did. What it was that Forrest knew we couldn't understand; but it

appeared that Browne gave Forrest a great deal of help with his prep. on condition that he would not mention it.

This man was very ignorant and could only teach kids, and even them he didn't teach well. It was well known that he had many cribs in his room, and often--especially when he had to take the fourth in algebra--he would creep away from time to time and look at his crib swiftly, and return, and do off a sum on the blackboard as if he had no difficulty at all. He was great at having favourites, and he always chose sneaks, and often turned on them afterwards, as he did on Fowle, and also on Stopford over the medlars; though when caught, Stopford solemnly swore to Browne that he was getting the medlars for him.

Anyway, nobody liked Browne, and when Stopford begged Richmond minimus to preach against Browne, he thought a little and finally said that he would.

I advised him strongly not to do it.

I said--

"Can't you see the frightful danger? Some word you may say may get to Browne's ears, and you may have a flogging at least, if you're not expelled."

But Richmond minimus shook his head.

He said--

"Not at all. A word in season often does good, as in the case of Stopford. I want to warn the fellows against the mean nature of Browne. I want to show them what Browne is and how a master may use his power like a beast, as Browne does."

"If it gets back to him, you're cooked," I said. "And you know how you work yourself up when you're preaching. I don't think it's at all wise."

"I've promised," answered Richmond minimus. "I'm going to preach to-morrow evening in the time after tea before prep.; and all Browne's house is coming to hear me."

Somehow I felt from the first it would be the undoing of Richmond minimus. The danger was too frightful. However, of course I went. It was the biggest congregation Richmond ever had, and he said that he itched to make a collection as he looked at the chaps--not for himself but for some good purpose. A crowd was in the chapel before I got there, and Browne's were all in a knot together, eager and longing to hear what young Richmond had to say about Browne. A lot of fellows from the sixth had also come in, and of course all the personal friends of Richmond minimus were there. Stopford was also there.

Richmond went up to the master's desk at the top of the room, full of calm cheek, and said a few things of a general sort; then he caught Stopford's eye. This reminded him and he began.

"Now I want to speak to you of a subject that will especially interest the boys of Mr. Browne's house, namely, Mr. Browne. My friends, I wish I could say something hopeful about him; I wish I could tell you that he was a bright, shining example for us all to follow and imitate; but alas! you know it is not so. Mr. Browne is a very mean character. Before saying these words about him I have thought a great deal about him and studied him very closely, when, I am afraid, dear friends, I ought to have been studying something else. But I tell you fearlessly to beware of him. I know he has favourites; I know he encourages the sneak and the tale-bearer in our midst; I dare say among you at this moment may be some wretched chap who will go to Browne after my sermon and tell him what I am saying now; but do I care? No, I do not care. Nobody need care if they are doing right. Browne has had a good deal of mystery about him, and I have come to the bottom of it. One among us who lives where Browne does, knows the truth. I will not name him; but he had his head slapped by Browne the day before yesterday, though it is well known Dr. Dunstan won't allow our heads to be slapped, owing to the danger of hurting the brain. At any rate Browne slapped his, and in a moment of natural anger, my dear friends, that boy told me the truth. Browne is a tailor's son! That, of course, is nothing against him. The shameful and disgusting thing is that Browne is ashamed of it! He hates to think of it. Oh, my friends, what a paltry nature is this. I dare say his father is a better man than he is, though he _does_ make clothes; and I do not hesitate to tell you, my friends, that Browne's father makes clothes a long sight better than Browne teaches Latin; for we have all noticed the scabby manner in which he continually sneaks out of this room during class to rush up to his own study and consult cribs. I say nothing of his appearance. He cannot help that, though he could help those pink ties and those horrid boots with pearl buttons; but what I do say is that with such a lesson in our midst we must learn firstly, not to be ashamed of our parents, whoever they are; and secondly, not to make friends of dirty sneaks; and thirdly, not to be a hound in general; and fourthly, not to pretend we know enough Latin and algebra to teach it, when really we don't know any worth mentioning; and fifthly, and lastly, my friends----"

What Richmond minimus was going to say for fifthly, and lastly, against the wretched Browne, we didn't hear, for at this point a frightful thing happened. The door of the cupboard on Richmond's right, where the blackboards were kept, opened violently and out leapt no less a person than Mr. Browne himself!

A very strange sound went up from the congregation of Richmond minimus, but he said nothing. For a moment Browne stood at bay, glaring out of his double eye-glasses, like the picture of a wounded tiger in _C. B. Fry's Magazine_; then the chaps began to scutter out, and many dived and proceeded to the door entirely under the desks, hoping they would not be recognized. In fact, I did this myself. But Browne was not bothering about us. His eyes, which squint by nature, had turned in upon each side of his nose and he was darting a horrid glance of rage and scorn at Richmond minimus.

Then, with dreadful slowness, he raised his hand and took Richmond by the right ear and said--

"Come!"

And Richmond merely said, "Yes, sir," and went, led by Browne, to the Doctor. As for me, I felt that Richmond minimus need never have worried about not being a martyr. He was going to be a martyr all right now.

After the blow had fallen--about two days after--he told me exactly what happened. By a curious chance the Doctor was writing a sermon himself when Browne appeared before him. The Doctor always preaches at Merivale on the first Sunday in the month, and this was the sermon he was writing, no doubt.

He put down his pen and took off his glasses and stretched his eyes in a way he has; then he told Browne to speak. And Browne said--

"I have to report this boy for insolence and profanity combined. Never have I known a boy do such a thing. Before half the school assembled in the great school-room he stood up and preached."

"Preached!" said the Doctor, looking with great surprise at Richmond minimus. "What did he preach about?"

"About me!" said Browne furiously. "He dared to preach about my private affairs--at least----"

"Begin at the beginning," said the Doctor. "How did particulars of this outrage reach you, Browne?"

"Through the boy Stopford," said Browne; and Richmond minimus fairly gasped to think how mistaken he had been about converting Stopford.

"Stopford," explained Browne, "came to me and said that he was very much afraid that liberties were to be taken with my name. I refused to believe it at first. Then, to satisfy myself, I went into the great school-room at the time mentioned by Stopford and stood behind the blackboards in the cupboard."

Browne then related all that he had heard, and Richmond minimus said that he trembled with indignation and spoke so fast that Dr. Dunstan had to ask him once or twice to repeat the sentence. But Richmond admitted that Browne's version of the sermon was very fairly just.

Then the Doctor said--

"Thank you, Browne. I much regret your natural annoyance. You may leave the sequel to me."

So Browne hooked it and Richmond minimus was left alone with the Doctor.

The Doctor said nothing for some time. Then he sighed, and looked at his sermon, and rose and went to the cane corner.

"What led you to do this outrageous thing, impious boy?" he asked.

"I felt called to do it, sir," said Richmond minimus. "I've preached seven times now, and more fellows come each time."

"I am aware that you are probably destined for the sacred calling," said Dunstan solemnly, "and your theological papers have always led me to regard you as a promising recruit, Richmond minimus; but preaching, or I should say a travestie, a bizarre burlesque of that difficult branch of the pastor's calling! And to select one of your masters for a theme!"

"He seemed a good subject to show what we oughtn't to do, sir. In preaching, of course, you want----"

The Doctor looked his most awful look, and Richmond minimus dried up.

"Probably what I want in preaching is as well known to me as to you, preposterous youth!" said the Doctor. "The present question is not what I want in preaching, but what I want in boys; and what I expect from boys after they have been for the space of three years under my personal care and control. To play the buffoon before your fellows is in any case degrading; but to do it under pretence of advancing their moral welfare--to preach in jest--this is perilously akin to profanity. Only a vitiated spirit of secularism can explain so gross an action. My heart bleeds when I think upon your parents, Richmond minimus, and upon your brothers who worthily upheld the honour and dignity of Merivale, and now, in the wider field of life, are bringing forth the good fruit sowed within these scholastic cloisters."

The Doctor always spoke like this about chaps who had left.

"Then," said Richmond minimus, "the usual event happened and, as you know, on the next morning I had, in addition, to tell Browne I was sorry publicly after prayers."

"One thing," I said. "What was that 'fifthly and lastly' that you were prevented from preaching?"

But Richmond didn't remember; so it was lost.

"Shall you ever preach again here?" I asked him.

And he said not. He said--

"No. On the whole it isn't good enough. And yet you mustn't think I mind the martyrdom. Only of course I don't want to be utterly martyred and done for before I grow up."

He evidently meant to be a martyr in rather a biggish way in foreign parts, like the Germans in China; because when they are bashed by the heathen, Germany always gets a few miles of China as payment. And so Germany is proud of her martyrs, and the Emperor too.

What did become of Richmond minimus I can't tell you. He ran away once, to do good on a large scale, but he was captured and brought back before he had time to do much worth mentioning. He'll tell you that story himself. Anyway, he never preached again, and the whole affair, if it did nothing else, helped to show what Stopford was.

*THE 'BOLSOVER' PRIZE*

*No. VI*

*THE 'BOLSOVER' PRIZE*

*I*

There was once a chap at Dunstan's, ages and ages ago, called Bolsover, who turned into a novelist afterwards; and he was so frightfully keen about other chaps turning into novelists too that he gave a prize for composition. It was a book worth a guinea, and Dr. Dunstan had to choose it each year, and only the junior school was allowed to enter for it, according to the conditions made by the chap who gave it. Gideon calculated it out, and said that as twenty pounds is about good for one pound at simple interest in an ordinary way, the novelist chap must have handed twenty pounds over to Dr. Dunstan; and Steggles said he rather doubted if the novelist chap would have much cared for the books that Dr. Dunstan chose for the prizes; because they were not novels at all, but very improving books--chiefly natural history; which Steggles said was not good for trade from the novelist chap's point of view.

No doubt old Dunstan ought to have bought stories; and Steggles went further and said that it would have been a sporting thing for Dr. Dunstan to get the novelist chap's own books, of which he wrote a great many for a living. Steggles had read one once in the holidays, but he didn't tell me much about it, excepting that there was a man who appeared to have about four wives in it, and that it had three hundred and seventy-five pages and no pictures.

Anyway, the composition prize always interested us in the lower school, and it interested me especially once, because the subject was 'Wild Flowers,' and my cousin, Norman Tomkins, happened to be a frightful dab at them. When he heard about it, Tomkins went instantly to Gideon, who lends money at usury, being a Jew, and said, "Look here, Gid., I'll sell you the 'Bolsover' prize for ten shillings now on the spot. As it's worth a pound, you'll make fifty per cent. profit." And Gideon said, "The profit would be about right, but where's the prize?" And Tomkins said, "I've got to write for it on Monday week; but it's as good as mine, because nobody in the lower school knows anything about wild flowers excepting me, and I can tell you the name of thirty-four right off the reel; so there's an end of it, as far as I can see." Which shows what a hopeful sort of chap Tomkins was.

But unfortunately Gideon knew the great hopefulness of Tomkins about everything, and also knew that it did not always come off. He said, "Who are in for the prize?" And I said, "First Tomkins, then Walters, then Smythe, and also Macmullen."

"There you are," said Tomkins. "Just take them one by one and ask yourself. If it was wild animals, or queer old customs, Smythe might run me close, or even beat me; but in the subject of wild flowers he is nothing. Then young Walters doesn't know anything about anything, and his English is frightfully wild, owing to his having been born in India. Well, that only leaves Macmullen, and Macmullen's strong point is machinery. He never looked at a flower in his life. When we went out of bounds on the railway embankment, he simply sat and watched the signals work, and took down the number of a goods engine that was new to him. And when he got up, I discovered that he'd actually been sitting on a bee orchis--one of the rarest flowers in the world! When I showed him what he'd done, he merely said, 'A bee orchis? Lucky it don't sting!' So that shows he's no use. In fact, when he hears the subject hasn't got anything to do with steam power, I doubt if he'll go in."

But Gideon knew Macmullen better.

"He'll go in," he said. "His age is just right, and he won't be able to try again. He's not the chap to throw away the chance of getting a pound book just because the subject doesn't happen to be steam power. Besides, there's always time allowed to swat up the thing. I bet by Monday week Mac. will know as much about wild flowers as you do--perhaps more."

"Of course, as a chum of his, you say that," answered Tomkins. "But I've made a lifetime study of wild flowers, and it's childish to think that Macmullen, or anybody else, is going to learn all I know in a week."

"He can spell, anyway," said Gideon, "which is more than you can."

