Part 8

“Famous, famous! You excel yourself, Tomkins!”

Then the words began gradually to turn green; and, for that matter, so did Nubbs. In fact, whether it was the reflected light or the condition of his mind, or both, I certainly never saw any chap become so perfectly horrid to look at as Nubbs did then. His nose seemed to stand out like a great green rock, and his eyes bulged, and his chin dropped, and the set piece turned his teeth as bright as precious emeralds. He just merely said, “Good Lord!”--nothing more--then hooked it off into the darkness, simply shattered.

At the same time Stoddart and Thompson, and Mannering and Browne, and some chaps from the Sixth, not knowing what color the beastly set piece might turn next, or how soon the Doctor would spot it, dashed at the thing and dragged it down, and trampled on it; and Browne in the act burned the very boots that Wilson had cheeked, which pleased Wilson a good deal when he heard it.

After that it was all over, and the Doctor, thinking the set piece had died a natural death, so to speak, saw me under the gas-light at the gate, as everybody streamed out, and said:

“Ah, young man, what was that last word in the illumination? I know you and Hodges also had a hand in it, as well as Tomkins.”

And I said:

“Please, sir, we arranged the words ‘Doctor Dunston is a Brick!’”

And he said:

“Excellent! Pithy and concise if a little familiar. I only hope you all echo that sentiment--every one of you. Send Tomkins to me, and tell the other fellows there is cake and lemonade going in the dining-hall.”

Just as if the other fellows didn’t know it! But everybody gave three cheers for the Doctor and Mrs. Dunston, and I started to find Nubbs; and the policemen made the cads go, though they went reluctantly.

I looked long for Nubby, and at last found him all alone in the gym. One bit of candle was burning, which looked frightfully poor after all the brilliance of the fireworks, and Nubbs had got the parallel bars under the flying rings, and was standing on them--I mean the bars.

“What the Dickens are you doing, Nubby?” I said.

And he answered:

“It’s no jolly good attempting to stop me now, because it’s too late. My life is ruined, and my father was there too to see it ruined; and I’m going to hang myself, as every convenience for hanging is here.”

Mind you, he would have done it. Knowing Tomkins as I do, and his great ingeniousness, I don’t mind swearing that he would have been a hung chap in another minute. So I told him; but, though doubtful, he decided to put it off, anyway. I even got him to promise he wouldn’t hang himself at all if his father believed his innocence about the set piece. And Crewe, the head-master under the Doctor, and old Briggs and Thompson got us in a corner--Nubbs and Hodges and me--and we solemnly vowed we knew nothing of it; and Crewe went down to the _Merivale Trumpet_ and made the reporter put in the original words when it came out; and Thompson explained to Mrs. Dunston how some evil-disposed, wicked person had tampered with the set piece, and begged her not to wound the feelings of the Doctor by telling him; and the Sixth hushed it up among the kids; and I sneaked a bit of cake for Wilson, and went up after the row was over and told him everything, down to the burning of Browne’s boots.

He confessed to me then that he had done it, which didn’t surprise me much, knowing how he had worked, and then at the last minute almost been deprived of seeing the show. It was certainly a terrible revenge; but, of course, a terrible revenge which doesn’t come off owing to a master being too shortsighted to see it is pretty sickening for the revenger. Besides the risk.

Mr. Crewe worked like a demon to find out who had done it, and he suspected Wilson from the first, but couldn’t prove it. But at last he did find out through Fowle, who got it out of Ferrars, who got it out of West, who got it out of Nubbs in a moment of rage. For I may say Wilson himself told Nubbs, and Nubbs never forgave him, and says he never shall, even if they ever both go to heaven.

So Crewe, having found out, had some talk with Wilson. But he didn’t lick him; whereas Wilson did lick Fowle, and that pretty badly. Not that Fowle cares for an ordinary licking more than another chap cares for a smack on the head. The only way to hurt him is to twist his arm round, about twice, and then hit him hard just above the elbow. I may say I found this out myself, and everybody does it now.

