The Human Boy and the War Part 15

And he said:

"No, it isn't: the thing that he values most in the world is Mrs.

Dunston."

I said:

"Well, you can't take her away from him."

And he said:

"I might. Some people would remove her by death. Of course, I wouldn't do anything like that. She's all right, though how she can live with a grey and brutal beast like the Doctor, I don't know--or anybody. But, of course, I can't strike him there. I've merely decided to take something he can't do without. He'll be able to make it good in time, but not all in a minute; and in the meanwhile he'll look a fool, besides being useless to the world at large."

It was dangerous, but interesting.

I said:

"What could you take so important as all that, without being spotted?"

And he said:

"Swear not to tell anybody living."

And I swore.

Then he said:

"His gla.s.ses!"

It was a great thought, worthy of Tudor, and, of course, without his gla.s.ses the Doctor would be hopelessly done. He cannot read a line without them, and when he takes a Greek cla.s.s, strange to say, he wears two pairs--his ordinary double-gla.s.ses, against the naked eye, and a pair of common spectacles, of very large size, on his nose outside. In this elaborate way he reads Greek.

Well, I praised Tudor, but reminded him it was stealing.

And he said:

"I know: that's where the justice comes in. He stole my glazier's diamond. Now I'm going to steal his gla.s.ses."

"Shall you ever give them back?" I asked.

And he said:

"I may, or I may not. The first thing is to get them."

"He takes them off to stretch his eyes sometimes," I reminded Tudor.

"Yes, and for tea," said Tudor. "If he goes in to Mrs. Dunston's room for a hasty cup of tea, he generally leaves the gla.s.ses in the study on his desk till he comes back to work."

Well, Tudor got them. In a week from the day he decided to take them, he had an opportunity. Every day that week he had contrived to be around when tea-time came on, and once Dr. Dunston found him hanging about the pa.s.sage, and told him to be gone. But he was crowned with success, and that same night in the playground, by the light of my electric torch, Tudor showed me the solemn sight of the double-eyegla.s.ses of the Doctor actually in his hand!

Well, he was fearfully excited about it, and concealed the gla.s.ses for a few hours in his playbox. Then, fearing there might be a hue and cry, and everything stirred to its foundations, he took the gla.s.ses out just before supper, and concealed them in a crevice on the top of the playground wall, only known to me and him.

That night he did not sleep for hours, and more did I. I pictured the Doctor's terrible anger at having to stop reading the news of the War, and Tudor told me next morning that he had put the Doctor out of action for all school purposes, as well as private reading, and we might hope for at least three days without him, as it would take fully that time to manufacture such gla.s.ses as he wore.

But a bitter disappointment was in store for Tudor, and when the usual moment came for prayers in the chapel before breakfast, lo and behold, Dr. Dunston sailed in with a pair of gla.s.ses perched on his nose in the customary place! We could hardly believe our eyes; then we quickly perceived that Dunston evidently kept a reserve pair of gla.s.ses for fear of accidents. And the accident had happened, and he had fallen back upon the reserve pair, no doubt in triumph.

Well, Tudor said it was gall and wormwood to be done like that, and even thought of stealing the second pair of gla.s.ses; but then a strange and sudden thing overtook Tudor, and the very next Sunday a man came to preach at the chapel service for a good cause; and the good cause was a Medical Drug Fund for natives in the wilds of Africa. These natives become Christians under steady pressure, and after that always seem to be in need of drugs, especially quinine; and Tudor, who, owing to his lungs and one thing and another, had a good experience of drugs, was deeply interested, and gave sixpence to the Medical Drug Fund, and showed a strong inclination to become a collector for the Medical Drug Missionary. I had often read of sermons altering a person's ideas, and making him or her inclined to be different from that moment onwards, but I never saw it actually happen in real life before. Yet, in the case of Tudor, that Medical Drug sermon, and the stirring anecdotes of the savage tribes, tamed into well-behaved invalids by the Missionary, had a wonderful effect upon him, and it took the strange form of making him rather down-hearted about Dr. Dunston's gla.s.ses. Nothing had been said when they disappeared, and no fuss was made at all; and I advised him just to take them back quietly, when a chance presented itself, and slip them under some papers on the Doctor's desk, and leave the rest to time.