In fact, Gideon didn't seem so hopeful about Tomkins getting the prize as you might have thought, and it surprised Tomkins a good deal. Gideon had a right to speak, because in his time he'd won this prize himself. When he won it, the subject happened to be 'Postage Stamps'; which was, of course, like giving the prize to Gideon, owing to his tremendous knowledge about money in every shape.

The time was July, and so next half-holiday Tomkins and me went into the country for a walk, for Tomkins to freshen up his ideas about the wild flowers.

He certainly knew a lot, but several things that I picked bothered him, and once or twice, I think, he was altogether wrong about them. He also picked a good many that he evidently didn't know at all, and carried them back to school to ask Mr. Briggs the names of them and anything worth mentioning about them.

Then, coming back through Merivale, who should we see but Macmullen, with his nose flat against the window of an old book shop there!

"Look here," he said, "there's a second-hand botany in here for sevenpence, and I've only got fivepence. I tried the man by showing him the fivepence all at once, but he wouldn't come down. Can one of you chaps lend me twopence till next week?"

He looked at the flowers Tomkins had picked as he spoke.

"D'you know many of them?" said Tomkins, knowing well that Mac. wouldn't.

"Only that--that nettle," said Macmullen rather doubtfully.

"It isn't a nettle," said Tomkins. But he was so pleased to see what a frightful duffer Macmullen really was, that he lent him twopence on the spot.

I thought he was rather a fool to increase Macmullen's chances like this; but Tomkins said, in his large way, that a few facts out of a botany book wouldn't help Macmullen now, especially if he didn't know the difference between sage and nettles.

"By Jove, I don't believe he knows the difference between sage and onions, for that matter!" said Tomkins.

Then Mac. came out with the book, and we all went back together.

*II*

It was frightfully interesting to see the different ways those four chaps went about trying for the 'Bolsover' prize. Tomkins got special leave off games, and spent his spare time in the lanes. He confessed to me that he was frightfully ignorant about grasses, and thought, on the whole, that it would be safer to leave them out of the essay. Macmullen told me that the whole subject bored him a good bit, but he thought he could learn enough about it to do something decent in a week, because a pound book was worth the fag. He was always pulling flowers to pieces, and talking about calyxes and corollas, and seed-cases and stamens, and other wild things of that sort. I asked Tomkins if it promised well for Macmullen to learn about stamens and so on, and how to spell them; and Tomkins thought not.

Tomkins said, "Briggs may very likely favour him, as we know he has before, owing to his feeling for everything Scotch, from oatmeal downwards; but, all the same, the subject is wild flowers, not botany. It's rather a poetical subject in a way, and that's no good to Macmullen. No, I don't think Mac. has any chance, though he did ask old Briggs to lend him the number of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ with 'Botany' in it, to read in playtime."

"I believe Briggs was pleased, though," I said, "for I heard him answer that Mac. was going the right way to work. Anyway, Mac. read quite half the article and copied some out on a bit of paper before he chucked it in despair."

Tomkins nodded, and I think he saw that it was rather a grave thing for Macmullen to have done.

"I might read it myself," he said. "I'm a little foggy between genera and species, and varieties and natural orders, and so on. Not that all that stuff matters. What you want is really the name of the wild flowers themselves and their colours and ways. Do you happen to know any poetry about flowers of a sort easily learned by heart?"

I didn't; but young Smythe, who was there, answered that he did.

He said, "What you say about poetry is awfully interesting to me, Tomkins, because I had thought the same. And I know many rhymes of a queer sort, and I can make rhymes rather well myself, and I had an idea I would try and do the whole of my composition in rhyme."

"Like your cheek," said Tomkins. "My dear kid, it will take you all your time to write prose. And what do you know about flowers, anyway?"

"I do know something," said Smythe, "owing to my father, who collects odd rhymes and things. It's called folklore. It includes queer names of plants and animals; also about remedies for warts, and the charms for curing animals from witches, and overlooking, and suchlike. I know some awful funny things, anyway, that my governor has told me, though they may not be true."

Tomkins was a good deal interested in this.

"Fancy a kid like you knowing anything at all about it!" he said.

There was only Walters left, but he was no good at all, and he'd simply gone in for it because his people insisted upon his doing so. I asked Walters if he knew much about wild flowers, and he answered something about cucumber sandwiches, which he had once eaten in large quantities owing to being forgotten at a lawn-tennis party. He seemed to think because a cucumber was a vegetable, and a flower was a vegetable, that a cucumber was a flower. He said that was all he knew about the subject, excepting that dogs ate grass when not feeling well. So I told Tomkins he needn't bother about Walters.

Tomkins, however, assured us that he wasn't bothering about any of them. He said that facts were the things, and not theories. So while Macmullen swatted away at his botany, and Smythe collected rhymes and offered anybody three links of a brass chain for a word that rhymed with toad-flax, and Walters merely waited for the day, and made no effort as far as we could see, Tomkins poked about, and went one evening out of bounds, with Freckles and young Corkey, into the famous quarry at Merivale Great Wood. They were chased, but escaped owing to the strategy of Freckles; and Tomkins felt the 'Bolsover' prize was now an absolute cert for him, because in the preserves he had met with an exceedingly rare flower--at least, he said so; and he believed that by mentioning it, and making a sketch of it in his paper, he would easily distance Macmullen, who did not so much as know there was such a flower.

As far as ages went, I must tell you that Tomkins was thirteen and two weeks, and Macmullen thirteen and seven months, while Smythe was ten and Walters merely nine and a half.

All four put on a little side about it the Sunday before, and a good many other fellows wished they had gone in, because the papers had to be written in the Doctor's own study, and there are some magnificent pictures and marble statues in that room such as are very seldom seen by the lower school.

I asked each one after breakfast on the appointed day how he felt; and Tomkins said, "Hopeful"; and Macmullen said, "Much as usual"; and Smythe said, "Sleepy, because I've been awake nearly all night remembering rhymes I've heard my father say"; and Walters said he had a sort of rather horrid wish that _his_ father had died the term before, because he didn't think his mother would ever have made him go in for a thing he hated so much as this.

*III*

Two hours were allowed for the essay, and by good luck I happened to meet the four chaps just as they came out. So I got their ideas fresh on what they'd done. Curiously enough, all four were hopeful. Tomkins, of course, I knew would be, and probably also Macmullen, but Smythe and even Walters seemed to fancy they had a chance too. This astonished me a good deal. So I said to Smythe--

"How the dickens d'you think any stuff you can have done would be near to what my cousin Tomkins has done?"

And he said--

"Because of the rhymes. I was quite astonished myself to find how they came; and I also remembered a charm for nettlerash, and some awfully peculiar sayings just at the right moment."

And Walters also declared he'd done better than he expected to do. He seemed rather flustered about it, and wouldn't give any details; but he was highly excited, and inked up to the eyes, as you might say. He gave me the idea of a chap who'd been cribbing.

Macmullen looked rather a pale yellow colour, which he always does look at moments of great excitement, especially just before his innings at cricket. He wouldn't say a word to a soul until he'd gone to his botany book and read up a lot of stuff. Then he felt better.

As to Tomkins, he told me privately, as his cousin, that he had got in the names of no less than forty-five plants and seven grasses.

"That _must_ settle it," he said. And I said I thought so too.

Mr. Briggs corrected the essays that night, and prepared some notes upon them for the Doctor to read when the time of announcing the winner came. We all stared jolly hard at Briggs during prep. the next day, and Steggles, who has no fear of old Briggs, asked him who had won. But Briggs merely told him to mind his own business.

After prayers the next day the Doctor stopped in the chapel, which was also a school-room, and told everybody to remain in his place.

Then he whispered to Corkey major, and Corkey went off, and presently came back with a very swagger book bound in red leather and having a yellow back with gold letters upon it.

The Doctor dearly likes these occasions; and so do we, because it means missing at least one class for certain. When he once fairly begins talking, he keeps at it. Now he had the four essays on the desk in front of him, and the prize; and then he spoke to Briggs, and Briggs led up Macmullen and Tomkins and Smythe and Walters.

They knew this was coming, and had all prepared to a certain extent. I noticed that Smythe had borrowed a green tie from Webster, and that Mac. had turned his usual hue at times of excitement. Walters was still inky, despite pumice stone.

"We have now, my boys, to make our annual award of the 'Harold Bolsover' prize for English composition," began the Doctor. "Mr. Bolsover, whose name is now not unfavourably known to his countrymen as an ingenious fabricator of romance, was educated at this seminary. To me it fell to instruct his incipient intellect and lift the vacuity of his childish mind upwards and onwards into the light of knowledge and religion.

"The art of fiction, while it must not be considered a very lofty or important pursuit, may yet be regarded as a permissible career if the motives that guide the pen are elevated, and a high morality is the author's first consideration. Lack of leisure does not permit me to read story books myself; but I have little doubt that Mr. Bolsover's work is all that it should be from the Christian standpoint, and I feel confident that those lessons of charity, patience, loyalty, and honour, which he learnt from my own lips, have borne worthy fruit in his industrious brain.

"The work I have selected for the 'Bolsover' prize is _Gilpin on Forest Scenery_--a book which leads us from Nature to the contemplation of the Power above and behind Nature; a book wherein the reverend author has excelled himself and presented to our minds the loftiest thoughts, and to our eyes the most noble scenes, that his observance could record, and his skill compass within the space of a volume.

"For this notable reward four lads have entered in competition, and their emulation was excited by the theme of 'Wild Flowers,' which your senior master, Mr. Briggs, very happily selected. Wild flowers are the jewellery of our hedgerows, scattered lavishly by Nature's own generous hand to gladden the dusty wayside--to bring a smile to the face of the wanderer in the highway, and brightness to the eyes of the weary traveller by flood and field. None of you can have overlooked them. On your road to your sport--even in the very grass whereon you pursue your pastimes--the wild flowers abound. They deck the level sward; they smile at us from the cricket-field; they help to gladden the hour of mimic victory, or soften the bitter moment of failure, as we return defeated to the silent throng at the pavilion rails.

"Now, I have before me the thoughts of Nicol Macmullen, Norman Tomkins, Huxley Smythe, and Rupert Walters on this subject; and I very much regret to say that not one of them has produced anything which may be considered worthy of Merivale, worthy of Mr. Bolsover, or worthy of themselves. I do not overlook their tender years; I am not forgetting that to a mind like my own or that of Mr. Briggs--richly stored with all the best and most beautiful utterances on this subject--the crudities of immaturity must come with the profound and pitiful significance of contrast. No, no--I judge these four achievements from no impossible standard of perfection. I know too well how little can be expected from the boy who is but entering upon his teens--I am too familiar with the meagre attainments of the average lad of one decade to ask for impossible accuracy, for poetic thought, or pious sentiments; but certain qualities I have the right to expect--nay, demand----"

Here Steggles whispered to me--

"Blessed if I don't think he's going to cane them!"

"Certain qualities Mr. Harold Bolsover has also the right to expect and demand. Do we find them in these essays before us? Reluctantly I reply, we do not. But in order that you may judge whether your head-master is unreasonable, that you of the upper school may estimate the nature of the efforts upon which I base this adverse criticism, I propose to read brief extracts from each and from all of them.

"The initial error of the boy Nicol Macmullen appears to be a total misconception of the theme he was invited to illuminate. He begins his essay as follows."

The Doctor made a frightful rustling among Mac.'s papers, and everybody looked at Mac. He had not expected this, and his mouth worked very rummily, and his head went down between his shoulders, and he showed his under teeth and stared in a frightfully fixed way at the boot of Smythe, who sat next to him.

Then Dr. Dunstan began--

"'WILD FLOWERS.

"'By Nicol Macmullen.

"'The vegetable kingdom is a very large one. John Ray, a native of Sussex, did much to advance the study of it. He was born in 1628, and died in 1705. There was a history of plants written three hundred years before Christ. Linnaeus was the man who invented the sexual system--a very useful invention. It is a stepping-stone. He first mentioned it in 1736. Seaweeds are also a part of the vegetable kingdom, but they have no flowers, and so may be dismissed without further mention. Also Algae. Of leaves, it may be said that some fall and some do not. At least, speaking strictly, all fall, and this is called a deciduous tree; but not all at once, and this is called an evergreen. Glands occur in the tissue of the leaves, and they also have hairs. Buds also have hairs. The organs of plants is almost the largest subject in the vegetable kingdom, but I have no time to mention more than one or two organs to-day. The root descends into the soil, the stems rise aloft, and the flowers bud out at the ends of them. Mistletoe and broom-rape are called parasites, because they live on other trees, instead of being on their own.