Doctor Dunston’s Howler

Mind you, if it’s interesting to watch any ordinary person come a howler, what must it be to see your own head-master do it? A “howler,” of course, is the same as a “cropper,” and you can come one at cricket or football or in class or in everyday life.

Dr. Dunston’s howler was a most complicated sort, and I had the luck to be one of the chaps who witnessed him come it. Of course, to see any master make a tremendous mistake is good; but when you are dealing with a man almost totally bald and sixty-two years of age the affair has a solemn side, especially owing to his being a Rev. and a D.D. In fact, Slade, who was with me, said the spectacle reminded him of the depths of woe beggars got into in Greek tragedies, which often wanted half a dozen gods to lug them out of. But no gods troubled themselves about Dunston; and it really was a bit awful looked at from his point of view; because it’s beastly to give yourself away to kids at the best of times; and no doubt to him all of us are more or less as kids, even the Sixth.

He often had a way of bringing the parents of a possible new boy through one or two of the big class-rooms and the chapel of Merivale, just to show what a swagger place it was. Then we all bucked up like mad, and the masters bucked up too, and gave their gowns a hitch round and their mortar-boards a cock up, and made more noise and put on more side generally, just to add to the splendor of the scene from the point of view of the parents of the possible new boy.

Sometimes the affair was rather spoiled by an aunt or mother or some woman or other asking the Doctor homely sort of questions about sanitary arrangements or prayers; then to see old Dunston making long-winded replies and getting even the drains to sound majestic was fine. His manner varied according to the people who came over the school. Sometimes, if it only happened to be a guardian or a lawyer, he was short and stern. Then he just swept along, calling attention to the ventilation and discipline, and looking at the chaps as if they were dried specimens in a museum; but with fathers or women he had a playful mood and an expression known as the “parent-smile.” To mothers he never talked about “pupils,” but called the whole shoot of us “his lads,” and beamed and fluttered his gown, like a hen with chickens flutters its wings. The masters always copied him, and to see that little brute Browne trying to flutter over the kids like a hen when the Doctor came into his class-room was a ghastly sight, knowing him as we did. Also the Doctor would often pat a youngster on the head and beam at him. He generally singled Corkey minimus out for patting and beaming; and Corkey minor said the irony of it was pretty frightful, considering that Corkey minimus, for different reasons, got licked oftener by the Doctor than almost any chap in the Lower School.

Well, one day in came the Doctor to the school-room of the Fourth. I’m in the Sixth myself, and a personal chum of Slade’s, the head of the school; but I happened to have gone to the Fourth with a message, so I saw what happened. A very big man who puffed out his chest like a pigeon followed the Doctor. He had a blue tie on with a jolly bright diamond in it, and there were small purple veins in a regular network over his cheeks, and his mustache was yellowish-gray and waxed out as sharp as pins. A lady followed him with red rims to her little eyes and gold things hanging about her chest. The Doctor, being all arched up and rolled round from the small of the back like a wood-louse, seemed to show they were parents of perhaps more fellows than one. The big chap wore an eye-glass and spoke very loud, and was jolly pleasant.

“Ah!” he said, “and this is where the little boys work, eh? I expect, now, my youngster will be drafted in among these small men, Doctor Dunston?”

“It is very possible--nay, probable in the highest degree, my lord,” said the Doctor. “We are now,” he continued, “in the presence of the Fourth and Lower Fourth. The class-room is spacious, as you see, and new. A commanding panorama of the surrounding country and our playing-fields may be enjoyed from the French windows. If two of you lads will move that black-board from there, Lord Golightly may be able to see something of the prospect.”

Two of the kids promptly knocked down the black-board nearly onto the purple-veined lord’s head. Then suddenly the lady called out and attracted his attention. Looking round, we found she had got awfully excited, and stood pointing straight at young Tomlin. He was a mere kid, at the extreme bottom of the Lower Fourth; but he happened to be my fag, so I was interested. She pointed at him, in the most frantic way, with a hand in a browny-yellow glove, and a gold bracelet outside the glove and a little watch let into the bracelet.

“Good gracious!” she said, “do look Ralph! What an astounding resemblance! Whoever is that boy?”

Tomlin turned rather red in the gills, which was natural.

