Part 8 (1/2)
Then there is Flabb. He finds a prefect's lot a very tolerable one. He fully appreciates the fleshpots in the prefect's room; and he feels that it is pleasant to have f.a.gs to whiten his cricket-boots and make toast for his tea. He maintains friendly relations with the rest of the House, and treats small boys kindly. He performs his mechanical duties--roll-call, supervision of Prep, and the like--with as little friction as possible. But he does not go out of his way to quell riots or put down bullying; and when any unpleasantness arises between the Prefects and the House, Flabb effaces himself as completely as possible.
Finally, there is Manby, the head of the House. He is high up in the Sixth, and a good all-round athlete. He weighs twelve stone ten, and fears nothing--except a slow ball which comes with the bowler's arm. To him government comes easily. The House hangs upon his lightest word, and his lieutenants go about their business with a.s.surance and despatch. He is a born organiser and a natural disciplinarian. His prestige overawes the unofficial aristocracy of the House--always the most difficult section. And he stands no nonsense. A Manby of my acquaintance once came upon twenty-two young gentlemen in a corner of the cricket-field, who, having privily abandoned the orthodox game arranged for their benefit that afternoon, were indulging in a pleasant but demoralising pastime known as ”tip-and-run.” Manby, addressing them as ”slack little swine, a disgrace to the House,” chastised them one by one, and next half-holiday made them play tip-and-run under a broiling sun and his personal supervision from two o'clock till six.
A House with a Manby at the head of it is safe. It can even survive a weak Housemaster. Greater Britain is run almost entirely by Manbys.
Taking it all round, the prefectorial machine works well. It is by no means perfect, but it is infinitely more efficient than any other machine. The chief bar to its smooth running is the inherent loyalty of boys to one another and their dislike of anything which savours of tale-bearing. Schoolboys have no love for those who go out of their way to support the arm of the Law, and a prefect naturally shrinks from being branded as a master's jackal. Hence, that ideal--a perfect understanding between a Housemaster and his prefects--is seldom achieved. What usually happens is that when the Housemaster is autocratically inclined he runs the House himself, while the prefects are mere lay figures; and when the Housemaster is weak or indolent the prefects take the law into their own hands and run the House, often extremely efficiently, with as little reference to their t.i.tular head as possible. He is a great Housemaster who can co-operate closely with his prefects without causing friction between the prefects and the House, or the prefects and himself.
But sometimes an intolerable strain is thrown upon the machine--or rather, upon the most sensitive portions of it.
Look at this boy, standing uneasily at the door of his study, with his fingers upon the handle. Outside, in the pa.s.sage, a riot is in progress.
It is only an ordinary exuberant ”rag”: he himself has partic.i.p.ated in many such. But the Law enjoins that this particular pa.s.sage shall be kept perfectly quiet between the hours of eight and nine in the evening; and it is this boy's particular duty, as the only prefect resident in the pa.s.sage, to put the Law into effect.
He stands in the darkness of his study, nerving himself. The crowd outside numbers ten or twelve; but he is not in the least afraid of that. This enterprise calls for a different kind of courage, and a good deal of it. Jackson is not a particularly prominent member of the House, except by reason of his office: others far more distinguished than himself are actually partic.i.p.ating in the disturbance outside. It will be of no avail to emerge wrathfully and say: ”Less row, there!” He said that three nights ago. Two nights ago he said it again, and threatened reprisals. Last night he named various offenders by name, and stated that if the offence was repeated he would report them to the Housemaster. _To-night he has got to do it._ The revellers outside know this: the present turmoil is practically a challenge. To crown all, he can hear, above the din, in the very forefront of battle, the voice of Blake, once his own familiar friend.
With Blake Jackson had reasoned privily only that afternoon, warning him that the House would go to pot if its unt.i.tled aristocracy took to inciting others, less n.o.ble, to deeds of lawlessness. Blake had replied by recommending his late crony to return to his study and boil his head.
And here he was, leading to-night's riot.
What will young Jackson do? Watch him well, for from his action now you will be able to forecast the whole of his future life.
