Tell England Part 7

Mr. Caesar affected a little sarcasm.

"Is not that it at the other end of the room?"

We turned round and gazed down the direction in which he was looking. Yes, there was surely something there. Penny flung up his hand and cried:

"Please, teacher, I've found it."

"Well," began Mr. Caesar, "if one or two of you would bring the desk up here--"

If one or two of us would! Why, we all would--all twenty of us. We took off our coats and, folding them carefully, laid them on the desks. We rolled up our shirt-sleeves above the elbows, disclosing a lot of white, childish forearms. We spat on our hands and rubbed them together. We did a little spitting on one another's hands.

Then we hustled and crowded round the desk. We lifted it off the ground, brought it a foot or two, and dropped it heavily. Phew! it was hard work. We took out our handkerchiefs, and wiped the sweat from our brows. Anyone who had no handkerchief borrowed from someone who had finished with his. Returning to our task, we carried the desk a little nearer and dropped it. Doe got a serious splinter in his hand, and we all pulled it out for him. Puffing and groaning as we dragged the unwieldy desk, we approached the dais on which it must be placed. We all stepped upon the dais (slightly incommoding Mr. Caesar, who was standing there), and lifted up one end of the desk so that the pens and pencils rattled inside. One pull, my lads, and the desk was half on the platform and half on the floor. Leaving it in this inclined position, we stepped down to the floor again, and three of us placed our shoulders against the lower end, while the rest scrummed down, Rugby fashion, in row upon row behind one another. A good co-operative shove, accompanied by murmurs of "Coming on your right, forwards; heel it out, whites; break away, forwards!" and up she went, a diagonal route into the air.

Unfortunately, we all raised our heads at the same time to see how much further she had to go, and back she tobogganed again on to the shins of the boys in the front row. They declared they were henceforth incapacitated for life.

We got it on to the platform at last with a good run, but the enthusiasm of the back row of scrummers, who apparently thought the task could not be completed till they were off the floor and on the platform, was so strong that the desk was pushed much too far, and toppled over the further side of the platform.

This was too much. My suppressed giggling burst like a grenade into uncontrolled laughter. Then I said: "I'm sorry, sir."

--2

But this disorder is a strong dish, and we've talked about quite as much as is good for us. So let us change the hour and visit another cla.s.s-room, where there are no rebellions, but nevertheless arithmetic and trouble--and Ray and Doe and Pennybet. And here is a dear little master in charge. It is Mr. Fillet, the housemaster of Bramhall House, where, as you know, we were paying guests--a fat little man with a bald pate, a soft red face, a pretty little chestnut beard, and an ugly little stutter in his speech. Bless him, the dear little man, we called him Carpet Slippers. This was because one of his two chief attributes was to be always in carpet slippers.

The other attribute was to be always round a corner.

Fillet, or Carpet Slippers, disliked his young boarder, Rupert Ray.

The reason is soon told. One night, when I was out of my bed and gambolling in pyjamas about the first story of his house, I looked up the well of the staircase and saw the little shadow of someone parading the landing above. Thinking it to be a boy, I called out in a stage-whisper: "Is that old pig, Carpet Slippers, up there?" And a dear little chestnut beard and a smile came over the bal.u.s.ters, accompanied by a voice: "Yes, h-h-here he is. Wh-what do you want with him?"

It was Fillet, in carpet slippers, and round a corner.

And then in his cla.s.s-room, this day, I got a sum wrong. I deduced that in a certain battle "point 64" of a soldier remained wounded on the field, while "point 36" escaped with the retreating army unhurt.

This did not seem a satisfactory conclusion either to the sum or to the soldier, and I was not surprised, on looking up the answer, to find that I was wrong. There were two methods of detecting the error: one was to work through the sum again, the other was to submit it to Fillet for revision. The latter seemed the less irksome scheme, and in a sinister moment--heavens! how pregnant with consequences it was--I left my desk, approached Carpet Slippers, and laid the trouble before him.

Now Fillet was in the worst of tempers, having been just incensed by a boy who had declared that two gills equalled one pint, two pints one quart, and two quarts one rod, pole, or perch. So, when I brought my sum up and giggled at the answer, he looked at me as if he neither liked me nor desired that I should ever like him. Then he indulged in cheap sarcasms. This he was wont to do, and, after emitting them through his silky beard, he would draw in his breath through parted teeth, as a child does when it has the taste of peppermint in its mouth.

