His pride had had a fall, and he
was not the boy to recover easily from such a disaster. His interview
with Pip had been absolutely private--apart from the momentary intrusion
of Pip upon the torture of Master Butler, a scene which had lost none of
its dramatic force from that infant martyr's description of it; but the
house, though they knew nothing for certain, observed two things--(_a_)
that Linklater was no longer the sworn foe of law and order, and (_b_)
that he was no longer the friend of Pip; and putting two and two
together and adding them up in time-honoured fashion to a total of five,
they came to the unanimous and joyous conclusion that Pip had "lammed
Link till he promised to dry up."
Pip, if he felt any satisfaction over the result of his labours,
displayed none. He invited Linklater to take supper in his study the
following Sunday evening, and though little surprised at the answer he
received, all his stolid philosophy could not prevent him from feeling
distinctly unhappy.
One night he lay awake, thinking. The school clock had just chimed
midnight, and the dormitory was given up to a well-modulated _concerto_
for seventeen nasal organs. Pip found himself wondering if Linklater was
asleep. Happy thought! he would go and see.
The night was cold, and the moon shone brightly through the uncurtained
oriel windows upon Pip's bare feet as they paddled along the boarded
floor. Pip's cubicle was next to the dormitory door, while Linklater's was
at the extreme end, the two monitors thus dividing the dormitory between
them.
Pip had something to say to Linklater.
Presently he arrived at his friend's cubicle. It possessed no door, and
the moonlight illuminated the interior quite plainly, in spite of the
fact that the lower half of the window was obscured by a human
form--the form, in fact, of the owner of the cubicle. He was leaning far
out, and was apparently endeavouring to communicate with some one in the
garden below.
No; he was hauling something up! Pip could see the regular motion of his
elbow as the line came in hand over hand. What had this midnight
fisherman hooked? And who had put the fish on the hook for him? And what
on earth--?
Suddenly the motion of Linklater's elbow ceased. Still intent on his
employment, he stepped back a pace and scientifically "landed" his
quarry. Simultaneously Pip realised that this performance was not
intended for the public eye. He must either take official notice of it
or go back to bed.
He went back to bed.
"I wonder," he said to himself, as he settled down under the clothes
again, "if they ever wrap up anything _but_ bottles in those straw
things? He can't have taken to drink! Atkins, of course, daren't supply
him with any more, so he must be--But surely he doesn't find it as
necessary as all that! Perhaps it's only cussedness. Let's hope so! Poor
old Link! In the morning I'll--"
Here Pip joined the well-modulated _concerto_.
* * * * *
Pip's sleepy surmises had been more or less correct. It _was_ a bottle,
but Linklater had not taken to drink. It was, as Pip opined, chiefly
"cussedness." Pip, argued Linklater, had suddenly turned religious, and
by a most unwarrantable parade of muscular Christianity had compelled
him, Linklater, the idol of the school, to eat humble pie and then
efface himself. But not even Pip should stop his fun. He would show his
independence!
Hence the bottle of highly inferior whiskey, obtained at an appalling
cost from an individual known to the boys as the One-Eyed Tout, who
resided in the adjacent village, and whose visits to the school (events
which the vigilance of the authorities rendered infrequent and furtive)
were invariably for some nefarious purpose. It is true that Linklater
did not like whiskey, though plenty of hot water and sugar enabled him
to swallow it with a fair show of enjoyment. But it was forbidden fruit.
Few of us, from Eve downwards, have ever been able to withstand that
temptation, and, as his dormitory parties had been perforce
discontinued, Linklater conceived the happy notion of giving a "small
and early" in his own study. And on these hospitable thoughts intent he
invited Kelly and Hicks to "look in" directly after prayers if they
wanted "a little something, hot."
Kelly and Hicks both nodded knowingly, and accepted the invitation with
much pleasure. Their sentiments were perfectly genuine. In the first
place, it is gratifying for ordinary house-bullies to be noticed by a
celebrity in the Eleven; and in the second, it is comforting to feel
that in the event of a collision with the powers that be, the entire
responsibility will fall upon the exalted shoulders of your host.
Bedtime at Grandwich lasted from nine-thirty till ten-fifteen. The
school retired to roost in detachments--"squeakers" at half-past nine,
Middle School at ten, and the Sixth at a quarter-past. At that hour the
senior boy was supposed to turn off the gas, and slumber reigned
officially till six-forty-five the following morning.