"'Coming now to flowers, we find that they may be divided into two main families: wild and garden. We shall dismiss garden flowers, as they do not belong to our subject, but wild flowers are the most beautiful things in the vegetable kingdom. Especially honeysuckle and blackberries. Many others will occur to the reader also. The flower is the _tout ensemble_ of those organs which are concerned in reproduction.'"

The Doctor stopped and put down Macmullen's essay. For my part, I was simply amazed at the amount Mac. knew, and I think everybody else was; but, strangely enough, the Doctor didn't like it.

"From this point our author quotes verbatim out of the pages of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_," continued Dr. Dunstan. "As an effort of memory the result is highly creditable, and Macmullen will have acquired a great deal of botanical knowledge which may possibly be of service to him in his future career; but as an essayist on wild flowers he is exceedingly evasive, and his effort fails radically and fundamentally. The subject is obviously not one that appeals to him. There is no sympathy, no love of his theme; above all, no moral deductions. Macmullen's mind has not been uplifted. He has, in fact, failed."

Mac. didn't seem to care as much as you would have thought. He told me afterwards he felt so thankful when the Doctor shut up about him and turned to Tomkins, that he forgot everything else but relief.

Tomkins became red when the Doctor picked up his essay; but it soon faded away--I mean the redness.

"Now here," said Dr. Dunstan, "we are met by an attempt of a very different character. The boy Tomkins appears to think that there is nothing more to be said about the flowers of the field than to utter their names. His prose lacks dignity; there is a feverish desire to tell us what everything is called. There is no poetry, no feeling. Vagueness, indeed, we have, but vagueness is not poetry, though to uncritical minds it may sometimes pass for such. This is how Tomkins approaches his subject. There is a breathlessness, a feeling of haste, as if somebody was chasing Tomkins along the road while he was making his researches. This, unless Tomkins has been guilty of trespass--an alternative I refuse to consider--is difficult to explain."

The Doctor then gave us a bit out of Tomkins--

"'As one walks down a country lane, one can often hardly see the leaves for the flowers. They burst upon the view in millions. The hedges are thronged with them; the scent is overpowering. Turn where you will, they greet the bewildered eye. They hang from the trees and spring from the earth; they twine also--as, for instance, briony and convolvuluses. At a single glance I take in dog-roses; campions of several sorts, including white; shepherd's purse--a weed; strawberry, primroses, cuckoo-flower, violet, bugle, herb robert, and also other wild geraniums of various kinds. They are in a crowded mass, all struggling for life. Stitchwort, nettle, archangel, cock's-foot grass, clematis, dock, heath, furze, bog-moss, darnel, dandelions, daisies, buttercups of sorts, marshmallow, water-lilies, rushes and reeds, poppies and peppermint, also ferns--one sees them all at a glance. Then, as one hastens swiftly onwards----'

"I gasp for breath," said the Doctor; "I absolutely refuse to hasten swiftly onwards with Tomkins. At this breakneck pace he drags us through that portion of the British flora at his command. There is doubtless knowledge here; there is even reflection, as when he says, at the end of his paper, that wild flowers ought to make us thankful for our eyesight and for the lesser gift of smell. But, taken as a whole, we have no balance, absolutely no repose, no light, and no shade. There is too much hurry and bustle, too little feeling for the beauty attaching to English scenery or English prose; too eager a desire to display erudition in the empty matter of floral nomenclature."

So that was the end of Tomkins. He was frightfully disappointed; but he felt so interested to know what wretched chaps like Smythe and Walters had done that was better, that he forgot even to be miserable about losing until afterwards.

Then the Doctor went for Smythe.

"Huxley Smythe next challenges our attention," he said. "Now, here we are confronted with a still more amazing misunderstanding. Smythe appears to know absolutely nothing whatever concerning wild flowers; but he has seized this occasion to display an extraordinary amount of peculiar information concerning other matters. He evidently imagines that this will answer his purpose equally well. Moreover, he endeavours to cast his work in a poetic form--with results that have bewildered even me, despite my half-century of knowledge of the _genus puer_. I do not say that rhyme is inadmissible. You shall not find me slow to encourage originality of thought even among the least of you; but Smythe trusts too little to himself and too much to other rhymsters--I will not call them poets. He has committed to memory many verses of a trivial and even offensive character. He has furnished me with a charm or incantation to remove warts. Elsewhere he commits himself to sentiments that may be described as flagrantly irreligious. It is true he glances obliquely at his subject from time to time; but not in a spirit which can admire or commend. We have, for instance, these lines--

"'Put yarrow under your pillow, they say, You will see your true love the very next day.' "'For pain in the stomach an excellent thing Is tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.'

"'If you wash your clothes on Good Friday, someone Will be certain to die ere the year is done.'

"Whence Huxley Smythe has culled these pitiful superstitions I know not," continued the Doctor; "but he appears to be a veritable storehouse and compendium of them. They remind me only too painfully of a certain tiger's tail, though that incident is closed, and I desire to make no further mention of it. Had our theme been folklore, or those crude, benighted and indelicate fancies still prevailing among the bucolic population, Smythe must have conquered, and easily conquered. It is not so, however. He has chosen the occasion of the 'Bolsover' competition to reveal no little fantastic knowledge; but its lack of appropriate and apposite qualities effectually disposes of his claim. I will give you a last sample of his methods. _A propos_ of absolutely nothing, on page four of his dissertation, Smythe submits this impertinence. He appears suddenly to have recollected it and inserted it in the body of his work, without the least consideration for its significance or my feelings.

"'There was an old man who lived in a wood As you may plainly see, And said he could do more work in a day Than his wife could do in three.'"

The Doctor looked awful sternly at Smythe.

"This fragment--from some coarse old ballad, I suspect--is thrust upon me, as one might brandish a club in the face of an unoffending citizen. Smythe must chasten his taste and study the rudiments of logic and propriety before again he ventures to challenge our attention with original thoughts. Silence! Silence!" thundered the Doctor in conclusion; because Smythe's stuff made Steggles laugh out loud. Then several other chaps laughed, and in trying not to laugh, Wolf minor choked and made a noise, like a football exploding, that was far worse than laughter.

"There remains the effort of Rupert Walters," went on Dr. Dunstan. "He is the youngest of the competitors, and I find but little to praise in his achievement; yet it indicates a shadow of promise and a shade of imagination. Indeed, Mr. Briggs at first suspected that Walters had availed himself of secret and dishonest assistance; but this, I rejoice to know, is not the case. Walters has yet to learn to control the discharge of ink from his pen, and in matters of orthography also there is much to be desired for him--a remark which applies to all the competitors save Macmullen--but he possesses a dim and misty nucleus of feeling for the dignity of his native tongue. There is in his attempt a suggestion that at some distant date, if he is spared, and if he labours assiduously in the dead languages, Rupert Walters may control his living speech with some approach to distinction. I select his most pleasing passage."

The Doctor regarded young Walters over his spectacles for a moment with a frightfully encouraging expression that he sometimes puts on when things are going extra well. Then he read the pleasing passage, as he called it.

"'Often, walking in the country far from home, you may see the briars falling over the sides of the lanes, and the may trees white with bloom. They look lovely against the blue sky; and a curious thing is that the distant trees also look blue, and not green, by reason of distance. Near at hand, yellow and red flowers may be dotted about; but when you look along the lane, you only see haze, which is beautiful. If there is a river flowing near by, it is also very beautiful indeed, especially with water-lilies on it. And clouds are lovely too, if reflected in a sheet of water beside which yellow irises spring up, and their foliage looks rather bluish. If a trout rises, it makes white rings on the water.'

"Now, here," said the Doctor, "is a humble effort to set down what the eye of this tender boy has mirrored in the past. I need not tell you how he spells 'irises,' or 'curious,' or 'beautiful.' The fact remains that he has distanced his competitors and achieved the 'Bolsover' prize. Come hither, Rupert Walters. Let me shake your hand, my lad!"

So that was the end of it, and Walters seemed more frightened than anything. But he took his book, and the matter ended, and the four chaps had their essays back, with Briggs's red pencil remarks on them, to send home to their people.

The extraordinary truth only came to me three days later, when I happened to be having a talk with Walters and looking at his prize, which was duller even than most prizes. I said--

"How the dickens did you remember that trees look blue seen a mile off?"

And he said--

"I didn't remember it. If you'll swear not to tell, I'll explain. I shall be rather glad to tell somebody."

So I swore. Then Walters said--

"I was just sitting biting my pen and drawing on the blotting-paper and casting my eyes about and wondering what on earth to say, when I saw right bang in front of me a great picture--a whacker--full of trees and a lane, and water and hills, and every mortal thing, even to the flowers dabbed about in front. Well--there you are! I just tried to put down what I saw. And I did it only too well, if anything. Of course, in a sort of way, it was cribbing; but then, of course, in another sort of way, it wasn't. Anyway, you've sworn not to tell--not even Tomkins; so of course you won't tell."

And of course I didn't.

*THE CASE FOR FOWLE*

*No. VII*

*THE CASE FOR FOWLE*

*I*

It's awful difficult to understand why some boys are liked and some utterly barred. I'm nearly sixteen now, and I've been at Merivale for years, but still I can't see it. All I know is that the chaps most boys like, I don't, and the very few chaps I like, nobody else does. At first I thought it was hampers and asked my mother to send me extra large ones, which she did; and such hampers as mine were never seen before in any school, I should think. But the boys ate my water-melons and peaches and many such unusual things, just as if they were the wretched windfalls that Masters gets from his father's orchards, or the feeble home-made jam and common or garden cakes that come to other fellows on their birthdays. Then the very chaps that guzzle my rare things pretend afterwards I've tried to poison them, and so on; and young Gregson, who once ate half a bruised pineapple of mine that was a bit off, got ill; and after that only certain chaps would take the things I offered. And nobody once, all the time I've been here, has ever offered me as much as a dry biscuit out of their beastly hampers.

I pointed this out to Travers, who, though no friend of mine, always appeared to have more sense in a general way than most fellows; and he said--

"You sneer so at chaps. You always make it so jolly clear your hampers are the best in the world, that naturally they think you wouldn't care about their things. Besides, Steggles did offer you three ripe pears, for I saw him do it."

"Yes," I said, "he did--just because he knew they were over-ripe and thought to score off me. I knew why he had done it, and told him so."

"Then he offered them to me," said Travers, "so I can tell you that you are quite wrong. I took them and ate them on the spot, and they were perfectly good, decent pears. For once in a way Steggles was quite straight and meant no harm at all."

Well, I saw after a bit that it wasn't hampers, or anything of that sort; and then I thought it was games. But I wasn't going to make a fool of myself at footling games for anybody, and I always did get out of them when I could. However, it wasn't altogether games either, though certainly more games than hampers. Still, there were chaps who didn't play games any better than me--such as Richards, who always went to matches and was keen about games, though useless himself, and Ford, who made peculiar knots in rope, and Jameson, who drew pictures in the chaps' Latin grammars of the remarkable things mentioned in syntax. Then another great thing, showing what mean beasts most boys are, is the fact that if certain masters like certain boys, then other boys also like them.

Once, and only once, I got jolly friendly with a master who was very much disliked indeed by everybody else. I mean Browne. I never found him bad at first, and he used me a good bit in many ways and nearly always gave me full marks. But he changed frightfully over the business of the blackboard, and it happened like this. You see, as Browne thought well of me, he confided in me a bit out for walks; and I confided in him; and he asked me a lot of questions concerning a lot of boys; and, as I hated them all, I told him what he wanted to know. He was frightfully obliged and said I was a power for good in the school; and also said that such a boy as I am, without silly ideas about sneaking, may be of the greatest use to masters if he really has the welfare and interest of the school at heart. He also gave me a knife and seemed pretty sure I should win several prizes at the end of the term. In fact, we got very friendly and I certainly did him a very good turn by helping him to understand why some boys didn't like him, and telling him what they said about him behind his back. He was greatly obliged to me, and used the things I told him, and scored pretty badly off some chaps as a result. It rather surprised them to find how much he knew; but it didn't make them like him any better. Then they began to try and score off him, and finally, owing to an unfortunate accident, I got mixed up in it.

Steggles did an unusual thing to young Frost. Steggles had borrowed the matron's scissors to cut his toe-nails, which were turning in and tearing his toes and making them pour with blood. And after he had used them and shortened his toe-nails by about half-an-inch or so, he kept them and told the matron that he had lost them. Then came young Frost, who was a sort of relation of Trelawny, who was at that time easily the best-liked chap at Merivale.