“Do you know the lad?” asked the Doctor.

“Never saw him before in my life; but I hope he’ll forgive me for being so rude as to point at him in that way,” she said. “He’s exactly like our dear Carlo; they might be twins.”

Tomlin thought she meant a pet dog, and got rather rum to look at.

“Carlo is our son, you know,” explained the lord.

“Singular coincidence,” answered Doctor Dunston, not looking very keen about it. In fact, he wasn’t too fond of Tomlin at any time, and seemed sorry he should be dragged in now. But the kid was a very tidy sort, really--Captain of the Third Footer Eleven and a good runner. He happened to be the son of a big London hatter who had a shop of enormous dimensions in Bond Street; and the Doctor was said to get his own hats there; yet he didn’t like Tomlin.

Tomlin went out into the open, and the purple-veined lord shook hands with him, and the lord’s wife stood him in the light and turned him round to catch different expressions. Then they admitted that the likeness was really most wonderful, and they both hoped Tomlin and Carlo would be great friends. Tomlin, told by the Doctor to answer, stood on one leg, twisted his arms in a curious way he’s got when nervous, and said he hoped they might be; but he said it as though he knew jolly well they wouldn’t.

Then the lord and the lady cleared out, and a week later Carlo came. His real name was Westonleigh, and he was a viscount or something, being eldest son of an earl; but we called him Carlo, and he grew jolly waxy when he found his nickname had got to Merivale before him. He fancied himself to a most hideous extent for a kid of nine, and explained he’d only come for a year or so before going to Eton. He went into the Lower Fourth, so Tomlin ceased to be at the bottom of that class.

The likeness between Carlo and my fag was really most peculiar. It must have been for Carlo’s own mother to see it; but when Carlo heard that Tomlin would be a hatter in the course of years he refused to have anything to do with him. And Tomlin loathed Carlo, too, from the start; so instead of being chums according to the wish of the purple-veined lord, they hated one another, and the first licking of any importance which Carlo got he had from Tomlin.

The chap was a failure all round, and it’s no good saying he wasn’t. Everybody saw it but Doctor Dunston, and he wouldn’t. Carlo proved to be a sneak and a liar of the deepest sort--not to masters, but to the chaps; and he was also jolly cruel to animals, and very much liked to torture things that couldn’t hit him back, such as mice and insects. He had a square face and snubby nose, and a voice and eyes exactly similar to Tomlin’s; but there was no likeness in their characters, Tomlin being a very decent kid, as I have said. Fellows barred Carlo all round, and he only had one real chum in the miserable shape of Fowle. Fowle sucked up to him and listened for hours about his ancestors, and buttered him at all times, hoping, of course, that some day he would get asked to Carlo’s father’s castle in the holidays. I may also note Carlo never played games, excepting tossing behind the gymnasium for half-pennies with Fowle and Steggles, Steggles, of course, winning.

Happening one day to go down through the playground, young Tomlin saw Westonleigh near a little fir-tree which grew at the top of the drill-ground. He was alone, and seemed to be doing something queer, so Tomlin stopped and went over.

“What are you up to?” he said.

“Frying ants,” said Carlo, “though it’s no business of yours. You see, there’s turpentine juice come out of this tree where I cut it yesterday, and you can stick the ants in it, then fry them to a cinder with a burning-glass, like this.”

“That’s what you’re doing?”

“It is.”

“Don’t you think you’re rather a little beast?”

“What d’ you mean, hatter?”

“I mean I’m going to kick you for being such a cruel beast.”

They stood the same height to an inch and were the same age, so it was a perfectly sportsman-like thing for Tomlin to offer.

“You seem to forget who you’re talking to,” said Carlo.

“No, I don’t--no chance of that. Your ancestors came over with William the Conqueror--carried his portmanteau, I expect, then cleared out when the fighting came on. Yes, and another ancestor stabbed a friend of Wat Tyler’s when he was face down on the ground, after somebody else had knocked him over. That’s what you are, ant-fryer.”

“I’ll thank you to let me pass,” said Carlo. “I’m not accustomed to talking to people like you, and if you think I’m going to fight with a future hatter you’re wrong.”

