had made a discovery concerning one among them which, astounding as it
was to him, and painful as he felt it to be compelled to make it known,
concerned them all to be aware of.
Mr. Bultitude could scarcely believe his ears. His secret was
discovered, then; the injury done him by Dick about to be repaired, and
open restitution and apology offered him! It was not perhaps precisely
delicate on the Doctor's part to make so public an affair of it, but so
long as it ended well, he could afford to overlook that.
So he settled himself comfortably on a form with his back against a
desk and his legs crossed, his expression indicating plainly that he
knew what was coming and, on the whole, approved of it.
"Ever since I have devoted myself to the cause of tuition," continued
the Doctor, "I have made it my object to provide boys under my roof with
fare so abundant and so palatable that they should have no excuse for
obtaining extraneous luxuries. I have presided myself at their meals, I
have superintended their very sports with a fatherly eye----"
Here he paused, and fixed one or two of those nearest him with the
fatherly eye in such a manner that they writhed with confusion.
"He's wandering from the point," thought Paul, a little puzzled.
"I have done all this on one understanding--that the robustness of your
constitutions, acquired by the plain, simple, but abundant regimen of my
table, shall not be tampered with by the indulgence in any of the
pampering products of confectionery. They are absolutely and
unconditionally prohibited--as every boy who hears me now knows
perfectly well!
"And yet" (here he began gradually to relax his self-restraint and lash
himself into a frenzy of indignation), "what do I find? There are some
natures so essentially base, so incapable of being affected by kindness,
so dead to honour and generosity, that they will not scruple to conspire
or set themselves individually to escape and baffle the wise precautions
undertaken for their benefit. I will not name the dastards at
present--they themselves can look into their hearts and see their guilt
reflected there----"
At this every boy, beginning to see the tendency of his denunciations,
tried hard to assume an air of conscious innocence and grieved interest,
the majority achieving conspicuous failure.
"I do not like to think," said Dr. Grimstone, "that the evil has a
wider existence than I yet know of. It may be so; nothing will surprise
me now. There may be some before me trembling with the consciousness of
secret guilt. If so, let those boys make the only reparation in their
power, and give themselves up in an honourable and straightforward
manner!"
To this invitation, which indeed resembled that of the duck-destroying
Mrs. Bond, no one made any response. They had grown too wary, and now
preferred to play a waiting game.
"Then let the being--for I will not call him boy--who is known to me,
step forth and confess his fault publicly, and sue for pardon!"
thundered the Doctor, now warmed to his theme.
But the being declined from a feeling of modesty, and a faint hope that
somebody else might, after all, be the person aimed at.
"Then I name him!" stormed Dr. Grimstone; "Cornelius Coggs--stand up!"
Coggs half rose in a limp manner, whimpering feebly, "Me, sir? Oh,
please sir--no, not me, sir!"
"Yes, you, sir, and let your companions regard you with the contempt and
abhorrence you so richly merit!" Here, needless to say, the whole school
glared at poor Coggs with as much virtuous indignation as they could
summon up at such short notice; for contempt is very infectious when
communicated from high quarters.
"So, Coggs," said the Doctor, with a slow and withering scorn, "so you
thought to defy me; to smuggle compressed illness and concentrated
unhealthiness into this school with impunity? You flattered yourself
that after I had once confiscated your contraband poisons, you would
hear no more of it! You deceived yourself, sir! I tell you, once for
all, that I will not allow you to contaminate your innocent schoolmates
with your gifts of surreptitious sweetmeats; they shall not be perverted
with your pernicious peppermints, sir; you shall not deprave them by
jujubes, or enervate them with Turkish Delight! I will not expose
myself or them to the inroads of disease invited here by a hypocritical
inmate of my walls. The traitor shall have his reward!"
All of which simply meant that the Doctor, having once had a small boy
taken seriously ill from the effects of overeating himself, was
naturally anxious to avoid such an inconvenience for the future. "Thanks
to the fearless honesty of a youth," continued the Doctor, "who, in an
eccentric manner, certainly, but with, I do not doubt, the best of
motives, opened my eyes to the fell evil, I am enabled to cope with it
at its birth. Richard Bultitude, I take this occasion of publicly
thanking and commending you; your conduct was noble!"