Well, Steggles got young Frost up into the gym. alone, as he thought, and told him it was the rule for new boys to have their hair cut close to their heads, because they often brought infection to Merivale in that way. So he cut all young Frost's hair off; and I was there, hidden in a corner reading a grown-up novel that I had found in Browne's room. Because Browne, as a great favour, used to allow me in his study to see the remarkable things he has there--chiefly on the mantelpiece, including photographs of well-known actresses, said to be signed by themselves. So I saw Steggles cut off Frost's hair, and I did not know Steggles had seen me, but he had. And he made me swear not to tell, which I did; but knowing that an oath is not binding when the good of the school is involved, I told Browne about it, and he took the credit to himself over it and taxed Steggles with it. Of course Steggles denied it, and it couldn't be proved, because young Frost had a rotten idea it would be unsportsmanlike to sneak. So it came about that Browne couldn't do anything without getting me into a row, and accordingly nothing was done to Steggles. But Steggles did a lot to me, because of course he knew I was the only person who could have told Browne the truth, as young Frost hadn't.

Then a rather clever beast called Macmullen wrote a piece of poetry with rhymes, and after about twenty copies of this poetry had been sent to me anonymously written round picture-postcards, Macmullen got Travers to print it up on the blackboard just before Browne's mathematical lesson came on.

So when he arrived, there it was staring at him; and it was so exceedingly well printed that he could not possibly tell who had done it.

_There is a young sneaker called Fowle_ _Who ought to be made to howl,_ _For the things that Browne knows,_ _Which you would not suppose,_ _All come from that blighter called Fowle._

I wanted to rub it out before Browne came, but of course the chaps wouldn't let me.

Browne read this carefully and took such a long time looking at it, that Steggles said he was learning it by heart. Then he picked up the duster and slowly rubbed it out. He made no remark whatever, and for the time being the score rather missed fire on Browne. But it didn't miss fire on me, because the next day, when I was passing his study, Browne called me in and asked me about it. He said--

"Who wrote that piece of impertinence on the blackboard yesterday?"

And I said--

"Macmullen invented it, sir, and Travers printed it up; but I don't know who told them there was a sort of understanding between us."

Then Browne was greatly enraged and said--

"How dare you say there is any understanding between us, Fowle? Such impertinence I never heard! What do I know about you and your affairs, excepting that you are deservedly a very unpopular boy! And I'll thank you not to bring any more of your mean tales to me. A tale-bearer is an odious thing; so remember; no more sneaking, or it will be very much the worse for you!"

I was so astonished that I couldn't do anything but stare.

"Now be off about your business," said Browne, and I went.

That shows pretty well what Mr. Browne was, I should think. The beastly ingratitude of the man seemed to me the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened; and after that I never could do right with Browne, and he sided against me and never would listen to me, even when I had to tell him things in self-defence.

I could easily show again and again that I was in the right and other chaps were in the wrong, or masters too, for that matter; but it was not much good trying to convince people with the whole of them against me. There was always a proper religious reason for the things I did, and though sometimes they looked queer until explained, I always could explain them. But after I got to be hated, nobody would so much as stop to listen to the explanations--not even the Doctor.

Everybody said he was just and fair, though an old footler; but I know very well he wasn't, owing to the time when Corkey minimus dropped a shilling in the playground and I found one there. Well, how could I know that because Corkey mins. had lost a shilling and I had found one, the one I had found was bound to be the identical same shilling that Corkey had lost? I shall always say it was frightfully unfair to me to order me to give up the shilling as the Doctor did, and then jaw me before the whole school.

Once my father said to me, "Always act from high motives, Roger," and I always did; but nobody ever gave me any credit for doing so; and when I told the Doctor over the affair of Gurney's tame white rabbit, which I found wandering alone in the playground after dark and killed with a cricket stump, for fear that it should starve to death, and was seen doing it by Gurney, who came to look for it--when I told the Doctor I had done this from the best motives and not because Gurney had taken me down in class the day before--he said that I was deceiving myself and told me that Satan had put it into my heart to kill Gurney's rabbit. Really I had only done it out of fear that a poor dumb creature would suffer; and yet the Doctor misunderstood me in such a wicked and spiteful way, that he caned me and made me dig a grave and bury the brute in front of the whole school as a punishment.

As to my feelings, which are frightfully keen, nobody cares a button about them and I have to do things, simply in self-defence, that I should never do if I was treated fairly. Even Tin Lin Chow when he was here had a better time than me, and I could tell you a lot of things you wouldn't believe in the matter of tortures, simply invented by Steggles and others in order to be applied to me. Steggles has invented two sets of tortures called 'mind tortures' and 'body tortures'; and the mind tortures are babyish, but the body tortures are well worth avoiding. So I always pretend the mind tortures are the worst, whereas really only a fool would care for them, as they mean nothing to anybody who is religious.

But what I meant to tell you was a fair case of the sort of things that happen to me and I have to endure. I was told that I was to be tried by court-martial, and I said "Why?" and Trelawny, the champion fighter of the school, put the case before me.

He said--

"It is well known in the lower school that you have got up more fights between kids than any other chap."

He then mentioned seven fights which he had written down.

"Now," he said, "did you or did you not arrange those seven fights?"

He had a lot of witnesses present and so I said--

"Five of them I arranged, because I wanted to see if----"

He interrupted me.

"You go about asking chaps if they give one another 'best,' and when they say 'no,' though they may be perfectly friendly, you go on at them till you work up a fight."

I denied it, and he said, "You can reserve your beastly defence for the court-martial. I've only got one more question to ask you at present, namely, Have you ever fought anybody yourself?"

And I said--

"No, Trelawny, I never have, because it would be contrary to my opinions."

Then he merely said I was a sticky and noxious worm that wanted poisoning with rat poison, and that nothing more need be said before the court-martial.

*II*

Well, the court-martial, though held by the sixth, was grossly unfair, and the thing they decided to do was simply cruel bullying in a superior form. To begin with, Macmullen, who is the champion speaker at our debates, was the leading witness against me; whereas I had nobody to speak for me, because though I was told three days before the trial to get somebody to speak for me, of course nobody would; and I had to stick up for myself, which was a thing I never could do. So I went down, and the fools pretended to prove that I had arranged hundreds of fights and been second at scores. And yet, somehow, I had never fought a single fight myself from the time I came there. Dozens of kids were called to witness at the court-martial that I had given them 'best' rather than fight them; and many were much younger than me, and one, called Foster, was only eleven, though certainly he was a great fighter, and many boys of fourteen had to give him best in the long run, though not till after they had fought him and been licked. Well, just because my religious opinions kept me from fighting anybody, and especially Foster, they called me an insect and a coward and a disgrace to the school and so on. Then Trelawny, as the head of the court-martial, gave a verdict and I was sentenced to have a fight, whether I liked it or not. Inquiries were made and finally the court-martial found a chap called Andrews, who was in my class and whose age was just one week less than mine. This Andrews and me they decided must fight; and when it was known, everybody wanted to be second for Andrews and nobody wanted to be second for me. Trelawny said we might have a week to train, and then the court-martial broke up. It was a brutal bit of work altogether, and I found rather an interesting thing, which was that Andrews felt quite differently to the affair to me. I talked to him privately as soon as I could, and pretended it was all rot and laughed at the whole thing. But he said it wasn't rot at all as far as he was concerned. He was a new boy and rather keen to make friends and be well thought of; so he considered this a jolly good opportunity and began to train as well as he knew how. I saw at a glance that he could lick me, for I'd never learned fighting and hated hurting anything, I'm sure, always; and I argued a good deal with Andrews about it. He said that his father had told him that a chance to make friends and distinguish himself would be sure to come. And Andrews said no doubt his father was right, and that the chance had come and that he was going to distinguish himself as much as he could on me.

Well, of course I saw what had to be done. Just at that time I was rather unfairly hated by Dr. Dunstan, because of an affair in the playground. There was a fir-tree in it at one corner, and I had found that turpentine came out if you cut notches in it. Well, into this turpentine I stuck live ants and then burnt them up with a burning-glass. It was nothing; but old Briggs, the writing master and natural history master, discovered me doing it and must needs make a ridiculous fuss. He told the Doctor and the Doctor made a ridiculous fuss too and turned against me and hated me. So Dunstan was out of the question, and there was only one other master I could tell, and that was Monsieur Michel, the French master. But he was weak and useless in an emergency like this; so finally I decided that the proper person to approach would be Andrews himself.

That much was pretty easy to decide, but then came the question what to say to him, and I was helped in this matter by a very lucky thing. It came out in class that Andrews was an absolute flyer at geography, and though not as good as me--me being head of the class in that subject--still he jolly soon got second to me and stopped there. I am a tremendous dab at geography myself; and if I knew as much about other things I should be in the sixth; and if a good many things I know--especially about religious saints--were regular subjects in school, instead of being barred altogether, I should also be in the sixth.

And finding out the greatness of Andrews at geography gave me the idea I wanted, which happened only just in time; because the day I spoke to him was a Wednesday and the next Saturday was the day we had to fight.

I said--

"Aren't you looking forward to Saturday?"

And he said--

"Yes, I am."

And I said--

"So am I, because I'm in training too; and I find that I fight tremendously well, and I'm only sorry I hadn't to fight a lot sooner."

But I couldn't deceive him with this, for a moment; so I soon changed the subject.

I introduced prizes and said that the Doctor was particularly keen about the subject of geography and always gave the best prizes for that.

"I know," he said, "and I should have had a jolly good chance if it hadn't been for you."

"You would," I said. "In fact, but for me you would be a snip for it."

We talked a bit and then I said--

"I wonder if your father would rather you made your mark by fighting me, or by winning the geography prize in your first term? Of course, to win any prize in your first term is a great score for a chap."

He said that he hadn't thought of it, and after I pressed him a lot, he admitted that there was no doubt the prize would suit his mother best, but he thought very likely if he won a fight it would suit his father best.

He said--

"My father's a soldier, and I'm going to be one; and so, naturally, fighting is more in my line than geography."

But I doubted this, and, in fact, I proved that a mere fight was nothing, whereas geography was a great deal and at least as much use to a soldier as fighting--especially after he had lost a battle.

Finally he said that I might be right, but that it didn't much matter as I was bound to win the geography prize, and he was equally bound to lick me next Saturday.

Then I made my great offer.

I said--

"Look here; I'm not afraid of fighting, or anything like that; but I've got religious objections to it and, in fact, though your father might like you to fight, my father would get into a frightful bate if I did. Really it might be jolly serious for me, and it would not matter to my father in the least whether I won the fight or lost it."

Andrews said that had nothing to do with him; so I went on and explained how it might have a great deal to do with him.

I said--

"You see, if you lost the fight, your father would very likely be very sick about it, and instead of getting rewarded, you might get nothing; whereas, if the fight fell through and you merely said firmly you had no reason for fighting me, and were not going to do it just because you were ordered to, and then went and won the geography prize, that would be a much greater score for you."

He admitted it might be, but didn't see how he could beat me at geography.

Then I said--

"If you refuse to fight me, you shall get the geography prize, because I need not put down anything like all I know and can boss a lot of questions purposely."

He said--

"It would please my mother and might do me a lot of good with my grandmother."

And I said--

"It certainly would; and next term, if you still want a fight, I'll easily arrange one for you with somebody else, and then you can make it all right with your father."

He said--

"Will you solemnly swear on human blood that you will boss the geography paper and let me get the prize?"

And to show him how much in earnest I was, I took out my knife there and then, and he pricked his finger and I pricked mine, and then I swore that I would let him have the geography prize, and he swore that he would refuse to fight me.

I felt that was a pretty good day's work, and so did he; but I felt it all the time, whereas Andrews only felt it in stray moments and, between whiles, was jolly savage with himself for swearing the blood oath. He was frightfully scorned for not fighting me, and the only thing that comforted him, and that only in secret, was that his mother and grandmother would be full of rejoicing in the holidays and richly reward him for winning the geography prize.

In fact, he kept on so obstinately about his mother, that I began to think about mine, and the sad grief it would be to her if I did not win this prize as usual. After a time I realized that I had actually put Andrews before my own dear mother, and I felt very shocked to think of what I had done.

