Part 6 (2/2)
Crabbe disregarded the utter grossness of this innuendo.
”My people, sir,” he remarked, ”will not be pleased if I go home at the end of the term without any marks.”
”Is that all?” replied Mr. Hanbury. ”Step round to my room before your cab comes and I'll send you home all over them. Now, hook it, and don't be a young a.s.s again.”
A reply in the worst possible taste, the form decided.
Mr. Hanbury, or ”Ham” as he was usually called, had been in charge of the Lower Sh.e.l.l some four years, and had long reduced that chaotic a.s.sembly to respectability, and even intelligence. It was the first morning of a new term, and he had just entered his cla.s.sroom, and was engaged in greeting his pupils. The ceremony over, he mounted his throne and addressed the mult.i.tude,--
”Having said 'How do you do?' to all of you, I will now proceed to say 'Good-bye' to some of you. Hood down to Aitchison, you are promoted. Out you go! Mr. Mayor is anxious to make your acquaintance.”
Ten sheepish youths rose up and filed out.
”Now, move up, all of you. We shall have some recruits in presently.
Brown minor, you have not got your remove, but you are now in the proud position of head boy of this form. Hallo! here come our friends from the Lower Regions.”
Eleven far more sheepish youths here entered the room, headed by a small boy in spectacles, who made his entrance some way ahead of his fellows with a suddenness that suggested propulsion from the rear. All took up a retired position on the back bench.
”Now, sort yourselves,” continued Ham. ”Old guard, close up! Then the promotions, then the new boys in alphabetical order.”
This arrangement left the form in something like order. At the head sat Mr. Brown minor; at the tail a small and alert youth with black hair, a face freckled like a plover's egg, and solemn eyes.
The Commander-in-Chief addressed them,--
”Brown minor, you are unanimously elected first lieutenant. You must remind me to set preparation every night, and you will write the same on the board in a fair round hand, that he who runs for tea may read. You, sir,--let me see, Wilmot: thank you” (addressing the solemn youth at the foot of the form)--”are hereby appointed scavenger. Your duties will be explained to you by Mr. Brown. They relate chiefly to the tidiness of this room. You have obtained this important post solely because of your position in the alphabet. If you had had the misfortune to be called Atkins or Absalom, you would have failed to do so. We will now proceed to the orders of the day.”
And this was Pip's first encounter with one of his lifelong friends.
The friends.h.i.+p did not form itself all at once. For a year they struggled together, Mr. Hanbury to find something that Pip could learn, Pip to find something that ”Ham” could teach. Pip, it must be confessed, was no genius, even from Thomas Carlyle's point of view, and he retained the post of scavenger for the whole of his first year in the form.
Otherwise, he was well content. He acquired friends, notably one Mumford, whose superior position in the alphabet was his sole qualification for exemption from the post of scavenger.
The duties of that official, by the way, were not arduous. He was expected to open the windows wide for two minutes between each hour, to pick up stray ink-pots, and keep the blackboard clean. There were other duties of an unofficial nature attached to the post, the chief of which was to stand with an eye glued to the keyhole until the master for the hour loomed upon the horizon, and then to herald his approach by a cry of ”Cave!” whereupon the form would betake themselves to their seats with an alacrity which varied inversely with the master's reputation for indulgence.
One day Mr. Hanbury thoughtlessly came by an unexpected route, and was at the door-handle before Pip realised that he was near. Consequently Pip was thrown heavily on to his back with a contused eye; and after listening throughout the hour to facetious remarks from Ham about Sister Anne and Horatius Cocles, endured the further indignity of being kicked by a select committee of the Lower Sh.e.l.l, who afterwards deposed him from his high office, and appointed Mumford in his stead.
Pip's services, however, were speedily requisitioned again, for Mumford proved but a broken reed. He was by nature deliberate in his movements, and the form were more than once taken by surprise owing to their watchman's remissness at the keyhole. His last performance, that which brought Pip back to office, was of such an exceptional nature, and took the fancy of the school to such an extent, that it is to this day preserved among the unwritten archives of Grandwich, bracketed equal with the occasion on which Plumbley minor walked into the French cla.s.sroom whistling, with a bandbox containing a nest of field-mice under his arm, only to discover, after liberating the mice, that the Head was sitting in the French master's place.
Mumford one day stood crouching at his keyhole. All around him surged the Lower Sh.e.l.l, busily employed in obliterating the traces of a brief but sanguinary combat between Jenkins and MacFarlane. The fight had arisen over some small matter of an international character, and after four spirited rounds it was decided that honours so far were equally divided, and that the final round had better be postponed until the interval before dinner. The form accordingly settled down in their places, and with a pa.s.sing admonition to Mumford to persevere in his vigil, betook themselves to conversation until Ham should be pleased to put in an appearance. As that tyrant had not yet appeared at the far end of the corridor outside, Mumford decided that this was a good opportunity for retiring for a brief moment from his post to his locker, for purposes of refreshment. But fortune was against him. Mr. Hanbury had been out to see the ground-man on some cricket business, and consequently came up to his cla.s.sroom by that abominable ”alternative route.” He entered the room quietly, and after walking to his desk was on the point of reprimanding Mumford, whose head was buried in his locker, for being out of his seat, when his words were arrested by the somewhat eccentric behaviour of that remarkable youth. Mumford left his locker, and having thrust a biscuit into his cheek, walked across the room to the door, where he bent down and applied his eye to the keyhole.
The form sat spellbound; and Mr. Hanbury was too astonished to break the silence.
Meanwhile the infatuated Mumford, having finished his biscuit, proceeded to describe to his cla.s.smates the movements of the enemy outside.
”All right!” he remarked cheerfully. ”Not in sight yet--only Wilkes and Jordan. There's the Badger now. What cheer, Badger, old man?” (The Badger was the Senior Science Master.)
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