Mr. Bultitude was too angry and disappointed to speak. He had thought
his path was going to be made smooth, and now all this ridiculous fuss
was being made about a few peppermint lozenges. He wished he had never
mentioned them. It was not the last time he breathed that wish. "As for
you, Coggs," said the Doctor, suddenly producing a lithe brown cane, "I
shall make a public example of you."
Coggs stared idiotically and protested, but after a short and painful
scene, was sent off up to his bedroom, yelping like a kicked puppy.
"One word more," said the Doctor, now almost calm again. "I know that
you all think with me in your horror of the treachery I have just
exposed. I know that you would scorn to participate in it." (A thrill
and murmur, expressive of intense horror and scorn, went round the
benches.) "You are anxious to prove that you do so beyond a doubt."
(Again a murmur of assent.) "I give you all that opportunity. I have
implicit trust and confidence in you--let every boarder go down into the
box-room and fetch up his playbox, just as it is, and open it here
before me."
There was a general fall of jaws at this very unexpected conclusion; but
contriving to overcome their dismay, they went outside and down through
the playground into the box-room, Paul amongst the rest, and amidst
universal confusion, everyone opened his box, and, with a consideration
especially laudable in heedless boyhood, thoughtfully and carefully
removed from it all such dainties as might be calculated to shock or
pain their preceptor.
Mr. Bultitude found a key which was labelled "playbox," and began to
open a box which bore Dick's initials cut upon the lid; without any
apprehensions, however, for he had given too strict orders to his
daughter, to fear that any luxuries would be concealed there.
But no sooner had he raised the lid than he staggered back with disgust.
It was crammed with cakes, butterscotch, hardbake, pots of jam, and even
a bottle of ginger wine--enough to compromise a chameleon!
He set himself to pitch them all out as soon as possible with feverish
haste, but Tipping was too quick for him. "Hallo!" he cried: "oh, I say,
you fellows, come here! Just look at this! Here's this impudent young
beggar, who sneaked of poor old Coggs for sucking jujubes, and very
nearly got us all into a jolly good row, with his own box full all the
time; butterscotch, if you please, and jam, and ginger wine! You'll just
put 'em all back again, will you, you young humbug!"
"Do you use those words to me, sir?" said Paul angrily, for he did not
like to be called a humbug.
"Yes, sir, please, sir," jeered Tipping; "I did venture to take such a
liberty, sir."
"Then it was like your infernal impudence," growled Paul. "You be kind
enough to leave my affairs alone. Upon my word, what boys are coming to
nowadays!"
"Are you going to put that tuck back?" said Tipping impatiently.
"No, sir, I'm not. Don't interfere with what you're not expected to
understand!"
"Well, if you won't," said Tipping easily, "I suppose we must.
Biddlecomb, kindly knock him down, and sit on his head while I fill his
playbox for him."
This was neatly and quickly done. Biddlecomb tripped Mr. Bultitude up,
and sat firmly on him, while Tipping carefully replaced the good things
in Dick's box, after which he locked it, and courteously returned the
key. "As the box is heavy," he said, with a wicked wink, "I'll carry it
up for you myself," which he did, Paul following, more dead than alive,
and too shaken even to expostulate.
"Bultitude's box was rather too heavy for him, sir," he explained as he
came in; and Dr. Grimstone, who had quite recovered his equanimity,
smiled indulgently, and remarked that he "liked to see the strong
assisting the weak."
All the boxes had by this time been brought up, and were ranged upon the
tables, while the Doctor went round, making an almost formal inspection,
like a Custom House officer searching compatriots, and becoming milder
and milder as box after box opened to reveal a fair and innocent
interior.
Paul's turn was coming very near, and his heart seemed to shrivel like a
burst bladder. He fumbled with his key, and tried hard to lose it. It
was terrible to have oneself to apply the match which is to blow one to
the winds. If--if--the idea was almost too horrible--but if he, a
blameless and respectable city merchant, were actually to find himself
served like the miserable Coggs!
At last the Doctor actually stood by him. "Well, my boy," he said, not
unkindly, "I'm not afraid of anything wrong here, at any rate."
Mr. Bultitude, who had the best reasons for not sharing his confidence,
made some inarticulate sounds, and pretended to have a difficulty in
turning the key.