The end of the term began to get nearer and nearer, and the exams. were going to begin soon. I tried hard not to think about geography and not to think about my mother, but Andrews found the only subjects that interested him were these subjects; and at last I simply had to avoid Andrews, because he kept on to such a sickening extent about what a score it would be to win it.

Very strange thoughts came over me during those days and I got more and more undecided as to what was right to do. There was my duty to Andrews, who, in a vague sort of way, had got the right to win the geography prize, and there was my duty to my father, who paid Dr. Dunstan a lot of money for letting me come to Merivale and naturally expected me to do my best; which I always did do, I'm sure. Then there was my duty to Dr. Dunstan; and to deceive him deliberately about my knowledge of geography was, of course, a very wrong thing to do. And, greatest of all, there was my own conscience, which is the 'still small voice' of the Bible. Besides, I'd been very careful to say that Andrews should have the geography prize, not that he should win it. No chap ever tried harder than me to do the right thing, and what made it so difficult was that my conscience and my duty to everybody but Andrews was on one side, while the stupid affair with Andrews was on the other side. Of course a blood oath is all nonsense if you are a Christian, and not in the least binding to a religious person. In fact, only savages believe in it at all. Therefore, as far as that went, I did not feel in the least bound to Andrews. If I had not been coming back the next term, I should have seen my way clearer very likely; but I was; and so was Andrews.

Somehow I couldn't decide till the actual day of the geography exam., and then, strangely enough, the paper seemed simply to have been made for me. I knew the answer to everything, and question No. 6 gave me a chance of saying some jolly good and peculiar things about Spain and the Holy Inquisition not generally known at all. Probably not a soul at Merivale but the Doctor and me knew them.

Somehow I felt it would be mean and wicked to pretend not to know all these things. My conscience simply cried out to me to do the paper as well as possible and leave the result in Higher Hands, because if Providence meant Andrews to win, he would win. So I did my best, as I usually do; and when the result was put up it was found that I had beaten Andrews by one hundred and ten marks, and Andrews was a long way ahead of everybody else.

Naturally Andrews, not understanding what it is to have such delicate feelings as me, was a good bit annoyed; but I was ready for him, and though I did not tell of my secret struggles to do right, which he would not have understood, I did explain that I had acted from proper motives.

I said--

"I promised that you should have the geography prize, not that you should win it. You shall have it, and the minute I get it on prize day, I shall hand it over to you."

But Andrews did not fall in with this, and I felt, somehow, that he wouldn't. He said several revengeful things about next term; but he may be dead before then, and anyway, much will happen in the holidays to make him forget this affair, or take a better view of it.

I only mention the thing, in fact, to show how hard it is to make chaps understand you if you always try to do right as much as you can. I should clearly like to leave Merivale, but there seems to be no chance of it at present.

My father often says, rather unkindly, that nobody ever wanted honour and truth and decency and manliness licked into them worse than I do; but my mother, who always understands me much better than him, says that many of the best and most famous men in the world have looked back to their school-days with hatred and loathing; and so I must no doubt be one of them; because nobody ever hated boys and masters and school in general worse than me. It will be very different when I get away from them all and go into the world; because there I shall meet plenty of nice people who think the same as I do.

*'CHERRY RIPE'*

*No. VIII*

*'CHERRY RIPE'*

*I*

This is an awful rum story about the extraordinary cunning of a man generally known as 'Cherry Ripe,' from selling cherries; and to tell it right I must first explain about our cricket ground and a wood and a field. After the cricket ground comes a narrow wood, well known as the place for fights, and also wood-pigeons' nests, which breed there in great quantities. It is a long and narrow wood, and then comes a field, also long but not so narrow. This field is a very up-and-down field, with hollows in it, and at the bottom, in one corner, a drinking-place for cows has been arranged, where yellow irises grow in summer, and where most of our tame frogs come from. There is a clump of trees in this field, and a hawk once built in them; but Freckles found the nest and took the eggs, so the hawk did not build there again. After the up-and-down field there comes an old, rather broken wall, and inside the wall is the orchard and nursery garden of Cherry Ripe.

Needless to say his real name was not 'Cherry Ripe' but Jenkins--not any relation to the Jenkins at Merivale, though chaps who wanted to rot Jenkins always pretended that Cherry Ripe was his father, which much annoyed Jenkins. Because this Cherry Ripe was a fierce and a common man, and had been known to be dismissed with a caution for ill-treating a horse, and was no friend to us either.

He made his living by fruit and vegetables; and at the right season of the year sold cherries, of which he had many fine trees in his nursery garden. He also had apples and pears and gooseberries in great abundance. He also laid out large pieces of his nursery garden in spring flowers for market, and he grew onions and turnips and rhubarb, and many other uninteresting things.

We naturally went there to see how it looked from time to time, and he chased us a good deal over the field; but, when we were once in the wood, he was of course powerless. In fact, he never caught anybody in fair hunting except Chilvers, who was once down by the pond collecting waterman beetles in his shoe, having nothing else to do it with. But Chilvers had never been in the nursery garden in his life, and told Cherry Ripe so. Only he refused to believe Chilvers, and said that he was trespassing just as much in the field as he would have been in the orchard. Which, in its paltry way, was true. Chilvers then offered him a penny and an Indian coin for twelve waterman beetles; and all he did was to say "No cheek!" and box Chilvers on the ear and tell him to be off. So he made a bitter enemy of Chilvers.

This Cherry Ripe was old and ugly. He never seemed to shave, and yet his beard never seemed to grow. What there was looked a mangy grey streaked with brown. He wore an old hat that had once been black, but was now rather inclined to turn green, and he had glittering eyes, one of which watered. He had also a curious way of lifting up and down his eyebrows, which young Smythe said showed a bad disposition, and was common to gorillas. He had been heard to laugh when picking apples with his daughters. But he never laughed at us, and when we took to calling him 'Cherry Ripe,' he hated us, and often shook his fist at us from a distance.

So we then felt something had to be done against him to score off him.

When this was decided upon, Steggles and Methuen and Pedlar and myself--me being Weston minor--and Chilvers went into committee, as it is called, and in fact we had a regular meeting. Many others wanted to join, but we felt five was enough, and we all had a jolly special private good reason for going into committee against Cherry Ripe.

Chilvers of course had been licked by Cherry Ripe, because to box one's ears is the same as licking one in a very insulting manner. Pedlar also had been insulted, and a good deal hurried twice by Cherry Ripe, when he found him catapulting quite harmlessly in his orchard in December, when of course there was nothing to take but vegetables; and Methuen and Steggles once meeting Cherry Ripe going the rounds with his cart and fruit and scales for weighing things, had politely stopped him and asked to buy two pennyworth of pears. And Cherry Ripe had the frightful impertinence to say that "No chap wearing them hats" should have so much as a spring onion of his growing, which was not only turning away business, but cheeking the school colours openly. So it seemed about time to do something, and we accordingly did. I may say that I had no particular grudge against Cherry Ripe, but I was well known at being better at wall-climbing than any chap who ever came to Merivale. Climbing had always been my strong point, and, as I was also going to be a missionary later in life, I kept it up, because you never know--not if you are a missionary.

The committee merely decided that as the cherry season was now near, we had better wait for it, and then, at the first opportunity, make a 'Jameson raid.' This is a particular sort of raid invented by the great Dr. Jameson of South Africa, and it consists of doing something so suddenly that nobody is ready. A Jameson raid is useless if the other side is prepared; it is also useless if you are not prepared yourself. The great thing is to be first, and also an important point is to commit the raid where and when it will be least expected. Therefore we gave it out, hoping that it would somehow get to Cherry Ripe, that we meant to make a raid on his young apples on Wednesday, being a half-holiday; whereas the truth was we were going to have a dash at his cherries on the Saturday. There was a cricket match on that day, and Steggles arranged details.

I won't say much about what happened, because the thing failed even more fearfully than Dr. Jameson's affair long ago. We were deceived in a most peculiar manner, owing to the deliberate cunning of Cherry Ripe; and afterwards, talking it over while we wrote two thousand Latin lines each, we came to the conclusion that there was a traitor at work. Naturally we thought of Fowle, but Fowle knew nothing; besides, he was in the hospital at the time with something the matter with his knee.

To go back, I must explain that all went well until we got on the top of Cherry Ripe's wall. Then what should we see but Cherry Ripe up a cherry tree and his daughters down below! They were a long way off, and we saw at a glance that it would take Cherry Ripe about a year to climb down from his tree, even if he saw us. As for his daughters, seeing our ages were fifteen and upwards, except Chilvers, who was certainly only thirteen, but could run faster than his sister, who was seventeen, we did not fear them.

As Cherry Ripe was picking cherries, we went for the green gooseberries. I dropped down first in a very stealthy manner, that Freckles had taught me before he went home to Australia; then Pedlar and Methuen dropped, and then Chilvers. He fell rather awkwardly and smashed off a large purple cabbage, and was glad of it.

But Steggles stopped on the wall, for some private reason. He said afterwards, when taxed with treachery, that it wasn't so in the least; but that from the very beginning he had had a curious feeling when he woke up that day. It is the feeling you get when you wake up on a day that you are going to be flogged; and you have the same feeling, only far, far worse, on the day when you are going to be hung. All criminals know this. Steggles certainly shouted "Cave!" as soon as the horrible moment came; but when he did finally drop off the wall, it was on the other side. In fact, he escaped and left us to our fate. Nothing could be done to Steggles, but we never felt the same to him again.

What happened was this. We were just eating a few gooseberries rather fast, before settling down steadily to fill our pockets, when Steggles gave the alarm. But it was too late. Suddenly there sprang up from their hiding-places no less than three men--the youngest not less than twenty years old; and the eldest was Cherry Ripe himself. This so much horrified us, as we had seen him at the top of a high cherry tree two hundred yards away only a second before, that we lost our instinct of self-preservation and fell a prey to the enemy. We were all caught, in fact, except Steggles, and we were then marched down to Cherry Ripe's house, and then along the road, and so back to Merivale. His hateful daughters stood and sniggered at us as we were taken past them; and then we saw that the whole thing was a mean plot, and, in fact, a swizz. A swizz is a chouse, and a chouse is the same as a sell. It was a scarecrow in the tree and not Cherry Ripe at all! The scarecrow wore his green hat, and his daughters pretended to be talking to him. As Peters said afterwards, Sherlock Holmes himself would have been almost deceived by such a deadly plot. Afterwards we found, curiously enough, that we had collected exactly thirteen gooseberries before the crash came, which shows that thirteen is an unlucky number, whatever scientific people may say against it.

Cherry Ripe brought us back to Merivale, and came to the front door and asked to see the Doctor. He gave his name as 'Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm,' and said it in a very grand tone of voice, as if he was somebody. But the Doctor, little knowing what was going to happen, sent out to tell Mr. Jenkins to walk in. Pedlar said he thought that the Doctor probably hoped Cherry Ripe had come with an advantageous offer to supply Merivale with green stuff at low prices; but of course this was not so.

Dr. Dunstan received us in his study, and he was much surprised to see Chilvers appear after Cherry Ripe, and still more surprised to see the rest of us come behind.

"And what may be the meaning of this deputation?" said the Doctor. "Perhaps you, Methuen, will explain."

But Cherry Ripe said that he had come to do the explaining. Certainly he told the truth, but he told it in a beastly mean way.

He said--

"There's times when a man has got to stand up for his rights, mister"--meaning the Doctor--"and this is one of 'em. These here young rips be always driving my life out of me, and an example must be made. I was half in a mind to send for a policeman; but I thought as I'd give 'em one more chance for their parents' sakes, so brought 'em to you, because no doubt you be paid very well for larning 'em their lessons and keeping 'em out of mischief. I've two things against 'em, and one is that they bawl 'Cherry Ripe' after me morning, noon, and night, and take sights at me, and do many other rude things; and the other is that now, this minute, I've catched 'em red-handed in my gooseberry-bed, tucking down my fruit for all they were worth. That's trespass and it's also theft, and I don't want no more of it."

"Thank you," said the Doctor. "You have stated your case with a lucidity and force that does you no little credit, Mr. Jenkins. Now the accused and the accuser may freely speak, whilst I, as arbiter between them, reserve the last word, and I fear the last action also." His eyes roamed over to the corner where the canes were kept. Then he went on--

"Your indictment consists of three articles, and we will take them in your own order. You submit that these youths have insulted you, have trespassed on your private property, and have stolen your goods. Now, boy Pedlar, have you or have you not, at any time and in any public place, addressed Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm, as 'Cherry Ripe'?"

"Yes, sir," said Pedlar.