“Then you can put your tail between your legs and swallow this,” said Tomlin, and he went on and licked Carlo pretty well. He also broke his burning-glass.

“You’ll live to be sorry for this all your life!” yelled out Carlo, when Tomlin let him get up off some broken flower-pots on the drill-ground. “I’ll never forget it; I’ll get my father to make old Dunston expel you; and when I’m a man I’ll devote all my time to wrecking your vile hat business and ruining you and making you a shivering, starving beggar in the streets!”

“Go and sneak, I should,” said Tomlin.

And blessed if Carlo didn’t! He tore straight off to the Doctor just as he was, in his licked condition.

That much I heard from my fag, young Tomlin, but the rest I saw for myself, as the Sixth happened to be before the Doctor in his study when Carlo arrived. He was white and muddy, and slightly bloody and panting; he looked jolly wicked, and his collar had carried away from the stud, and his trousers were torn behind.

“My good lad, whatever has happened?” began the Doctor. “Don’t say you have met with an accident? And yet your appearance--”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Carlo, who soon found out the Doctor had a weak place for him, owing to his being a lord’s son. “I’ve been frightfully and cruelly mangled through no fault of my own; and I believe some things inside me are broken too.”

“Sit down, sit down, my unfortunate lad,” said the Doctor. Then he rang the bell and told the butler to bring Viscount Westonleigh a glass of wine at once.

“It’s Tomlin done it,” said Carlo. “He came up behind me, and, before I could defend myself, he trampled on me and tried to tear me limb from limb. I’m not strong, and I may die of it. Anyway, he ought to be expelled, and I’ll write to my father, the earl, about it, and he’ll make the whole country-side resound if Tomlin isn’t sent away and his character ruined.”

“Hush, Westonleigh!” said the Doctor. “Have no fear that justice will not be done, my boy. You shall yourself accuse Tomlin and hear what he may have to say in defence.”

Then Tomlin was sent for, and in about ten minutes came.

“Is this true, boy Tomlin?” said the Doctor, putting on his big manner. “One glance at your victim,” he continued, “furnishes a more conclusive reply to my question than could any word of yours; nevertheless, I desire to hear from your own lips whether Viscount Westonleigh’s assertions are true or not.”

“Don’t know what he’s asserted, sir,” said Tomlin, which was a smart thing for a kid to say. “If he said I’ve licked him, it’s true, sir.”

“That is what he _did_ assert, sir, in words chosen with greater regard for my feelings than your own. And are you aware, George Tomlin, that you have ‘licked’ one who, in the ordinary course of nature, and subject to the will of an all-just, all-seeing Providence, will some day take his seat in the House of Lords?”

“I’ve heard him _say_ he will, sir,” answered Tomlin, as though no statement of Carlo’s could be worth believing.

“Don’t answer in that offensive tone, boy,” answered the Doctor, his voice rising to the pitch that always went before a flogging. “If your stagnant sense of right cannot bring a blush to your cheek before the spectacle of your scandalous achievement, it will be necessary for me--for me, your head-master, sir--to quicken the blood in your veins and bring a blush to the baser extremity of your person. Some learn through the head, George Tomlin; some can only be approached through the hide; and with the latter category you have long, unhappily, chosen to throw in your lot.”

Tomlin said nothing, but looked at Carlo.

“Before proceeding, according to my custom, I shall hear both sides of this question--_audi alteram partem_, George Tomlin. Now say what you have to say; explain why your lamentable, your unholy, your aboriginal passions led you to fall upon Viscount Westonleigh from behind--to take him in the rear, sir, after the unmanly fashion of the North American Indian or other primitive savage.”

“I didn’t take him in the rear at all, sir,” said Tomlin. “I stood right up to him, and he said he wouldn’t fight a future hatter.”

“A very proper decision, too, sir--a natural and wise decision,” declared the Doctor. “Why should the son of Lord Golightly imbue his hand in the blood of--I will not say a future hatter, for I yield to no man in my respect for your father, Tomlin, and his business is alike honorable and necessary; but why should he fight anybody?”

