Tales of St. Austin's Part 12

Somebody's cap had fallen off, and two hastily picked teams were playing football with it (a.s.sociation rules). Now, Charteris was not a prefect (that, it may be observed in pa.s.sing, was another source of bitterness in him towards the Powers, for he was fairly high up in the Sixth, and others of his set, Welch, Thomson, and Tony Graham, who were also in the Sixth--the two last below him in form order--had already received their prefects' caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was pa.s.sing on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into him. To preserve his balance--this will probably seem a very thin line of defence, but 'I state but the facts'--he grabbed at the disciple of Smith amidst applause, and at that precise moment a new actor appeared on the scene--the Headmaster. Now, of all the things that lay in his province, the Headmaster most disliked to see a senior 'ragging' with a junior. He had a great idea of the dignity of the senior school, and did all that in him lay to see that it was kept up. The greater number of the juniors with whom the senior was found ragging, the more heinous the offence. Circ.u.mstantial evidence was dead against Charteris. To all outward appearances he was one of the players in the impromptu football match. The soft and fascinating beams of the simper, to quote Mr Jabberjee once more, had not yet faded from the act. A well-chosen word or two from the Headmagisterial lips put a premature end to the football match, and Charteris was proceeding on his way when the Headmaster called him. He stopped. The Headmaster was angry. So angry, indeed, that he did what in a more lucid interval he would not have done. He hauled a senior over the coals in the hearing of a number of juniors, one of whom (unidentified) giggled loudly. As Charteris had on previous occasions observed, the Old Man, when he did start to take a person's measure, didn't leave out much. The address was not long, but it covered a great deal of ground. The section of it which chiefly rankled in Charteris's mind, and which had continued to rankle ever since, was that in which the use of the word 'buffoon' had occurred.

Everybody who has a gift of humour and (very naturally) enjoys exercising it, hates to be called a buffoon. It was Charteris's one weak spot. Every other abusive epithet in the language slid off him without penetrating or causing him the least discomfort. The word 'buffoon' went home, right up to the hilt. And, to borrow from Mr Jabberjee for positively the very last time, he had observed (mentally): 'Henceforward I will perpetrate heaps of the lowest dregs of vice.' He had, in fact, started a perfect bout of breaking rules, simply because they were rules. The injustice of the thing rankled. No one so dislikes being punished unjustly as the person who might have been punished justly on scores of previous occasions, if he had only been found out. To a certain extent, Charteris ran amok. He broke bounds and did little work, and--he was beginning gradually to find this out--got thoroughly tired of it all. Offended dignity, however, still kept him at it, and much as he would have preferred to have resumed a less feverish type of existence, he did not do so.

'I have a ger-rudge against the man,' he said.

'You _are_ an idiot, really,' said Welch.

'Welch,' said Charteris, by way of explanation to MacArthur, 'is a lad of coa.r.s.e fibre. He doesn't understand the finer feelings. He can't see that I am doing this simply for the Old Man's good. Spare the rod, spile the choild. Let's go and have a look at Tony when we're changed.

He'll be in the sick-room if he's anywhere.'

'All right,' said the Babe, as he went into his study. 'Buck up. I'll toss you for first bath in a second.'

Charteris walked on with Welch to their sanctum.

'You know,' said Welch seriously, stooping to unlace his boots, 'rotting apart, you really are a most awful a.s.s. I wish I could get you to see it.'

'Never you mind, ducky,' said Charteris, 'I'm all right. I'll look after myself.'

_Chapter 2_

It was about a week after the Bargees' match that the rules respecting bounds were made stricter, much to the popular indignation. The penalty for visiting Stapleton without leave was increased from two hundred lines to two extra lessons. The venomous characteristic of extra lesson was that it cut into one's football, for the criminal was turned into a form-room from two till four on half-holidays, and so had to scratch all athletic engagements for the day, unless he chose to go for a solitary run afterwards. In the cricket term the effect of this was not so deadly. It was just possible that you might get an innings somewhere after four o'clock, even if only at the nets. But during the football season--it was now February--to be in extra lesson meant a total loss of everything that makes life endurable, and the School protested (to one another, in the privacy of their studies) with no uncertain voice against this barbarous innovation.

The reason for the change had been simple. At the corner of the High Street at Stapleton was a tobacconist's shop, and Mr Prater, strolling in one evening to renew his stock of Pioneer, was interested to observe P. St H. Harrison, of Merevale's, purchasing a consignment of 'Girl of my Heart' cigarettes (at twopence-halfpenny the packet of twenty, including a coloured picture of Lord Kitchener). Now, Mr Prater was one of the most sportsmanlike of masters. If he had merely met Harrison out of bounds, and it had been possible to have overlooked him, he would have done so. But such a proceeding in the interior of a small shop was impossible. There was nothing to palliate the crime. The tobacconist also kept the wolf from the door, and lured the juvenile population of the neighbourhood to it, by selling various weird brands of sweets, but it was only too obvious that Harrison was not after these. Guilt was in his eye, and the packet of cigarettes in his hand. Also Harrison's House cap was fixed firmly at the back of his head. Mr Prater finished buying his Pioneer, and went out without a word. That night it was announced to Harrison that the Headmaster wished to see him. The Headmaster saw him, though for a certain period of the interview he did not see the Headmaster, having turned his back on him by request. On the following day Stapleton was placed doubly out of bounds.