"Methuen?"

"Yes, sir."

"Weston?"

"Yes, sir."

"Chilvers?"

"Yes, sir."

The Doctor seemed disappointed, and Cherry Ripe smiled with a grim and scornful smile.

"To accost an honest purveyor of the fruits of the earth with words which, in the nature of his calling, it is necessary that he should himself loudly repeat at intervals--to do this is a senseless and offensive act," said the Doctor. "Nothing can be said in favour of it. No earthly benefit--not even the meretricious semblance of benefit--can accrue to the boy who bawls 'Cherry Ripe!' after somebody else. The operation shows a lack of mental balance that may make us fear for the sanity of the performer, and regard the probable course of his future with dismay and the liveliest foreboding. But now we are faced with accusations of a very different character. It is asserted that you four boys have gone out of bounds, and disobeyed me; that you have trespassed on another's private property, and so made of no account the laws of man; and, lastly, that you have taken fruit that did not belong to you--that you have broken the eighth Commandment, and thus shattered the sacred edict of your Maker!"

The Doctor worked this up, as only he can, till we saw what an immense number of laws we had broken all at once--like you do when you begin to play golf--and, of course, it was a very solemn moment for everybody. Even Cherry Ripe looked rather frightened. The Doctor rolled it out, and shook his finger at Cherry Ripe as much as at us. Then came the questions.

"Is this infamous imputation true, Edgar Methuen?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you, Harold Pedlar?"

"Yes, sir."

"Weston?"

"Yes, sir."

"Chilvers?"

Chilvers, like a little fool, tried to hedge against the future.

"Yes, and I'm very sorry, sir," he said.

The Doctor looked at us as if we were some new sort of animals, and he didn't know how we had got in. He gave a tremendous snort, and took off his glasses. Then he turned to Cherry Ripe.

"To attempt any analysis of my personal emotions at this juncture would be vain," he said. "In these cases introspection may well be left for a subsequent occasion. For the moment justice cries with trumpet tongue. And be under no apprehension, Jenkins, that justice will miscarry on this occasion. As an agriculturist----"

Here the Doctor forgot us, and talked like anything to Cherry Ripe about growing vegetables, and Ceres and Pomona and Horace and Virgil, and other well-known people out of school books. He fairly terrified Cherry Ripe, I believe. Anyway, Cherry Ripe kept creeping nearer and nearer to the door. Then, at last, he got in a word.

"Don't be too hard on 'em this time, your honour. Just one, two, and another on the place that's made for it."

"Pardon me," answered the Doctor, raising his hand. "You now trench on my prerogative, Jenkins. The question of what is to follow may very well be left with the preceptor of these fallen boys. Have no fear for that. And to plead for leniency before the breaking of a Commandment is to admit a personal laxity of view that I, for one, am bound to deplore."

Cherry Ripe had now reached the door, and I believe he thought that if he stopped another moment the Doctor would cane him too. So he began to clear out. But first he said--

"Well, good-evening, all!" Then he hooked it--rather thankfully. And we wished we could.

We got four on each hand, and two thousand lines each, and to stop in for two half-holidays. So that, as Methuen very truly remarked, was first blood for Cherry Ripe.

*II*

Of course, this was merely the beginning of the great anti-Cherry Ripe feeling, and next term we were planning a deadly revenge with regard to Cherry Ripe's Kentish cobnuts, which were remarkably fine, when a great assistant came to our aid in the shape of Trelawny. This was that Trelawny who had such a terrible end in the matter of the protest of the wing dormitory. But many things happened first. He was fourteen, and a fighter from the beginning. All his relations were also fighters, and poetry had been made about one, who was condemned to death for magnificent fighting in historic times. This Trelawny, by the most curious accident, proved to know an immense deal about Cherry Ripe. And it came out that Trelawny's father, who was a retired soldier and only a colonel, though Trelawny said that if justice had been done he would be a general at least, actually owned miles of land about Merivale, including Cherry Ripe's nursery garden and the field.

"The beggar merely rents it from my father for so many pounds a year," said Trelawny. "Why, if I said a word to my father, I could have the man turned out altogether, and his daughters and everybody. I'll jolly soon teach him!"

This was a pretty good score for us, and we soon arranged to show Cherry Ripe that things were changed. Trelawny took to strolling about in Cherry Ripe's field as if it belonged to him; and, of course, as I pointed out to Trelawny, when his father died, though I hoped it would not be for ten years at least--still he had to--and when he did, the field and the orchard and everything would actually be Trelawny's own, to do what he liked with. He said it was so; and he said that he should jolly soon clear Cherry Ripe out, and build almshouses for old soldiers broken in the wars, when he came to have the ground. He wouldn't take nuts or anything. He said that was paltry; but he had a fixed idea that he ought to be perfectly free of the place, and he went on strolling about in it till at last Cherry Ripe surprised him down at the pond in the field. I was there, too, but Cherry Ripe didn't recognize me, which, no doubt, was lucky.

He seemed to have something on his mind, for he didn't get into a bate, but merely said--

"Now, you boys, you slope off to your playground--can't have you messing about here."

"Perhaps you don't know who you're talking to, Mr. Jenkins," said Trelawny in a frightfully grand tone of voice.

Then Cherry Ripe jumped.

"Lord, the sauce of your nippers now-a-days! Why can't your old gentleman over there teach you manners as well as figures and all the rest of it?"

Clearly he meant no less a person than Dr. Dunstan.

"My name is Trelawny," began Trelawny.

"A very fine name too," said Cherry Ripe. "Take care you never bring no discredit on it, there's a good boy."

"My father is your landlord," said Trelawny. "And I'll thank you not to call me 'boy'!"

Cherry Ripe was by no means so much struck by this as you might have expected.

"You're the Colonel's young shaver--eh? Well, I hope you'll turn out as sensible a man--though I do wish me and him saw alike on the subject of a new tomato house. However, everybody's a right to his own opinion."

Trelawny was fuming, like a train wanting to start.

"You don't seem to understand," he said, "that this very field we're in at this moment will be mine before long!"

"The Colonel's not ailing, I hope?" said Cherry Ripe very civilly.

I could now see that Mr. Jenkins was laughing at Trelawny, but, luckily, Trelawny did not see this, or he might have taken some very desperate step.

"And I want to say further," went on Trelawny, not answering about his father, "that as this land will be mine sooner or later, I have a perfect right to walk on it when and where I choose."

"Agreed," said Cherry Ripe; "and as I'm renting the land, and don't like rude little boys poking about where they've no business, I've got a perfect right to pull their ears for 'em when I catches 'em. So that's settled. Now we know where we are. Be off with you both, or I'll begin this minute!"

Trelawny was as furious as a grown man. He turned a sort of colour like stewed fruit; but, of course, we had to go. There was nothing else we could do--for the moment.

"I shall write to my father about this, and you'll soon find out you can't insult your own landlord's son with impunity," Trelawny shouted, as we got through the hedge back into our wood.

"Can't do better. And tell him what I said," answered Cherry Ripe.

Then he seemed to forget us, and stood quite still looking into the pond. Evidently he had other things on his mind besides Trelawny; but Trelawny didn't think so, and believed that Jenkins was standing like that in a frightful funk to think of the dangerous thing he'd done.

"However, it's too late now; I shall write to my father next Sunday," said Trelawny; and he did, and he got a letter back.

We were rather keen to hear what his father was going to do about it, and expected he would read it out to us. But he tore the letter up small, and chucked it away, and merely said he was surprised to find his father didn't agree with him.

"But I'll make it clear that the man ought to be sacked when I go home," said Trelawny.

Funnily enough, though he'd torn this letter up so small and flung it scornfully away, we found out afterwards what was in it; because Peters, who hoped to be a detective of crime when he grew up, always collected anything with writing on it to decipher mysteries; and it was him who found out what Johnson's pet name at home was, and how many sisters West had, and other things not generally known. He said if a letter was once torn up and flung away, that it was public property for a detective; and so when Trelawny had gone, Peters collected the bits of his letter, and pieced it together after taking frightful trouble. It was a detective-like thing but not a sportsmanlike thing to do, and Trelawny, when he came to hear of it, challenged Peters. In fact, they fought, and Peters was badly licked. Still, the letter certainly was rather curious, considering it came from Trelawny's own father.

It read like this--

"DEAR TEDDY,

"I've got your letter, and I've dropped a line to Jenkins, directing him to give you and any of your friends a real good hiding every time he catches you on his ground.

"Your affectionate father, "TRELOAR TRELAWNY."

Of course, the thing couldn't be allowed to stop there. We were all on Trelawny's side, though his father wasn't. In fact, Pedlar and Methuen and me were rather vexed with Trelawny's father; and we told Trelawny so; and he said he was too. He said--

"We'll be revenged next term, as it is too late this. We must all think of a heavy score against Jenkins"--he never called Cherry Ripe anything but Jenkins for some reason--"and the best idea is the one we'll carry out."

And everybody interested in the matter quite agreed; but Steggles did not come into it, because Trelawny utterly barred Steggles from the first.

*III*

Next term the great idea of how to crush Cherry Ripe came to me out of the Bible. I let everybody speak first, and then, as nobody had said anything like as good, I said--

"We will do what the enemy did in the New Testament, and sow tares in his ground."

Everybody thought the idea fine but jolly difficult, and Chilvers asked--

"What are tares?"

I said I wasn't exactly sure, and Methuen said it was a sort of grass, and Trelawny said it was a parable. Anyhow, we didn't know where to buy them. Finally we decided not to ask for tares, but some sort of seed that would grow quickly, and get a deep hold of the ground, and ruin anything else for yards round. Unfortunately we didn't know much about wild things in general, and we asked Tomkins, who is our champion botanist, and he said "Willow herb." But there were no seeds about at that time of the year, it being February, and so Trelawny said--

"We will confide in Batson, who is well known to be the son of a greengrocer and seedsman."

But it happened that Batson, who was the gardener's boy at Dunstan's, was leaving to better himself. However, there was just time before he went, and we let him into our secret score against Cherry Ripe, and gave him two shillings with which to buy some seed of some vigorous growing thing to sow in Cherry Ripe's nursery garden and choke his vegetables when they came up. Batson said that he would do his best. He said it might have to be grass seed or clover, but he promised it should be a good choking thing.

Certainly it looked hopeful, because he soon brought a bag of seeds and said they were a kind of clover that, if once sown, could not be got out of the ground again without ploughing. Then came the question of the time, and we decided that next Saturday was the day. There happened to be a big game at football, but not a little one, so we were all free excepting Methuen, who kept goal for the first.

All went well, and when the match began to get exciting owing to hands being given against Bray in our 'twenty-five,' Trelawny and Pedlar and Chilvers and I went into the wood unseen and got to the Cherry Ripe side of it. Chaps had been in his field a good deal lately, hunting for a very beautiful red fungus that was to be found in the hedges, on dead sticks, and Cherry Ripe had been a good deal worried by them.

Then came the first surprise of that day. There was a huge board stuck up in the field facing our wood with these remarkable words on it--

+-----------------------+ | | | DANGER! | | BEWARE OF THE BULL! | | | +-----------------------+

Our first step was to get back into the hedge. The field seemed to be quite empty, but there are many hollows in it, and a bull might easily have been sitting down quite near us. Or it might have been hidden in the cluster of trees in the middle. One thing was clear. It was not at the pond.

Trelawny said--

"This man is worth fighting. I'm glad he's got a bull, because it makes more strategy necessary for us."

And Pedlar said--

"And I'm glad too."

But I was not glad, and so I didn't say so; and as for Chilvers, he went further and openly said that he thought a bull altered everything.

It was about a hundred and fifty yards across the field from the wood to Cherry Ripe's wall, and it is well known that a bull can run three times as fast as a man and five times as fast as a boy.

I reminded Trelawny of this, and he said--

"I know all that; it is a question of strategy."

And I said--

"Yes, but strategy won't alter facts."

He thought a bit and said--

"You chaps stop here and I'll reconnoitre."

But Pedlar, who was nearly six months older than Trelawny, said he ought to reconnoitre too. Finally they both went to reconnoitre in different directions and came back in five minutes. Neither had seen the bull.

"There's no bull!" said Trelawny. "It's a subterfuge. Come on."

"Wait," said Chilvers. "I have a feeling it's not a subterfuge. Something tells me there is a bull."