“If he’s challenged he’s got to, sir, or else take a licking.”

“No flippancy, sir!” thundered the Doctor again. “Who are _you_ to announce the laws which govern the society of Merivale? Shall it be possible in a Christian land, at a Christian college for Christian lads, to find infamous boys with tigrine instincts parading the fold for the purpose of smiting when and where they will? This, sir, is the very apotheosis of savagery!”

“I didn’t do it for nothing, sir,” said Tomlin. “I’m not going to sneak, of course; but I--I licked Carlo for a jolly good reason, and he knows what.”

“Don’t know anything of the sort,” declared Carlo. “You flew at me like a wolf from behind.”

“That’s a good one,” answered Tomlin.

“Anybody can see you did from the state I’m in,” said Carlo.

“You two boys,” began the Doctor again, “though you know it not, stand here before me as types of a great social movement, I may even say upheaval. In the democratic age upon which we are now entering, we shall find the Tomlins at war with the Westonleighs; we shall find the Westonleighs disdaining to fight, and the Tomlins accordingly doing what pleases them in their own brutal way. Now, here I find myself met with statement and counter-statement. The indictment is all too clear against you, boy Tomlin, for even the glass of old brown sherry which he has just consumed fails to soothe your unfortunate victim’s nerve-centres. He is still far from calm; his ganglions are yet vibrating. This work of destruction was yours. You do not deny it, but you refuse any explanation, making instead a vague and ambiguous reference to not sneaking. No man hates the tale-bearer more than your head-master, sir, but there are occasions when the school’s welfare and the protection of our little commonwealth make it absolutely necessary that offences should be reported to the ruler of that commonwealth. I have no hesitation in saying that Westonleigh saw the present incident in this light. He had no right to hush up the matter. Whatever his private instincts towards mercy, his duty to his companions and to me, together with a hereditary sense of justice and the fearless instincts of his race, compelled him to come before me and report the presence of a young garroter in our midst. I select the word, George Tomlin, and I say that, having regard to the perverted, not to say inverted, sense of justice and honor all too common among every community of boys, Westonleigh’s act was a brave act. I accept his statement in its entirety; consequently, Tomlin, you may join me this evening, at nine o’clock, after prayers.”

That meant a flogging, and Tomlin said, “Yes, sir,” and hooked it; but the wretched Carlo thought he was going to hear Tomlin expelled. He burst out and said as much, and the Doctor started as if a serpent had stung him, and told Carlo to control the instinct of revenge so common to all human nature, and explained that chaps were not expelled for trifles. He reminded Carlo that Tomlin had an immortal soul like himself, and seemed to imply that being expelled from Merivale would ruin a chap’s future in the next world as well as this one. Finally, he allowed Carlo, in consideration of the dressing he had got, to stop in the playground that afternoon with a book. So the little skunk crept off, shattered ganglions and all, pretending to walk lame; while the Doctor, evidently much bothered altogether, took up our work where he had left it.

* * * * *

Tomlin got flogged all right, and there the matter ended, excepting that a lot of fellows sent Carlo to Coventry and called him “ant-fryer” from that day.

Then, within three weeks, came the Doctor’s howler, Steggles being responsible. Steggles is a bit of a hound, but his cunning is wonderful. As for the Doctor, he continued making much of Carlo and sitting on Tomlin, till one day, going into chapel, he unexpectedly patted Tomlin on the head. Tomlin was rather pleased, because he thought the Doctor was relenting to him; but when Steggles heard of it he said:

“Why, you fool, he thought he was patting Westonleigh!”

Then, on an evening when Tomlin was cooking a sausage for me in the Sixth’s class-room, he said:

“Please, I should like to speak to you, if I may.”

So I chucked work, and told him to say what he liked.

“It’s only to show how things go against a chap, no matter what he does,” said the kid. “This term I have been flogged for licking Carlo, and caned three times since for other things, which were more bad luck than anything else; and now I’ll be flogged again to-morrow for absolute certain.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s a jolly muddle. You know Steggles?”

“Yes, you’re a fool to go about with him,” I said.