Tony, who was still in bed, had not heard the news when Charteris came to see him on the evening of the day on which the edict had gone forth.

'How are you getting on?' asked Charteris.

'Oh, fairly well. It's rather slow.'

'The grub seems all right.' Charteris absently reached out for a slice of cake.

'Not bad.'

'And you don't have to do any work.'

'No.'

'Well, then, it seems to me you're having a jolly good time. What don't you like about it?'

'It's so slow, being alone all day.'

'Makes you appreciate intellectual conversation all the more when you get it. Mine, for instance.'

'I want something to read.'

'I'll bring you a Sidgwick's _Greek Prose Composition_, if you like. Full of racy stories.'

'I've read 'em, thanks.'

'How about Jebb's _Homer_? You'd like that. Awfully interesting.

Proves that there never was such a man as Homer, you know, and that the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ were produced by evolution. General style, quietly funny. Make you roar.'

'Don't be an idiot. I'm simply starving for something to read. Haven't you got anything?'

'You've read all mine.'

'Hasn't Welch got any books?'

'Not one. He bags mine when he wants to read. I'll tell you what I will do if you like.'

'What?'

'Go into Stapleton, and borrow something from Adamson.' Adamson was the College doctor.

'By Jove, that's not a bad idea.'

'It's a dashed good idea, which wouldn't have occurred to anybody but a genius. I've been quite a pal of Adamson's ever since I had the flu. I go to tea with him occasionally, and we talk medical shop. Have you ever tried talking medical shop during tea? Nothing like it for giving you an appet.i.te.'

'Has he got anything readable?'

'Rather. Have you ever tried anything of James Payn's?'

'I've read _Terminations_, or something,' said Tony doubtfully, 'but he's so obscure.'

'Don't,' said Charteris sadly, 'please don't. _Terminations_ is by one Henry James, and there is a substantial difference between him and James Payn. Anyhow, if you want a short biography of James Payn, he wrote a hundred books, and they're all simply ripping, and Adamson has got a good many of them, and I'm hoping to borrow a couple--any two will do--and you're going to read them. I know one always bars a book that's recommended to one, but you've got no choice. You're not going to get anything else till you've finished those two.'

'All right,' said Tony. 'But Stapleton's out of bounds. I suppose Merevale'll give you leave to go in.'

'He won't,' said Charteris. 'I shan't ask him. On principle. So long.'

On the following afternoon Charteris went into Stapleton. The distance by road was almost exactly one mile. If you went by the fields it was longer, because you probably lost your way.

Dr Adamson's house was in the High Street. Charteris knocked at the door. The servant was sorry, but the doctor was out. Her tone seemed to suggest that, if she had had any say in the matter, he would have remained in. Would Charteris come in and wait? Charteris rather thought he would. He waited for half an hour, and then, as the absent medico did not appear to be coming, took two books from the shelf, wrote a succinct note explaining what he had done, and why he had done it, hoping the doctor would not mind, and went out with his literary trophies into the High Street again.

The time was now close on five o'clock. Lock-up was not till a quarter past six--six o'clock nominally, but the doors were always left open till a quarter past. It would take him about fifteen minutes to get back, less if he trotted. Obviously, the thing to do here was to spend a thoughtful quarter of an hour or so inspecting the sights of the town. These were ordinarily not numerous, but this particular day happened to be market day, and there was a good deal going on. The High Street was full of farmers, cows, and other animals, the majority of the former well on the road to intoxication. It is, of course, extremely painful to see a man in such a condition, but when such a person is endeavouring to count a perpetually moving drove of pigs, the onlooker's pain is sensibly diminished. Charteris strolled along the High Street observing these and other phenomena with an attentive eye.

Opposite the Town Hall he was b.u.t.ton-holed by a perfect stranger, whom, by his conversation, he soon recognized as the Stapleton 'character'.

There is a 'character' in every small country town. He is not a bad character; still less is he a good character. He is just a 'character'

pure and simple. This particular man--or rather, this man, for he was anything but particular--apparently took a great fancy to Charteris at first sight. He backed him gently against a wall, and insisted on telling him an interminable anecdote of his shady past, when, it seemed, he had been a 'super' in some travelling company. The plot of the story, as far as Charteris could follow it, dealt with a theatrical tour in Dublin, where some person or persons unknown had, with malice prepense, scattered several pounds of snuff on the stage previous to a performance of _Hamlet_; and, according to the 'character', when the ghost of Hamlet's father sneezed steadily throughout his great scene, there was not a dry eye in the house. The 'character' had concluded that anecdote, and was half-way through another, when Charteris, looking at his watch, found that it was almost six o'clock.

He interrupted one of the 'character's' periods by diving past him and moving rapidly down the street. The historian did not seem to object.

Charteris looked round and saw that he had b.u.t.ton-holed a fresh victim.

He was still gazing in one direction and walking in another, when he ran into somebody.

'Sorry,' said Charteris hastily. 'Hullo!'

It was the secretary of the Old Crockfordians, and, to judge from the scowl on that gentleman's face, the recognition was mutual.

'It's you, is it?' said the secretary in his polished way.