He may remain mutely in his study, stop his ears, and allow the storm to blow itself out. He may appear before the roysterers and utter vain repet.i.tions, thereby salving his conscience without saving his face. Or he may go out like a man and fulfil his promise of last night. It sounds simple enough on paper. But consider what it means to a boy of seventeen, possessing no sense of perspective to tone down the magnitude of the disaster he is courting. Jackson hesitates. Then, suddenly:
”I'll be _d.a.m.ned_ if I take it lying down!” he mutters.
He draws a deep breath, turns the handle, and steps out. Next moment he is standing in the centre of a silent and surly ring, jotting down names.
”You five,” he announces to a party of comparatively youthful offenders, ”can come to the prefect's room after prayers and be tanned. You three”--he indicates the incredulous Blake and two burly satellites--”will have to be reported. I'm sorry, but I gave you fair warning last night.”
He turns on his heel and departs in good order to his study, branded--for life, he feels convinced--as an officious busybody, a presumptuous upstart, and worst of all, a betrayer of old friends. He has of his own free will cast himself into the nethermost h.e.l.l of the schoolboy--unpopularity--all to keep his word.
And yet for acts of mere physical courage they give men the Victoria Cross.
NUMBER II. THE OPPOSITION
To conduct the affairs of a nation requires both a Government and an Opposition. So it is with school politics. The only difference is that the scholastic Opposition is much franker about its true aims.
The average schoolboy, contemplating the elaborate arrangements made by those in authority for protecting him from himself--rules, roll-calls, bounds, lock-ups, magisterial discipline and prefectorial supervision--decides that the ordering and management of the school can be maintained without any active a.s.sistance from him; and he plunges joyously into Opposition with all the abandon of a good sportsman who knows that the odds are heavily against him. He breaks the Law, or is broken by the Law, with equal cheerfulness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INTELLECTUAL]
The most powerful member of the Opposition is the big boy who has not been made a prefect, and is not likely to be made a prefect. He enjoys many privileges--some of them quite unauthorised--and has no responsibilities. He is one of the happiest people in the world. He has reached the age and status at which corporal punishment is supposed to be too degrading to be feasible: this immunity causes him to realise that he is a personage of some importance; and when he is addressed rudely by junior form-masters he frequently stands upon his dignity and speaks to his Housemaster about it. His position in the House depends firstly upon his athletic ability, and secondly upon the calibre of the prefects. Given a timid set of prefects, and an unquestioned reputation in the football world, Master Bullock has an extremely pleasant time of it. He possesses no f.a.gs, but that does not worry him.
I once knew a potentate of this breed who improvised a small gong out of the lid of a biscuit-tin, which he hung in his study. When he beat upon this with a tea-spoon, all within earshot were expected to (and did) come running for orders. Such as refrained were chastised with a toasting-fork.
Then comes a great company of which the House recks nothing, and of whom House history has little to tell--the Cave-Dwellers, the Swots, the Smugs, the Saps. These keep within their own lurking-places, sedulously avoiding the noisy conclaves which crowd sociably round the Hall fire.
For one thing, the conversation there bores them intensely, and for another they would seldom be permitted to join in it. The _role_ of Sir Oracle is strictly confined to the athletes of the House, though the Wag and the Oldest Inhabitant are usually permitted to offer observations or swell the chorus. But the Cave-Dwellers, never.
The curious part about it is that not by any means all the Cave-Dwellers are ”Swots.” It is popularly supposed that any boy who exhibits a preference for the privacy of his study devotes slavish attention therein to the evening's Prep, thus stealing a march upon his more sociable and less self-centred brethren. But this is far from being the case. Many of the Cave-Dwellers dwell in caves because they find it more pleasant to read novels, or write letters, or develop photographs, or even do nothing, than listen to stale House gossip or indulge in everlasting small cricket in a corridor.
They are often the salt of the House, but they have no conception of the fact. They entertain a low opinion of themselves: they never expect to rise to any great position in the world: so they philosophically follow their own bent, and leave the glory and the praise to the athletes and their _umbrae_. It comes as quite a shock to many of them, when they leave school and emerge into a larger world, to find themselves not only liked but looked up to; while the heroes of their schooldays, despite their hairy arms and club ties, are now dismissed in a word as ”hobbledehoys.”