Trelawny said it was cowardice, and Chilvers said it was a presentiment. Anyway, no time could be lost, and Chilvers was firm, so we left him. He was half inclined to come, but said that an uncle of his had once been gored by a buffalo, or some such thing, in America, and somehow he felt that this particular adventure would not suit him, though he would have feared nothing else. Of course Trelawny explained that this was no excuse, even if true. But though white and very worried, Chilvers was firm. He refused to follow, so we went alone.

We made a detour of the trees in the middle of the field and crept forward in Indian file. Fifty yards from the wall Pedlar whispered that he saw something red in a hollow, which might easily be a bull's back; so Trelawny said "Sprint!" and we threw off caution to the winds and sprinted. So we got to the wall in safety, and, as if to reward us for the effort, what should we see on the other side but a beautiful bit of ground all prepared for seeds! It was smoothed and arranged, and little narrow trenches had been drawn in it about an inch deep--evidently for seeds. It was frightful luck and playing into the hands of the enemy as Trelawny said. He instantly gave the word and we dropped. There was not a soul in sight--only a spade and two rakes, where the man who had been working had left them.

"A commander always seizes any chance the enemy offer," said Trelawny. "Pour the seed pretty thick along the drills and everywhere else, then take the rakes and rake it all over until everything is quite smooth!"

So all Cherry Ripe's arrangements for planting seed were used by us to sow a particularly deadly sort of clover. We worked jolly hard, and in about five minutes the thing was done by me and Pedlar while Trelawny mounted guard.

Then the exciting work began and Trelawny shouted--

"Take cover! They're coming!"

But there was no cover, and so we all got back the way we had come, and just as Cherry Ripe and a man ran up from another part of the garden we reached the top of the wall and prepared to leap down. But luckily we didn't. In fact, even as it was we only just saved Pedlar and lugged him back in time.

The bull had arrived!

He was there, not more than twenty yards from the wall, and he was a whacker. He had an enormous body and head, and his forehead was curly, and his eyes fierce, and his horns rather short but very thick. A copper ring was in his nose, and his hoofs turned up rather curiously, like Turkish slippers. There was some hay flung down in front of him, and he was smelling it. He was evidently a large and fierce bull, and him being on one side of the wall and Cherry Ripe on the other made it a very tricky position for us on the top.

Trelawny said--

"This is critical!"

And Cherry Ripe said--

"Hullo, my brave chap, how d'you find your future property is looking? I hope you're pretty well satisfied?"

Trelawny said--

"This is a case for a parley."

But Cherry Ripe did all the parleying. We sat down on the wall, which was easier and safer than standing on it. We sat with our faces to Cherry Ripe and our backs to the bull.

"This is an ambuscade in a way," said Trelawny. "In fact, we are rather scored off. In war we should be shot. Not that it would matter, as we have done our work.

"Now, my young shavers," began Cherry Ripe, "I see you've been very busy down here on your own account, so perhaps you'll just step off that wall and do a bit of work for me. You can take your choice. Either we'll all go straight along to your old gentleman, and see what he'll say and do about it, or you can step down here--all three of you--and set to work over a bit of weeding. Take your choice and be quick."

"We'll confer," said Trelawny.

Which we did do; and Pedlar and I thought one thing and Trelawny thought another. He said that it would be far more dignified to go back and suffer from Dr. Dunstan as an equal; but Pedlar and I had done that before, and we didn't care in the least about the dignity. We said that to do a bit of weeding for Cherry Ripe would be mere child's play to four on each hand and perhaps more, not to mention a few thousand lines chucked in, and a couple of half-holidays gone.

So Trelawny said--

"I'm out-voted in the conference."

Then he got down and we got down also.

Cherry Ripe seemed rather pleased at what we had decided to do, because I don't think he wanted to have another talk with the Doctor any more than we did. But he certainly had arranged rather a big job for us.

"You've got to pick it clean, mind you--roots and all," he said. Then he divided the bit of land into three with sticks, and it seemed to us that we had to weed about as much as a cricket pitch each.

"You shall have the biggest job, young master," he said to Trelawny. "And that's only right and fair, because you're such a big man and take such big views."

Trelawny did not answer, but he was evidently in a very proud frame of mind. He seemed determined to show Cherry Ripe something, if it was only how to weed.

We worked jolly hard, and Cherry Ripe kept us at it. Then in the distance went up three cheers, and we knew the match was over; and, from the sound of the cheers, it looked as if we'd won, because after a match we always cheer the enemy, and we always cheer him heartier if we've beat him--not intentionally, but still the sound is different.

"Now you can all nip back," said Cherry Ripe. "Better go the way you came--through the wood."

"And be killed by your bull, I suppose," said Pedlar. "Not likely!"

"We have accepted your terms," said Trelawny, "and if you are an honourable foe, you'll let us out by the gate."

"Better go through the wood," answered Cherry Ripe. "It's a lot shorter, and as to the old bull, you needn't mind him. He's my daughter's pet. He wouldn't hurt a daddy-long-legs, much less a nice young chap like you. Tame isn't the word for him. A pet lamb's fierce to him. Come on. I'll go as far as the wood with you if you're frightened."

All this was true. And when we got back into the field, Cherry Ripe scratched the bull's curly head and the bull almost purred. It was the mildest and humblest sort of a bull you ever saw, though so huge; and to see such an enormous and happy bull so close was rather interesting in its way. In fact, we all gave it a pat, just to be able to say in after life that we had patted a monstrous bull.

"My youngest daughter often sits on his back," said Cherry Ripe. "This here bull has got a heart of gold, I do assure you."

"Another strategy," said Trelawny to me. "Certainly the man's cunning is frightful. I think I shall tell him about the seed--just to show him we've scored a bit too."

I advised not, but Trelawny was so stung by the way we'd been defeated all round by the wretched Cherry Ripe, that, as we were leaving him, he said--

"It may interest you to know that we've sowed that patch of your beastly ground under the wall with weeds of the deadliest sort. In fact, you'll never get them out again. So that's one for us, anyway."

"Well done!" said Cherry Ripe. "Where did you get the seed from?"

"That's our business," answered Trelawny. "Anyway, you'll find it out presently."

"Well," answered Cherry Ripe, "I know where you got the seed. It was from my good friend, Batson. And his boy be coming here to work next week. He's learned all your gardener at the school can teach him, and that wouldn't sink a ship. He brought the tale to his father, and his father brought it to me; and so I got the ground ready for you, knowing what a dashing fellow you are, and what a hurry you'd be in."

"More fool you then," said Trelawny.

"Not so fast. The seed you sowed was lettuce seed! Good-evening, my dears, and when you say your prayers afore you go to sleep to-night, you can all thank the Lord that you've done a bit of honest, useful work for once in your lives!"

* * * * *

We talked it over during prep., and Pedlar said--

"On the whole, we'd better keep this afternoon's work to ourselves."

And I said--

"We were overreached by superior cunning, and we'd better give Cherry Ripe best in future."

And Trelawny said--

"Wait! This, in a way, is a defeat. But I'll arrange a jolly good Waterloo for Cherry Ripe yet."

Meaning, of course, that he would be Wellington, and that Cherry Ripe would be merely Napoleon.

However, though I didn't say it to Trelawny, I doubt very much if he is clever enough to score off Cherry Ripe till he grows up. Then, of course, Cherry Ripe will find him a bitter and relentless foe.

*THE QWARRY*

*No. IX*

*THE QWARRY*

If your parints happen to live in India, of corse holidays are not all they might be. Becorse India is too far off to go to often, and such relations as aunts and uncles don't seem much to care to have you if you are the son of an Indian soldier. But grandmothers always seem to want to have you; at leest they do in the case of Travers; but his parints are ded. Anyway me and Morris have to stop at Dr Dunstan's for holidays, and so we have to be friends at those times. I am eleven and he is twelve and we are very diffrent, him being never knone to lose a conduct mark, and me being ordinry. I am called Foster and the hapiest day of my life was when I got ten shillings all at once, being my ninth birthday in a postal order from my father. The first fealing was one of shere joy, and the second fealing was that if it had been a pound it would have been better.

I remember the birthday only too well, though nearly two years ago, because immedeetly after getting the money I wrote to Mr Gammidge--the grand toy and games man--for some important things wanted by me and my chum, Smythe--him that cut off the Doctor's tiger's tail with such disasterous results. And by grate ill-luck that beest Steggles looked over my sholder and saw how I had begun my letter. I had asked Smythe how to begin it in a very respectful way, so as to please Mr Gammidge, and Smythe had said, "I should make it as friendly as you possibly can;" and I had said, "yes." Then I thort that as the friendliest letters I ever write are to my mother, I would begin it like that; and I had written down "Darling Mr Gammidge, I shall be very grately obliged by your sending me if you have time by return of post"--certain things. Becorse Mr Gammidge was quite as much to me as my mother in those days, if not more.

Well, the beestly Steggles saw this and set up a loud and hideous yell of laughter which was very paneful to me and Smythe. And presently, when he had drawn the attenshun of many chaps to the letter, he told us on no account to send it, but to write in a firm and manly tone and _order_ the things. He said when you are sending postal orders you have always the rite to be firm and manly; and when you are asking for them, that is the time to be affecshunite. So we wrote the letter again and merely said, "Dere Mr Gammidge," and sined ourselves, "yours truly, Arnold Foster and Huxley Smythe."

I must now return to Morris, who was left at Merivale with me during the grate summer holiday last year. In a way his luck was friteful although he had nowhere to go in holidays. Even his amusements were such that they turned into marks and pleesed the masters, such as natural history; and his conduct marks were so exstraordinry that he never lost any at all without an effort.

In face he was nothing, being sandy-haired and pail with a remarkably small mouth and watery eyes. He had not much courage but was fond of chaps who had, and he liked me and Smythe more for our courage than anything. We tried without success to increese his courage, and he helped us a lot with work that didn't want courage but only intelleck, of which he had a grate deal.

It was reely owing to my courage that the adventure of the old slate qwarry happened. You see the holiday competishun for that year was a colleckshun of insect life, such as beetles, moths and butterflies, and as Merivale happened to be a fine place for insect life in general, Morris determined to win the prize if he could.

When the Doctor and his family went off to the seaside, the last thing he said to me and Morris was this--

"Farewell, my dear lads. Persue all innocent pleasures and give no corse of offence during the vocation. The Matron will be at your service and she has the key of the liberary. The playing field is also open to you, and having regard for the seeson I relax a little of the riggid discipline of time and place, of hours and bounderies, proper to the term. But I put you on your honour in this matter and feal that the chastening influenze of Morris will possibly serve to restrain the native exooberance of Foster. Lastly I have directed that the comissariat shall be ordered on a generous--nay, lavvish skale. Good-bye, my dear boys, and God bless you."

We said "good-bye," and I hoped that the Doctor and Missis Dunstan and the gurl Dunstans would have a good time; and the Doctor thanked me and said he was glad I had the grace to make that wish; and after he had gone, Morris said that he very nearly said "God bless you" to the Doctor, but staid just in time. And I said it was jolly lucky he had, for it certainly would have been friteful cheek to do it.

Then two cabs rolled away with the Doctor and his luggage and his family, and me and Morris were left. We found what 'comissariat' ment at dinner, and I will say that the food was magnificent, and the Matron was a brick all through the holidays--very diffrent to what she is in term time; and she told us a lot about her private life, which turned out that she was a widow Matron with a son. And Morris said "Why don't you bring your son here, Matron?" And I said "Of corse, why don't you?" And Morris said "It would hurt the Doctor's fealings a good deal if he knew you had a son being educated somewhere else." And she said it was all right and the Doctor was as kind as any man could be, and that the son was working hard and was a very good son, being an office-boy in a lawer's office in London.

Then came the qwarry and my temptashun of Morris, which ended in Morris going to the qwarry.

The qwarry was certainly out of bounds, and it was when out of bounds in secret with Freckles and other big chaps that I found all the wonders of it. It was a stone qwarry in Merivale Grate Wood, and there were game preserves near by, where Freckles hunted and practiced to be a bush-ranger when he went home to Australia. But of course Morris had never seen the place, because he never went out of bounds at all, from fear and also from goodness, but cheefly from fear.

I said to Morris on a fine day in the middle of August--

"Have you got any draggon-flies in your collectshun?"

And he said--

"There are no draggon-flies in Merivale."

And I said--

"You're a liar."

And he said--

"Well, anyway, I never saw one."

And I said--

"In the old qwarry in Merivale Grate Wood there are billions."

And he said--

"They can't live without water to cool their tails."