"Eh? Come, open the box," said the Doctor with an altered manner. "What
are you fumbling at it for in this--this highly suspicious manner? I'll
open it myself."
He took the key and opened the lid, when the cakes and wine stood
revealed in all their damning profusion. The Doctor stepped back
dramatically. "Hardbake!" he gasped; "wine, pots of strawberry jam! Oh,
Bultitude, this is a revelation indeed! So I have nourished one more
viper in my bosom, have I? A crawling reptile which curries favour by
denouncing the very crime it conceals in its playbox! Bultitude, I was
not prepared for such duplicity as this!"
"I--I swear I never put them in!" protested the unhappy Paul. "I--I
never touch such things: they would bring on my gout in half-an-hour.
It's ridiculous to punish me. I never knew they were there!"
"Then why were you so anxious to avoid opening the box?" rejoined the
Doctor. "No, sir, you're too ingenious; your guilt is clear. Go to your
dormitory, and wait there till I come to you!"
Paul went upstairs, feeling utterly abandoned and helpless. Though a
word as to his real character might have saved him, he could not have
said it, and, worse still, knew now that he could not.
"I shall be caned," he told himself, and the thought nearly drove him
mad. "I know I shall be caned! What on earth shall I do?"
He opened the door of his bedroom. Coggs was rocking and moaning on his
bed in one corner of the room, but looked up with red furious eyes as
Paul came in.
"What do you want up here?" he said savagely. "Go away, can't you!"
"I wish I _could_ go away," said Paul dolefully; "but I'm--hum--I'm sent
up here too," he explained, with some natural embarrassment.
"What!" cried Coggs, slipping off his bed and staring wildly: "you don't
mean to say you're going to catch it too?"
"I've--ah--every reason to fear," said Mr. Bultitude stiffly, "that I am
indeed going to 'catch it,' as you call it."
"Hooray!" shouted Coggs hysterically: "I don't care now. And I'll have
some revenge on my own account as well. I don't mind an extra licking,
and you're in for one as it is. Will you stand up to me or not?"
"I don't understand you," said Paul. "Don't come so near. Keep off, you
young demon, will you!" he cried presently, as Coggs, exasperated by all
his wrongs, was rushing at him with an evidently hostile intent. "There,
don't be annoyed, my good boy," he pleaded, catching up a chair as a
bulwark. "It was a misunderstanding. I wish you no harm. There, my dear
young friend! Don't!"
The "dear young friend" was grappling with him and attempting to wrest
the chair away by brute force. "When I get at you," he said, his hot
breath hissing through the chair rungs, "I'll jolly well teach you to
sneak of me!"
"Murder!" Paul gasped, feeling his hold on the chair relaxing. "Unless
help comes this young fiend will have my blood!"
They were revolving slowly round the chair, watching each other's eyes
like gladiators, when Paul noticed a sudden blankness and fixity in his
antagonist's expression, and, looking round, saw Dr. Grimstone's awful
form framed in the doorway, and gave himself up for lost.
6. _Learning and Accomplishments_
"I subscribe to Lucian: 'tis an elegant thing which cheareth up the
mind, exerciseth the body, delights the spectators, which teacheth
many comely gestures, equally affecting the ears, eyes and soul
itself."--BURTON, _on Dancing_.
"What is this?" asked Dr. Grimstone in his most blood-curdling tone,
after a most impressive pause at the dormitory door.
Mr. Bultitude held his tongue, but kept fast hold of his chair, which he
held before him as a defence against either party, while Coggs remained
motionless in the centre of the room, with crooked knees and hands
dangling impotently.
"Will one of you be good enough to explain how you come to be found
struggling in this unseemly manner? I sent you up here to meditate on
your past behaviour."
"I should be most happy to meditate, sir," protested Paul, lowering his
chair on discovering that there was no immediate danger, "if that--that
bloodthirsty young ruffian there would allow me to do so. I am going
about in bodily fear of him, Dr. Grimstone. I want him bound over to
keep the peace. I decline to be left alone with him--he's not safe!"
"Is that so, Coggs? Are you mean and base enough to take this cowardly
revenge on a boy who has had the moral courage to expose your
deceit--for your ultimate good--a boy who is unable to defend himself
against you?"
