Sinister Street Volume I Part 34

"I don't know, but you can say I'm going to be a barrister or something."

"Is History better for a barrister?"

"I don't know, but you can easily say you think it is."

In the end his mother wrote to Dr. Brownjohn, and one grey November afternoon the Headmaster sailed into the cla.s.s-room of the Upper Fifth, extricated Michael with a roar, and marched with him up and down the dusky corridor in a ferocious discussion of the proposal.

"Why do you want to give up your Cla.s.sics?" bellowed Dr. Brownjohn.

In the echoing corridor Michael's voice sounded painfully weak against his monitor's.

"I don't want to give them up, sir. Only I would like to learn History as well," he explained.

"What's the good of History?" roared the Doctor.

"I thought I'd like to learn it," said Michael.

"You shouldn't think, you infamous young sluggard."

"And I could go on reading Cla.s.sics, sir, I could really."

"Bah!" shouted Dr. Brownjohn. "Impudent nonsense, you young sloth. Why didn't you get your Certificate?"

"I failed in Arithmetic, sir."

"You'll fail in your whole life, boy," prophesied Dr. Brownjohn in bull-deep accents of reproach. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"No, sir," said Michael. "I don't think I am, because I worked jolly hard."

"Worked, you abominable little loafer? You've never worked in your life.

You could be the finest scholar in the school, and you're merely a coruscation of slatternly, slipshod paste. Bah! What do you expect to do when you leave school? Um?"

"I want to go to Oxford."

"Then get the Balliol Scholarship."

"I don't want to be at Balliol," said Michael.

"Then get the major scholarship at Trinity, Cambridge."

"I don't intend to go to Cambridge," said Michael.

"Good heavens, boy," roared Dr. Brownjohn, "are you trying to arrange your own career?"

"No, sir," said Michael. "But I want to go to St. Mary's, Oxford."

"Then get a scholarship at St. Mary's."

"But I don't want to be a Scholar of any college. I want to go up as a Commoner."

The veins on Dr. Brownjohn's forehead swelled with wrath, astonishment and dismay.

"Get out of my sight," he thundered. "Get back into your cla.s.s-room.

I've done with you; I take no more interest in you. You're here to earn glory for your school, you're here to gain a scholarship, not to air your own opinions. Get out of my sight, you young scoundrel. How dare you argue with me? You shan't go into the History Sixth! You shall stew in your own obstinate juice in the Upper Fifth until I choose to move you out of it. Do you hear? Go back into your cla.s.s-room. I'll write to your mother. She's an idiotic woman, and you're a slovenly, idle, good-for-nothing cub."

Overwhelmed with failure and very sensitive to the inquisitive glances of his cla.s.smates, Michael sat down in his own desk again as un.o.btrusively as he could.

Michael's peace of mind was not increased by the consciousness of Mr.

Cray's knowledge of his appeal to withdraw from the Upper Fifth, and he became exposed to a large amount of sarcasm in allusion to his expressed inclination towards history. He was continually referred to as an authority on Const.i.tutions; he was invited to bring forward comparisons from more modern times to help the elucidation of the Syracusan expedition or the Delian Confederacy.

All that Michael gained from Mr. Cray was a pa.s.sion for second-hand books--the latest and most fervid of all his collecting hobbies.

One wintry evening in Elson's Bookshop at Hammersmith he was enjoying himself on the top of a ladder, when he became aware of an interested gaze directed at himself over the dull-gilt edges of a large and expensive work on Greek sculpture. The face that so regarded him was at once fascinating and repulsive. The glittering blue eyes full of laughter were immediately attractive, but something in the pointed ears and curled-back lips, something in the peculiarly white fingers faintly pencilled about the knuckles with fine black hairs, and after a moment something cruel in the bright blue eyes themselves restrained him from an answering smile.

"What is the book, Hyacinthus?" asked the stranger, and his voice was so winning and so melodious in the shadowy bookshop that Michael immediately fell into the easiest of conversations.

"Fond of books?" asked the stranger. "Oh, by the way, my name is Wilmot, Arthur Wilmot."

Something in Wilmot's manner made Michael suppose that he ought to be familiar with the name, and he tried to recall it.

"What's your name?" the stranger went on.

Michael told his name, and also his school, and before very long a good deal about himself.

"I live near you," said Mr. Wilmot. "We'll walk along presently. I'd like you to dine with me one night soon. When?"

"Oh, any time," said Michael, trying to speak as if invitations to dinner occurred to him three or four times a day.

"Here's my card," said the stranger. "You'd better show it to your mother--so that she'll know it's all right. I'm a writer, you know."

"Oh, yes," Michael vaguely agreed.

"I don't suppose you've seen any of my stuff. I don't publish much.

Sometimes I read my poems to Interior people."

Michael looked puzzled.

"Interior is my name for the people who understand. So few do. I should say you'd be sympathetic. You look sympathetic. You remind me of those exquisite boys who in scarlet hose run delicately with beakers of wine or stand in groups about the corners of old Florentine pictures."

Michael tried to look severe, and yet, after the Upper Fifth, even so direct and embarra.s.sing a compliment was slightly pleasant.

"Shall we go along? To-night the Hammersmith Road is full of mystery.

But, first, shall I not buy you a book--some exquisite book full of strange perfumes and pa.s.sionate courtly gestures? And so you are at school? How wonderful to be at school! How Sicilian! Strange youth, you should have been sung by Theocritus, or, better, been crowned with myrtle by some wonderful unknown Greek, some perfect blossom of the Anthology."

Michael laughed rather foolishly. There seemed nothing else to do.

"Won't you smoke? These Chian cigarettes in their diaphanous paper of mildest mauve would suit your oddly remote, your curiously shy glance.

You had better not smoke so near to the savage confines of St. James'