"Pip" Part 3

VI. Girls never have dirty hands--only boys. (For solution of this difficulty see note on V.)

VII. You must _never_ tell tales. Girls must be specially careful about this, not because they are more p.r.o.ne to do so, but because boys think they are.

VIII. Real men never kiss girls, but they may sometimes permit girls to kiss them.

IX. You must eat up your bread-and-b.u.t.ter before you have any cake. (This rule holds good, they found out later, all through life.)

X. Do not blow upon your tea to cool it: this is very vulgar.

Pour it into your saucer instead.

Clearly it was high time they went to school, and Father, who had had vague thoughts for some time about "procuring a tutor" for Pip, finally made up his mind, and despatched both children one morning in the brougham to Mr. Pocklington's.

The school was a comfortable-looking building, standing inside high walls in a secluded corner of Regent's Park. On the gate shone a large bra.s.s plate bearing the inscription--

WENTWORTH HOUSE SCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN.

MR. POCKLINGTON.

THE MISSES POCKLINGTON.

The children could not read this, but Mr. Evans, who accompanied them in the brougham on the first morning, kindly consented to do so, his efforts to p.r.o.nounce the word "Kindergarten" (an enterprise upon which he embarked before realising that he might with perfect safety have left it out altogether) pleasantly beguiling the time until the gate was opened by a boy in b.u.t.tons.

Pip and Pipette found themselves in a cheerful-looking hall, larger and brighter than that at home, and stood staring with solemn eyes at the unwonted objects around them. From a room on their right came a subdued hum, and upstairs they could hear juvenile voices singing in chorus.

They were put to wait in a small room.

Presently the door opened, and an old gentleman with white whiskers and a black velveteen jacket trotted in. Mr. Evans bowed respectfully.

"The doctor's compliments, sir, and I was to inquire what time the young lady and gentleman was to be sent for?" he said.

"Our morning hours," replied Mr. Pocklington with a precise air, "are from nine-thirty till twelve-thirty. At twelve-thirty we take exercise in the playground. Should the weather be inclement we adjourn to the Gymnasium. Luncheon is served at one-thirty, and we resume our studies at two-thirty. We desist from our labours at four."

Mr. Evans having made a dignified exit, the children, for the first time in their lives, found themselves alone in the world, and suddenly realised that the world was very big and they were very small. Pipette was at once handed over to a lady called Miss Arabella, while Pip was escorted by Mr. Pocklington to the changing-room, where he was given a peg for his coat, a peg for his cap, a locker for his boots, and a wash-hand basin for his ablutions (everything carefully labelled and numbered), and was otherwise universally equipped for the battle of life. Then he was taken into Mr. Pocklington's private sitting-room, whence, after a brief but all too adequate inquiry into his attainments, he was unhesitatingly relegated to the lowest cla.s.s in the school, where he found Pipette already installed at the bottom of the bottom bench.

Here we will leave them for a time, dumbly gazing at the opening page of a new reading-book, whereon appears the presentment of what they have hitherto regarded as a donkey, but which three large printed letters at the foot of the page inform them must henceforth be called an A-S-S.

Mr. Pocklington had been intended by nature for an old maid. He was an elderly faddist of a rather tiresome type, with theories upon every possible subject, from cellular underclothing to the higher education of women. He was a widower, and was a.s.sisted in the management of the school by his three daughters--Miss Mary, Miss Arabella, and Miss Amelia.

The daily routine of Wentworth House School was marked by an Old-World precision and formality which adults might have found a trifle irksome; but it did the children no particular harm beyond making them slightly priggish in their manners, and no particular good beyond instilling into them a few habits of order and method.

The day began at twenty minutes past nine with "whistle-in." The "monitor" for the week--a patriarch of ten or eleven--appeared at the side door, which gave on to the playground, and blew a resonant blast on a silver whistle. Followed a scramble in the dressing-rooms, while boys and girls changed their boots for slippers. At three minutes to the half-hour the monitor, having hung the whistle on its proper peg and armed him-(or her-) self with a dinner-bell, clanged out a summons to "line up." Thereupon the pupils of Wentworth House School formed a double _queue_ along the pa.s.sage, the eldest boy with the eldest girl, and so on,--Mr. Pocklington believed in mingling the s.e.xes thoroughly: it taught girls not to whisper and giggle, and gave boys ease of manner in the presence of females,--and at the stroke of nine-thirty, to the accompaniment of an ear-splitting fantasia on the bell, the animals marched arm-in-arm into the ark (as represented by the large schoolroom), where Noah (Mr. Pocklington), supported by Shem, Ham, and j.a.pheth (Amazonian Miss Mary, shy and retiring Miss Arabella, and pretty and frivolous Miss Amelia) stood ready to take roll-call.