The dormitory cubicles, as has already been mentioned, possessed no
doors, and the partitions were only seven feet high. Each cubicle was
entered by an opening some three feet wide, across the top of which ran
a stout wooden bar. The bar, originally devised to strengthen the
framework of the doorway, had been used for generations by Grandwich
boys for the performance of gymnastic exercises. Indeed, it was
incumbent upon every newcomer, after he had been a member of the school
a fortnight, to do six "press-ups" on his cubicle-bar, under penalty of
continuous and painful assistance (with a slipper) from the rest of the
dormitory until proficiency was attained.
On the evening of Linklater's party, Pip arrived in the dormitory, as
was his custom, shortly before ten, and after attiring himself in his
pyjamas proceeded to his usual exercises. Five minutes' club-swinging
warmed his blood nicely; and he had just completed his preliminary
"toe-and-up," and was sitting balanced on the bar, when the dormitory
door, which adjoined the entrance to his cubicle, suddenly swung open,
and Linklater appeared upon the threshold. He was singing, blindly,
lustily, raucously; and Pip realised at a glance that the "straw thing"
_had_ contained a bottle, and that his friend was now a fully-qualified
candidate for "the sack."
Linklater arrived opposite Pip's cubicle, where he drew up with a slight
lurch and a suggestion of a hiccup. Small boys, who, attracted by his
corybantic entrance, had come to the doors of their cubicles to see what
the matter was, regarded him furtively with looks of mingled fear and
amusement.
Pip slipped off his bar.
"Have you been making that filthy row all the way up from your study?"
he inquired.
Linklater turned a slightly glazed eye upon him, and nodded.
"In that case," said Pip, "you'll probably have Chilly up any
moment. If he catches you like this you'll get sacked--do you
understand?--_sacked!_ Go to bed, quick--you swine!"
He took his bemused friend by the shoulder and turned him in the right
direction. But two glasses of toddy held firm sway in Linklater's
unaccustomed interior, and for the moment Dutch courage was the order of
the day.
"Think I care?" he roared. "Where _is_ old Chilly? Let me get at him!
Chilly be--"
"There he is!--downstairs--now!" hissed Pip in his ear. "Get to your
cubicle and into bed, as quick as you can. I'll try to keep him down at
my end; but if he comes along to you, pretend to be asleep. It's your
only chance."
All the time he was hustling the highly indignant Linklater towards his
cubicle. Downstairs Mr. Chilford's high voice could be heard querulously
announcing its owner's determination to unearth "the perpetrator of this
outrage."
For a moment it seemed as if Pip's determined strategy would succeed.
But just at the entrance to his cubicle Linklater broke away with a
sudden twist, and in a moment was flying down the dormitory again with
the avowed intention of interviewing his house-master.
"Where is the blighter?" he shrieked. "Lead me to him, and I'll--Pip,
you cad, leave me alone! Help! rescue! cad--hrrrumph!"
The last ejaculation was caused by sudden contact with his own pillow,
for Pip, losing all patience, fairly picked him up in his arms, and,
carrying him kicking and struggling the whole length of the dormitory,
through a double rank of trembling and ecstatic fags, heaved him through
the doorway of his cubicle on to his bed.
"Get him into bed and sit on his head," he whispered rapidly to the two
biggest boys present. "Chilly is coming upstairs now. Never mind his
clothes. Quick!"
His lieutenants, though they risked a heavy punishment for being found
in another boy's cubicle, turned to their task with the utmost
cheerfulness and vigour, while Pip raced down the dormitory to repel the
invader. When that well-meaning but incompetent pedagogue entered the
door Pip was preening himself upon his cubicle-bar.
Mr. Chilford began at once--
"Wilmot, what is the meaning of this disgraceful disturbance? I insist
upon having the names of those responsible. Do you hear? I insist, I
say,--I insist!"
"Disturbance, sir?" said Pip blankly.
"Yes--disturbance, brawl, riot, pandemonium, boy! Who is responsible?"
"What sort of disturbance was it, sir?" inquired Pip respectfully, his
cast-iron features unmoved.
"What sort? Are you deaf? Do you mean to say you heard nothing?"
Pip reflected.
"I think I did hear somebody singing, sir," he admitted at length.
"Hear?" Mr. Chilford almost screamed. "I should think you did! And, what
is more, I believe he was coming up to this dormitory. Who was it?"
"I think it must be a mistake, sir. There is nobody singing here; you
can hear that for yourself, sir."
Mr. Chilford was accustomed to cavalier treatment from boys, but Pip's
bland rudeness was rather more than even he was prepared to stand. For a
moment there was dead silence in the dormitory, broken only by spasmodic
quakings from one or two beds. Then, just as Mr. Chilford braced himself
for a thorough scarifying of Pip,--a congenial task which would probably
have occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else and so tided over a
disaster,--there came from the far end of the dormitory a loud,
resonant, and alcoholic chuckle, and out of the gloomy recesses of
Linklater's cubicle there arose once more the refrain of that very song
which had brought Mr. Chilford flying from his study.