I said:

"You'd better do it now, while this feeling about being a collector for the Missionary is on you. It will soon pa.s.s off, and then you won't want to give them back."

He said:

"To show you how I did feel before hearing the Drug Missionary, Pratt, I may tell you I had an idea of taking the gla.s.ses home next holidays, and buying a new glazier's diamond and writing on the gla.s.ses the bitter words, 'THOU SHALT NOT STEAL,' and then returning them to his desk next term. But there are two very good reasons why I shall not do that. One is this strong pro-missionary feeling in me, and the other is that, if I did, Dunston would guess to a dead certainty who had done it, knowing only too well what I can do in the matter of writing on gla.s.s."

"He would," I told Tudor. "So the sooner you put them back unharmed, the better."

"I shall," said Tudor, "and I'm going to return them in a very peculiar way. I am going to hide them in a certain place, and then I am going to write an anonymous letter to Dunston, telling him they are in that place."

Well, I thought nothing of this idea.

I said:

"Why make it so beastly complicated? Besides, anonymous letters are often traced by skilled detectives, and if it was found you wrote it, where are you then?"

And he said:

"I have no fear about that, because the letter will all be carefully printed; and my reason for writing a letter at all is to explain to him that the Unknown, who took his gla.s.ses away, is sorry."

"What on earth does that matter to him?" I said.

"It matters to me," explained Tudor. "As you know, that Drug Missionary made a great impression upon me, and I have come to be very sick with myself that I did this thing. Of course, I am not nearly sick enough to give the show away and tell Dunston I did it, but I am sick enough to say I am sorry, and I want him to know it--anonymously."

Well, this was beyond me, and I told Tudor so. He then said:

"Sometimes, Pratt, people don't pay quite enough income tax; but presently there comes a feeling over them that they have defrauded the innocent and trustful Government, and their hearts are softened--I dare say often by a missionary, like mine was--and then they send five-pound notes by great stealth to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and feel better. And their consciences are quickly cured. But they take jolly good care not to send their names, because they know that, if they did, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would go much further, and, far from rewarding them for their conduct, would very likely want more still, and never trust them again about their incomes, and persecute them to their dying day. And it's like that with me."

Then I saw what he meant; and I also saw that there may be a great danger in listening to missionaries, and was exceedingly sorry that Tudor had done so. I still advised him not to write to the Doctor, and felt sure his conscience would be just as comfortable if he didn't; but when Tudor decides to carry out a project, he carries it out, and he is generally very unpleasant till he has. Accordingly, he dropped the Doctor's gla.s.ses into a deep Indian jar which stood on the mantelpiece in the study, and then, in great secret with me, he wrote his letter.

It happened he had just got a new Latin Delectus, and at the end of this book was a sheet of clean paper without a mark upon it. We cut it out with a penknife, and took a school envelope and two halfpenny stamps, and wrote the letter and posted it to the Doctor on the following day.

Well, the letter ran in these words, all printed, so that there was no handwriting in it; and the envelope, needless to say, was also printed in a very dexterous and utterly misleading manner.

"DEAR SIR,

"I regret to have to confess that I stole your eyegla.s.ses in a bad moment. There was a very good reason, but, all the same, I am sorry, and also clearly know now that it was a very wrong thing to do. It was a revenge, but it came to nothing, because you had a pair in reserve. I am glad you had. I prefer to be Unknown.

"Your gla.s.ses are in a beautiful and rare Indian jar at the left-hand corner of your mantel-piece, and I hope you will forgive, because my eyes have been opened by the visit of the Drug Missionary to Merivale, and I am sorry.

"I am, dear Sir, your well-wisher, "THE UNKNOWN."