Roll-call at Wentworth House was an all-embracing function. Besides answering their names, pupils were required to state whether they required "lunch" at the interval, and to announce the name of any library books that they might be borrowing or returning. Parental pet.i.tions and ultimatums were also delivered at this time. As might have been expected in such an establishment, all communications had to be couched in elegant and suitable phraseology of Mr. Pocklington's own composition. Consequently roll-call was a somewhat protracted function.

As a rule the performance consisted of a series of conversations of the following type:--

_Mr. Pocklington._ Reginald!

_A high squeaky Voice._ Present, sir. I wish to take a gla.s.s of milk during the interval, and I am returning "The Young Carthaginian," thanking you for the loan-of-the-same.

Or--

_Mr. Pocklington._ Beatrice!

_A rather breathless little Voice._ Present, sir. I wish to take a gla.s.s of milk _and_ a bun [_very emphatic this_] durin' the interval, and I propose, with your permission, to borrow this copy of "Carrots Just a Little Boy"; and, please, I've got a note from mum--I mean I am the bearer of a letter from my mother asking for you to be so kind as to--to excuse my not havin' done all my home work, 'cos I forgot--

_Mr. Pocklington._ Beatrice!

_The R. B. L. V._ I mean 'cos I _neglected_ [there was no such word as "forget" in Mr. Pocklington's curriculum] to take the book home. And, please, mum--my mother would have written to you by post last night, only she forg--neglected to do it till it was too late.

And Beatrice, having unburdened herself of a task which has been clouding her small horizon ever since breakfast, sits down with a sigh of intense relief.

On the first morning after their arrival, Mr. Pocklington, having called out the last name and registered the last gla.s.s of milk, drew the attention of the school to Pip and Pipette.

"You have to welcome two fresh companions this morning," he said. "I will enter their names on the register, and will then read them aloud to you, in order that you may know how to address your new friends."

Turning to Pip, Mr. Pocklington asked his name.

"Pip."

"No, no," said Mr. Pocklington testily. "Your first baptismal name, boy!"

Pip, to whom the existence of baptismal names was now revealed for the first time, merely turned extremely red and shook his head.

"We do not countenance childish nicknames here," said Mr. Pocklington grandly. "What is your Christian name, boy?"

Pip, to whom Christian and baptismal names were an equal mystery, continued to sit mute, glaring the while in a most disconcerting fashion at poor Miss Arabella, who happened to sit opposite to him.

Mr. Pocklington turned impatiently to Pipette.

"What is your brother's name?"

"Please, it's just Pip," replied Pipette plaintively, groping for Pip's hand under the desk. "He hasn't got any other name, I don't fink."

"Perhaps it is Philip," suggested pretty Miss Amelia. "I believe"--with a little blush--"that 'Pip' is occasionally used as an abbreviation for that name. Is your name Philip, little boy?" she asked, leaning forward to Pip, with a glance which he would have valued considerably more if he had been ten years older.

"I don't know," said Pip.

"I think it must be Philip," said Miss Amelia, turning to her father.

So Pip was inscribed on the roll as Philip, which, as it happened, _was_ his real name. (By the way, his surname was Wilmot.)

"Now, _your_ first baptismal name, little girl?" said Mr. Pocklington briskly, turning to Pipette.

"Please, it's Pipette," she replied apprehensively.

Her fears were not ungrounded. The school began to t.i.tter.

"Pipette? My dear, that is a quite impossible name. A pipette is a small gla.s.s instrument employed in practical chemistry. Surely you have some proper baptismal name! Perhaps you can suggest a solution again," he added, turning to Miss Amelia.

No, Miss Amelia could offer no suggestion. Her forte, it appeared, was gentlemen's names. As a matter of fact, Pipette's name, as ascertained by reference to Father by post that night, was Dorothea, and she had been laughingly christened "Pipette" by her mother, because her father, when summoned from the laboratory to view his newly born daughter, had arrived holding a pipette in his hand.

So Pip and Pipette, much to their surprise and indignation, found themselves addressed as Philip and Dorothea respectively, and as such joined in the pursuit of knowledge in company with a motley crew of Arthurs, Reginalds, Ermyntrudes, Winifreds, and the like. Surnames were not employed in the school. If two children possessed the same Christian name they were distinguished by the addition of any other sub-t.i.tle they happened to possess. Three unfortunate youths, for instance, were addressed respectively as John Augustus, John William, and John Evelyn.