Pip ground his teeth. But he broke in quickly,--
"Would you mind telling me if I do a straight-arm balance right, sir?"
(Mr. Chilford had been something of a gymnast in his youth, and many a
hard-pressed sinner had escaped punishment at the eleventh hour by
asking his advice on the subject.) "My left arm seems to go wrong
somehow. Do you think--"
But Mr. Chilford had heard the noise.
"There--I knew it, I knew it!" he cried. "It _is_ in this dormitory. Who
is it, Wilmot? I insist upon you giving me his name."
"I expect it's Linklater, sir," said Pip, after consideration. The
dormitory shivered. Surely Pip was not going to throw up the sponge now!
"He often sings in his sleep, sir," he added.
The dormitory breathed again, and Mr. Chilford, completely baffled by
Pip's heroic coolness, paused irresolutely. Meanwhile, in the murky
recesses of Linklater's abiding-place, the two sturdy Fifth-Form boys
did not cease to sit precariously but resolutely on Linklater's head.
"Where I go wrong, sir," continued Pip, following up his advantage, "is
here." He poised himself on the bar and began to sink his head slowly
down, while his rigid body and legs, hinged on his elbows, swung slowly
up. "My left arm begins to go as soon as the weight--"
Mr. Chilford began to take an interest, in spite of himself. But
then--ten thousand horrors!--there was a sound as of heavy bodies in
conflict, and Linklater's raucous voice was once more uplifted--
"What? Here, is he? Just the man I want to see! Lead me to him, lead me
to him, I tell you! Lead--"
"Should I have my thumbs round the bar, sir, or alongside my fingers?"
gasped Pip, upside down and desperate.
But it was too late. Mr. Chilford, roused at last, turned on his heel
and rushed up the dormitory in the direction of Linklater's cubicle.
He had only taken a few steps when his course was arrested by the sound
of a crash and a dull thud behind him. He whirled round again to see
what had happened. Pip was no longer balanced on the bar, but lay on the
floor beneath, a motionless heap of arms and legs and striped pyjamas.
Providence had stepped in at the eleventh hour, and the unjust had been
saved, not for the first time, at the expense of the just.
* * * * *
Seven feet is not a very long way to fall, but when you do so head
first, and alight on the point of your left shoulder on a boarded floor,
something is bound to go. Pip's collar-bone went, and his thick head
also suffered considerable concussion. However, his injuries, as
described to Master Linklater by the entire dormitory next morning, were
sufficient to give that late disciple of Bacchus a very bad fright
indeed. His recollection of the disaster itself was vague in the
extreme, but the strictures on his own part in the affair, received from
numerous angry people during the next few days, had an effect upon him
which was to last the rest of his life. Consequently it was a very
remorseful and repentant Linklater who presented himself at the
Sanatorium two days later, on a visit to the invalid.
"Five minutes and no more!" said the decisive matron, as she showed him
into the sick-room. "His head is still very painful."
Linklater, to his eternal credit, devoted the greater part of the five
minutes to an abject apology for his baseness and ingratitude.
Pride--most invincible of all devils--was swept aside at last, and his
broken words embarrassed Pip considerably.
"All right, old man, you can dry up now," he remarked nervously, as
Linklater paused for breath. "Let's drop the subject once and for all.
It's all over."
"Is it? Pip, they say you won't be able to bowl next term."
This possibility had not occurred to Pip, but if he felt any
disappointment he displayed none.
"Yes," he said, "it's a pity. Never mind!"
"And it's all my fault, my fault!" Linklater held his head in his hands
and groaned aloud.
"Your fault? Piffle, my dear man! What on earth had you to do with my
falling off a bar? You were at the other end of the dormitory. The whole
thing was an accident: it happened at a rather lucky time for you,
that's all. You'd better cut now."
Linklater rose to go, mightily comforted.
"I heard how you held out against Chilly, trying to keep him from
coming--"
"Oh, hook it!" remarked the patient uneasily.
But Linklater lingered a moment. He wanted to say something.
"I'll--we'll look after the house till you come back, Pip," he said
awkwardly.
"Right. Back Maxwell up. He's a puker, Link."
"Well, so long!"
"So long!"
Linklater reached the door, and turned.
"It's a rum world, Pip," he said. "If you hadn't tumbled off that bar at
that precise moment I should have been sacked."
"You would," assented Pip.
Then, as the door closed upon his friend, he turned to the wall, and
murmured with a contented chuckle,--
"That's why I did it, my son!"