"I-I-I t-tell you, a boy in a kindergarten could get it right--a g-g-guttersnipe could. I-I-I-I--"

This was so much like what they yell from a fire-engine that, though I struggled hard, I could not contain a giggle.

"I-I-I'll do it for you."

He got it wrong, which elicited a bursting giggle from me. Fillet turned on me like a barking dog.

"Go to your place, boy, and take your vulgar guffaws with you!"

Surprised at Fillet's taking it to heart in this way, I went, much abashed, to my seat, and tried to control my fit of giggling. But it so possessed me that finally it made a very horrible noise in my nose. Carpet Slippers raised his little head that was a hybrid between a peach and a billiard ball--a peach as to the face, and a billiard ball as to the cranium--and when he saw me sitting with lips tightly set and my desk trembling with my internal laughter, anger put a fresh coating of red upon both peach and ball. But he took no action at present.

"I-I'll d-do one of these sums on the board for you."

Getting up, he turned his back on us and, facing the board, wrote with his chalk the number 10. Now, as he wrote on a level with his eyes, his fat little head quite eclipsed his writing. So, simply to show that I was no longer laughing, I called out loudly:

"What number, sir?"

Round swung Carpet Slippers, his peach-face a.s.suming the tint of a tomato.

"What number? I-I'll t-teach you to ask 'what number' when I've written '10' on the board. I-I've heard what you do in other cla.s.s-rooms. D-don't think you're going to introduce your hooliganism here. Go and ask the p-porter to let me have a cane."

The boys p.r.i.c.ked up their ears and looked at me. Penny let his jaw drop in amazement and, leaving his mouth open, maintained an expression like that of the village idiot. I stared, flabbergasted, into Carpet Slippers' face.

"But, sir--" I ventured. Tears and temper began to rise in me.

"D-don't argue. Do what you're told."

"But, sir--" And then, like a cloud, sullen obstinacy came down upon me. I was certain that he had been longing for an excuse to flog me.

The pride and the relish of the martyr supported me as, without telling him that his head had obstructed my view, I walked out to do my message.

Finding the porter in his office, I politely inquired if he could spare a cane for Mr. Fillet; and, at my query, he grinned--the blithering idiot. The cane that he handed me I took, and, being at that moment a youngster who wouldn't have let his spirits sink for all the Fillets in the world, I offered back the cane and suggested:

"I say, are you sure you couldn't lose this?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Well, look here, do you really think you can manage to part with it?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Well, don't you think that, for a man of your age, you look rather a fool standing up there and saying 'Quite sure' to everything that's said to you? Don't you think it's rather a fat and silly thing to do?"

I put it to him as man to man.

"Quite sure, sir," he replied with a laugh.

"Go to blazes," I said, "and take your vulgar guffaws with you."

On my way back I stayed to admire the cla.s.sical busts and statues that lined the deserted corridors like exhibits in a museum. All the life-size ones I whacked with my cane. I took a wistful pleasure in giving the naked ones two good strokes each. As I drew near the cla.s.s-room door I certainly felt uncomfortable, for I knew Fillet intended to sting. But my sense of martyrdom carried me through. I gathered my dignity about me and knocked heavily on the door.

Annoyed that my hand had trembled and spoilt the effect, I opened the door briskly and shut it briskly. With a calm step and fearless look, both studied, for I copied Doe in these matters, I walked towards Carpet Slippers. The little man was pretending he had forgotten all about me, while really he had prepared a sarcasm with which to poison my wounds.

"Oh, indeed. You've b-been a long time gone; but thrashings are like good wine--they improve with keeping."

He sucked in his breath with satisfaction.

"Yes, sir," replied I. If there was any trembling about me it was inside and not visible.

He took the cane from my hand and examined its effectiveness. Then, intending a pretty little jest, he faced the cla.s.s and commanded:

"St-stand out, that boy who asked the number of the sum after I had put it on the board."

"Swine!" hissed somebody. I fancy it was Edgar Doe.

"I'm here, sir," replied I from his side, white.