"He can fight when he chooses, sir," said Coggs; "he blacked my eye last
term, sir!"
"I assure you," said Paul, with the convincing earnestness of truth,
"that I never blacked anybody's eye in the whole course of my life. I am
not--ah--a pugnacious man. My age, and--hum--my position, ought to
protect me from these scandals----"
"You've come back this year, sir," said Dr. Grimstone, "with a very odd
way of talking of yourself--an exceedingly odd way. Unless I see you
abandoning it, and behaving like a reasonable boy again, I shall be
forced to conclude you intend some disrespect and open defiance by it."
"If you would allow me an opportunity of explaining my position, sir,"
said Paul, "I would undertake to clear your mind directly of such a
monstrous idea. I am trying to assert my rights, Dr. Grimstone--my
rights as a citizen, as a householder! This is no place for me, and I
appeal to you to set me free. If you only knew one tenth----"
"Let us understand one another, Bultitude," interrupted the Doctor.
"You may think it an excellent joke to talk nonsense to me like this.
But let me tell you there is a point where a jest becomes an insult.
I've spared you hitherto out of consideration for the feelings of your
excellent father, who is so anxious that you should become an object of
pride and credit to him; but if you dare to treat me to any more of this
bombast about 'explaining your rights,' you will force me to exercise
one of mine--the right to inflict corporal punishment, sir--which you
have just seen in operation upon another."
"Oh!" said Mr. Bultitude faintly, feeling utterly crestfallen--and he
could say nothing more.
"As for those illicit luxuries in your playbox," continued the Doctor,
"the fact that you brought the box up as it was is in your favour; and I
am inclined on reflection to overlook the affair, if you can assure me
that you were no party to their being put there?"
"On the contrary," said Paul, "I gave the strictest orders that there
was to be no such useless extravagance. I objected to have the kitchen
and housekeeper's room ransacked to make a set of rascally boys ill for
a fortnight at my expense!"
The Doctor stared slightly at this creditable but unnatural view of the
subject. However, as he could not quarrel with the sentiment, he let the
manner of expressing it pass unrebuked for the present, and, after
sentencing Coggs to two days' detention and the copying of innumerable
French verbs, he sent the ill-matched pair down to the schoolroom to
join their respective classes.
Paul went resignedly downstairs and into the room, where he found Mr.
Blinkhorn at the head of one of the long tables, taking a class of about
a dozen boys.
"Take your Livy and Latin Primer, Bultitude," said Mr. Blinkhorn mildly,
"and sit down."
Mr. Blinkhorn was a tall angular man, with a long neck and slightly
drooping head. He had thin wiry brown hair, and a plain face, with
shortsighted kind brown eyes. In character he was mild and reserved,
too conscientious to allow himself the luxury of either favourites or
aversions among the boys, all of whom in his secret soul he probably
disliked about equally, though he neither said nor did anything to show
it.
Paul took a book--any book, for he did not know or care to know one from
another--and sat down at the end furthest from the master, inwardly
rebelling at having education thus forced upon him at his advanced
years, but seeing no escape.
"At dinner time," he resolved desperately, "I will insist on speaking
out, but just now it is simply prudent to humour them."
The rest of the class drew away from him with marked coldness and
occasionally saluted him (when Mr. Blinkhorn's attention was called
away) with terms and grimaces which Paul, although he failed thoroughly
to understand them, felt instinctively were not intended as compliments.
Mr. Blinkhorn's notions of discipline were qualified by a sportsmanlike
instinct which forbade him to harass a boy already in trouble, as he
understood young Bultitude had been, and so he forbore from pressing him
to take any share in the class work.
Mr. Bultitude therefore was saved from any necessity of betraying his
total ignorance of his author, and sat gloomily on the hard form,
impatiently watching the minute-hand skulk round the mean dull face of
the clock above the chimney-piece, while around him one boy after
another droned out a listless translation of the work before him,
interrupted by mild corrections and comments from the master.
What a preposterous change from all his ordinary habits! At this very
time, only twenty-four hours since, he was stepping slowly and
majestically towards his accustomed omnibus, which was waiting with
deference for him to overtake it; he was taking his seat, saluted
respectfully by the conductor and cheerily by his fellow-passengers, as
a man of recognised mark and position.
