Part 12 (1/2)
”Will you come and help?”
”No. He looks rather a decent chap. He's only been here a week; he may not know about white boots.”
”Ought to, then,” snapped the bloodthirsty Mumford. ”Other people find things out all right.”
”Not all,” grunted Pip. ”How about stamps?”
Master Mumford turned his back with some deliberation, and addressed himself severely to the labours of composition. Once, during his first week at Grandwich, he had called at the Head Master's, and having, after a wordy encounter with an unexpected butler in the hall, succeeded in pus.h.i.+ng his way into the study, had endeavoured, in faithful pursuance of the custom in vogue at his private school, to purchase a penny stamp for his Sunday letter from the stupefied autocrat within.
Linklater's white boots were duly filled with soap and water, but Pip was not present at the ceremony. He sought out the victim next evening and invited him to supper--sardines, and condensed milk spread on biscuits--in his study after prayers. An invitation from Pip was something sought after among the Juniors in ”Uncle Bill's” house, for Pip, though only fifteen, was regarded as a certainty for his Eleven colours this year, after his electrifying performance on last year's house-match.
Linklater gratefully accepted the invitation, and the two became friends from that day. They possessed opposite qualities. Pip admired Linklater's vivacity and _bonhomie_, while Linklater was attracted by Pip's solid muscle and undemonstrative ability to ”do things.” But cricket was their common bond. Linklater was almost as promising a bat as Pip was a bowler, and the two rose to eminence side by side. But despite their early proficiency, it was fated that neither should be Captain of the Eleven,--Pip for reasons already stated, and Linklater for another, which came about in this way.
Nearly every schoolboy has a _bete noire_ among the masters, and every master has at least one _bete noire_ among the boys. Fortunately it very seldom happens that the antipathy is mutual. If it is, look out for trouble, especially when the boy has a dour temper and the master is fault-finding and finicky. Such an one was Mr. Bradshaw, late Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, and a born fool.
Hostilities began early. On Linklater's first appearance in the Lower Sixth, Mr. Bradshaw remarked unfavourably on the shape of his collar, and elicited loud and sycophantic laughter--which is always music in the ears of men of his type--by several facetious comments on the colour of his tie. Linklater chafed and glowered, and muttered ”Swine!” under his breath,--symptoms of discomfiture which only roused Mr. Bradshaw to further humorous efforts. Thereafter the two waged perpetual warfare.
Linklater took his opponent's measure with great accuracy, and then advanced to battle. He discovered that Mr. Bradshaw was deaf in his left ear. He therefore made a point, whenever possible, of sitting on that side and making obscene noises. Mr. Bradshaw was extremely bald, and ashamed of the fact. Linklater had noted in his study of the Scriptures that the prophet Elisha had suffered from the same infirmity: consequently Mr. Bradshaw found his blackboard adorned every morning for a month with the single word ELISHA in staring capitals. When Mr.
Bradshaw was irritable Linklater was serenely cheerful; when Mr.
Bradshaw was blandly sarcastic Linklater was densely stupid; and after ostentatious efforts to understand his preceptor's innuendoes, would shake his head pityingly, with a patient sigh at such ill-timed levity.
So the battle went on. Every schoolboy knows what it must have been like. Matters were bound to come to a crisis. One morning, during a Cicero lesson, the form came upon a Greek expression amid the Latin text, and Mr. Bradshaw, who rather fancied himself at this sort of thing, added a touch of distinction to his translation by rendering the word in French. The form received this flight of scholars.h.i.+p without enthusiasm, merely wondering in their hearts how any man could be such an unmitigated a.s.s as to be desirous of elucidating for them a language of which they knew but little by translating it into another of which they knew still less.
”Yes, _elan_ is exactly the right translation,” quoth Mr. Bradshaw, well pleased. ”There is always a way out of every difficulty if we only look for it. Get on!”
”Please, sir, what does _elan_ mean, exactly?” inquired Linklater, not because he wished to know, but in the hope that ”Braddy” would waste several precious minutes in explaining.
The master rose to the bait.
”Mean? Bless my soul, what a question! Not know? Here, tell him, somebody--Martin, Levesley, Smith, Forbes, next, next, next!”
Various futile translations were offered, and Mr. Bradshaw stormed again.
”Do you fellows do _anything_ in the French hour except eat bananas?” he inquired. (Deferential sn.i.g.g.e.rs.) ”What are French lessons but an excuse for idleness? Really, I must ask the Head--”
They let him run on, while the golden moments slipped by. As soon as he showed signs of flagging, Linklater, seeing that it still wanted eight minutes to the hour, repeated--
”But what _does_ it mean, sir?”
”Mean, you insufferable dolt! It means--it means--er, 'energy,'
'verve,' 'dash'--yes, that's it! 'dash'!”
Linklater held up a respectful hand.
”I said 'das.h.!.+' sir, the moment the question pa.s.sed me,” he remarked meekly.
The form roared, and unanimously decided afterwards that ”Link was one up on Braddy.” Mr. Bradshaw, after the manner of his kind, reported Linklater to the Head for ”gross impertinence.” The Head, who had not reached his present high position for nothing, took a lenient view of the case, merely requesting Linklater to refrain in future from humour during school hours. But for all that Linklater determined to be ”even with Braddy” for reporting him: and so successful was he in his enterprise that he effectually destroyed his own last chance of leading a Grandwich Eleven to Lord's.
The schoolboy is an observant animal. Mr. Bradshaw, like most men who carry method and precision to extremes, was a ma.s.s of little affectations and mannerisms, one of the most curious of which was his habit of pa.s.sing his right hand in one comprehensive sweep along his bald head and down over his face. The boys knew this trick by heart: Braddy was much addicted to it at moments of mental exaltation,--say, when standing over a victim and thinking out the details of some exceptionally galling punishment. Milford tertius, the licensed jester of the Lower Fourth, had indeed been caned by the Head for a lifelike imitation of the same, rendered to a delighted pewful of wors.h.i.+ppers during a particularly dull sermon in chapel.