Now that omnibus would halt at the corner of Westbourne Terrace in vain,
and go on its way Bankwards without him. He was many miles away--in the
very last place where anyone would be likely to look for him, occupying
the post of "whipping-boy" to his miserable son!
Was ever an inoffensive and respectable gentleman placed in a more false
and ridiculous position?
If he had only kept his drawer locked, and hidden the abominable Garuda
Stone away from Dick's prying eyes; if he had let the moralising alone;
if Boaler had not been so long fetching that cab, or if he had not
happened to faint at the critical moment--what an immense difference any
one of these apparent trifles would have made.
And now what was he to do to get out of this incongruous and distasteful
place? It was all very well to say that he had only to insist upon a
hearing from the Doctor, but what if, as he had very grave reason to
fear, the Doctor should absolutely refuse to listen, should even proceed
to carry out his horrible threat? Must he remain there till the holidays
came to release him? Suppose Dick--as he certainly would unless he was
quite a fool--declined to receive him during the holidays? It was
absolutely necessary to return home at once; every additional hour he
passed in imprisonment made it harder to regain his lost self.
Now and then he roused himself from all these gloomy thoughts to observe
his companions. The boys at the upper end, near Mr. Blinkhorn, were
fairly attentive, and he noticed one small smug-faced boy about half-way
up, who, while a class-mate was faltering and blundering over some
question, would cry "I know, sir. Let me tell him. Ask me, sir!" in a
restless agony of superior information.
Down by Paul, however, the discipline was relaxed enough, as perhaps
could only be expected on the first day of term. One wild-eyed
long-haired boy had brought out a small china figure with which, and the
assistance of his right hand draped in a pocket handkerchief, and
wielding a penholder, he was busy enacting a drama based on the lines of
Punch and Judy, to the breathless amusement of his neighbours.
Mr. Bultitude might have hoped to escape notice by a policy of judicious
self-effacement, but unhappily his long, blank, uninterested face was
held by his companions to bear an implied reproach; and being delicately
sensitive on this point, they kicked his legs viciously, which made him
extremely glad when dinnertime came, although he felt too faint and
bilious to be tempted by anything but the lightest and daintiest
luncheon.
But at dinner he found, with a shudder, that he was expected to swallow
a thick ragged section of boiled mutton which had been carved and helped
so long before he sat down to it, that the stagnant gravy was chilled
and congealed into patches of greasy white. He managed to swallow it
with many pauses of invincible disgust--only to find it replaced by a
solid slab of pale brown suet pudding, sparsely bedewed with unctuous
black treacle.
This, though a plentiful, and by no means unwholesome fare for growing
boys, was not what he had been accustomed to, and feeling far too heavy
and unwell after it to venture upon an encounter with the Doctor, he
wandered slow and melancholy round the bare gravelled playground during
the half-hour after dinner devoted to the inevitable "chevy," until the
Doctor appeared at the head of the staircase.
It is always sad for the historian to have to record a departure from
principle, and I have to confess with shame on Mr. Bultitude's account
that, feeling the Doctor's eye upon him, and striving to propitiate him,
he humiliated himself so far as to run about with an elaborate affection
of zest, and his exertions were rewarded by hearing himself cordially
encouraged to further efforts.
It cheered and emboldened him. "I've put him in a good temper," he told
himself; "if I can only keep him in one till the evening, I really think
I might be able to go up and tell him what a ridiculous mess I've got
into. Why should I care, after all? At least I've done nothing to be
ashamed of. It's an accident that might have happened to any man!"
It is a curious and unpleasant thing that, however reassuring and
convincing the arguments may be with which we succeed in bracing
ourselves to meet or disregard unpleasantness, the force of those
arguments seldom or never outlasts the frame of mind in which they are
composed, and when the unpleasantness is at hand, there we are, just as
unreasonably alarmed at it as ever.
Mr. Bultitude's confidence faded away almost as soon as he found himself
in the schoolroom again. He found himself assigned to a class at one end
of the room, where Mr. Tinkler presently introduced a new rule in
Algebra to them, in such a manner as to procure for it a lasting
unpopularity with all those who were not too much engaged in drawing
duels and railway trains upon their slates to attend.