And I said--

"Any fool knows that. There's a stream and a pond in the qwarry and the draggon-flies and blackberries and butterflies, including peacocks and red admirals, are all as common as dirt."

"It's a friteful pity it's out of bounds," said Morris to me, and I explained that, though out of bounds in term time, yet, owing to the Doctor's speshul words to us before he went on his holiday, every thing was free now.

Then Morris said--

"He put us on our honour."

And I said--

"I've got just as much honour as you for that matter. But my honour covers the hole of Merivale Grate Wood, and if your honour doesn't do the same, you'll loose the draggon-flies."

Morris thought over this a good deal.

At last he said--

"There's no doubt that Slade and probably Thompson minor will get draggon-flies in their collectshuns, owing to their living by swamps and rivers."

And I said--

"Do what you like, only it happens I'm going to the qwarry to-morrow for the hole day, and Matron is going to make me sandwiches to take."

"If you honestly think it is an honourable thing to do----" said Morris.

"I honestly do think so," I said.

"I believe you're right," he said. Then rather a footling idea struck him.

"How would it be if we wrote a polite letter to the Doctor?" he asked.

"Not me," I said. "You may be sure that the Doctor, in his hard-eerned vocation, doesn't want polite letters from me or even you. In fact, it might so much anoy him that he might change his mind all together and not put us on our honour at all, but merely say we were to keep bounds, which would be deth to me. Not that I should do it in any case."

So after a lot more rot and jaw about his blessed honour, Morris came, and the day was jolly fine to begin with, and we went well armed for sport in genral. He had his butterfly-net and killing-bottle--a beestly thing full of cemicals but merciful in its way, becorse when you put a butterfly in and shut down the cork the butterfly becomes unconshus without pane and dies pretty cumfortably. All the same, as Morris said to me while we watched a lesser tortussshell passing away, "deth is deth," and the killing bottle was the only part of natural history he did not care about. Before we got to the qwarry he was wondering if the cemicals in the bottle would be strong enough for a draggon-fly.

I said--

"You've got to jolly well catch them first."

I had the sandwiches and a sling made of lether, which hurls a stone friteful distances. I had also got in secresy a packet of 'Windsor Pearl' cigarets and a box of matches. These I did not intend to show to Morris, because it wood have upset his honour again; but I had been a smoaker for years, having been tought by Steggles, and it seemed to me if I couldn't have a cigaret in the summer holidays now and then, I might as well give up smoaking all together.

There were tongue sandwiches, and bread and butter ones, and two hard-boiled eggs each, and two large lumps of carraway seed cake. It seemed a good deel to carry and yet not much to eat. I also took an india-rubber cup for water; but Morris said the water in the qwarry was no doubt where the draggon-flies lived in the first stages of their careers, and he douted if we could drink it with safety. He littel nue that he would soon drink it whether it was safe or not.

There was only one way into the qwarry and that was down a very steep and dangerous place. The opening into the qwarry was all filled up and there were raillings all round it to keep anybody from falling into it by night. Morris funked getting down for some time; then a draggon-fly actually sored past and so much excited him that he said he was reddy if I went first. I told him to see exactly what I did and then I went down. At one spot the dissent was very perilous owing to a huge stone that stuck out in the middle of the cliff. You had to curl over it and feal with your feet for a tree-root below, then, for one grate moment, you had to let go with your hands and cluch at a pointed stone on the right hand side. This stone was allways loose and wanted very delicate handling. To me, with years of practice, it was eesy; but I fealt sure it would be a bit of a twister for Morris.

He lowered down his killing-bottle and net and caterpillar-box, then he began to slowly dissend. But at the critikal moment he stretched for the pointed stone before he had got his foot on the root and all his wait came on the stone with the terrible result that the stone gave way. And when the big stone gave way, about a million other stones gave way also, so that Morris fell to the ground in an avvalanch of stones and the woods resounded with the sound. My first thort was keepers and my second thort was Morris.

He was alive and hardly hurt at all more than a spraned ankle. He went very white and sat down and shivered and felt his bones and limbs one by one. He said it was his first great escape from deth.

And I said--

"You may not have escaped all the same, becorse you've pulled down the cliff in your dissent, and that was the only way out of the qwarry, and now there isn't any way out at all!"

Which was perfectly true and not said to friten Morris. Getting out of the qwarry was far far worse than getting in and wanted a nerve of iron, which I hadn't mentioned to Morris till I got him safely in; but now he'd pulled down the place compleatly and left a naked precipice, and my nerve of iron was no good. In fact we were evidently going to have a grate adventure, and so I told Morris.

It certainly spoilt the day for him, becorse you can't very well have a ripping good picknick if you don't know how the picknick is going to end.

"It's a fine place for natural history no doubt," he said; "but we can't pretend we're going to have a good time now."

"We're going to have a long time anyway," I said.

He smiled in rather a gastlie way and said he hoped not, becorse the weather was changeing and it might rain later on.

Then I told him that wether didn't matter as there was a pretty dry cave where Freckles used to do his cooking of rabbits on half-holidays. Morris seemed glad about the cave. He rubbed his ankle and said, so far as that went, he fealt pretty right. Presently he said--

"There are certainly red admirals here in grate quantities and also draggon-flies, but somehow I don't feel I've got the heart to kill annything for the moment, espeshully after what I've just eskaped myself. Deth is deth."

"You'll be better after food," I said.

But he wouldn't hear of food.

"We must face the possishun," he said. "Here we are in a qwarry and we can't get out."

"Yes," I said.

"Very well. Then, there being no food in the qwarry except what we have brort with us, we shall soon be hungry."

"Yes," I said. "I am now."

Morris went on trying to be calm, but I could see the more he explained the situashun the more fritened he got. His voice shook when he said the next thing.

"You can't go on being hungry for more than a certain time. After you reech a certain pich, you die."

"Yes," I said.

"Well, there you are," he said.

He figetted about with his killing-bottle and things, then made a hopeless sort of a sound like an engine letting off steem.

"We must consider meens of eskape," I said. "People come here sometimes, no doubt.

"Only boys out of bounds," said Morris faintly. "Oh, what would I give to see the face of Freckles peep over the top!"

"It's impossible," I told him. "Freckles is spending the holidays with some cousins in Norfolkshire. But there are often keepers in the woods to look after the game."

"Then we must shout at intervals, night and day--as long as we've got the strength to do it, said Morris.

"Before each shout we will eat a sandwich to increese our strength," I said. But Morris fancied half a sandwich would be safer.

I thort it wasn't much good beginning by starving ourselves. In adventures nobody begins by starving--they end like that; but Morris, who has a watch, looked at it and said the time was only half-past ten and that, even if we were safe and within reach of food, we should not eat any for two hours and a half. But I said planely I could not waite that time and it ended by our dividing the food into two heaps of exactly the same size to a crumb. And I eat a sandwich boldly and fearlessly, but Morris shook his head and said it was foolhardy.

He took a very hopeless view from the first, and even thort that perhaps, when my food was all gone and his hardly begun, I should turn on him with the feerceness of starvashun and tare his food away from him. But I said, "No, Morris. What ever tortures I may suffer, I am a gentleman, and I would rather die a hundred times than take as much as one seed out of your peece of cake."

This comforted him rather. He put his hand on his chin and stared before him in a very feeble manner.

"Deth is deth," he began again.

"That's the third time you've said that," I told him, "and if you say it once more, I'll punch your head. Now, I'm going to utter the first grate shout, and I hope it may bring a keeper--not Thomas or Waxy West, for they are both very hard and beestly men, and very likely wouldn't rescue us even if they new we were here; but the under-keeper, Masters. He will certainly save us, and if he does, I'll give him my packet of cigarets."

I shouted six times; then I shouted six more times; then I told Morris to have a shot. But he made such a piffling, feeble squeak that you could hardly have heard him a quarter of a mile off.

"Lucky I can howl," I said, "or we should both be done for without a dout. Why, a lamb that has lost its mother would get up more row than that."

Morris was rather hurt at this. Me explained that he was making an Australian sound tought him by Freckles.

"It may not be loud," he said, "but it is a well-none sound in Australia and travel grate distances espeshully over water."

The menshun of water made us go and look at the pond. I was fritefully thirsty by now and drank some. It was grey in colour but clear when seen in my india-rubber cup and quite holesome to the taste. Morris douted, but still he drank. I advised him to catch some draggon-flies and he said he would after the next time for shouting had come. We arranged that I should shout every half-hour, and Morris wanted to give me one sandwich from his store as payment for the exershun of shouting; but I skorned it and told him I would not think of doing so.

After the second shouting, which did nothing, used my sling a bit and neerly hit a bird, and Morris cought a draggon-fly and let it go out of pitty, and then he cought another and kept it to see if the killing-bottle would kill it. It did. After about half a minute in the bottle the draggon was gone, and we shook him out and examined his butiful markings of yellow and black and his transparent wings, that had the colours of the rainbow on them when the sun fell on them in a particular manner.

Morris stroaked it in a sorroful way.

"It is out of its missery now. I wish me and you were," he said.

I said we hadn't begun our missery yet. I advised him to eat a sandwich and he did, but very reluctantly.

He said that water would keep life in the human frame for many weeks. He also said that he fealt, in a damp place like this, we might eesily get pewmonia. He wondered if I hadn't better shout every quarter of an hour. He also thort his watch was going far too slow owing to his fall down the side of the qwarry. The sun had gone behind some rather dark clouds and we couldn't be sure where it was.

The only thing that happened during the next hour was that the draggon-fly came to again, not being ded but merely incensible. It lifted a paw rather feebly to its forehead and evvidently had a headacke. Then it took a step or two and shivered a lot. Somehow it grately cheered Morris the draggon-fly recovering. He sed it had come out of the jaws of deth and so perhaps we should. He gave it an atom of tongue out of a sandwich, but it was not up to eating, and turned away from it. Then Morris got it some water to wet its glittering tail. This certainly refreshed it and so Morris dashed a few drops on its head which refreshed it still more. At half-past two it rose and flew several inches and at three it disappeered.

By this time I had eaten all my sandwiches and drunk tons of water and was pealing my first hard-boiled egg.

Suddenly Morris had an idea. He had only eaten one sandwich and was of course famishing with hunger. He said--

"If you was to write a message and tie it round a stone and sling it into space, it might be found and red. Then a resque party would be arranged and we should be saved."

It was pretty good for Morris, and I took out my pocket-book instantly and wrote three messages. And he wrote three. He sed it was like men on sinking ships, who send off messages in bottles that are found many years afterwards in Iceland. And I said it was. Of corse we hoped one at leest of the six messages might be found pretty soon. Years afterwards was no good to us.

I merely wrote--

"Lost in Grate Wood Qwarry and unable to get out. Arnold Foster. Come at once."

And Morris wrote--

"At the point of deth in Grate Wood Qwarry. No eskape. Food neerly done. A handsome reward will be given. William Arkwright Henderson Morris."

I asked him how he nue a handsome reward would be given, and he said he didn't, but that he felt it was a safe thing to say and might make all the diffrence to anybody finding the message. Then I shot off the six messages rapped round stones, and they eesily flew over the edge of the qwarry. I then shouted again and eat my first egg.

Just when it began to rain Morris had another grate idea. He said--

"Didn't you say something about a packet of cigarets some time ago?"

And I said--

"Yes, and I am glad you reminded me about them, becorse I just feal that one will do me a lot of good."

Then I pulled them out and opened the packet and took one and lit it.

"It is very restful in such an adventure as this," I told Morris.

Then he explained his idear. It is well none that when you are learning to smoak, your appetite is often spoilt for a time. Now Morris thort that if he smoaked, he would not want food, and so much valuable food might be saved, and life prolonged if necessary.

He said--

"To you, who smoak so eesily, no dout it is no good, but I have never smoaked, and if I took a cigaret and went through with it, it might turn me off eating for some time."

This was true, but I pointed out a grate danger that Morris had forgotten.

"That is all right and I will of corse share my cigarets with you, and as there are twenty, that will be ten each," I said; "but I must seeriously warn you, Morris, that to a perfect beginer, like you, many things might happen besides merely a fealing against tongue sandwiches. You might be absolutely sick and then----"

"All the food in me would be wasted," said Morris in a very tragick tone.

He turned quite white at this idea. He said it would be madness to do anything to weaken his system at such a critikal time, and I said so too. Then he asked me to go and smoak further off, because the very smell made him feal rather strange after what I had told him.

I smoaked three cigarets bang off and they only made me hungrier than ever. Then the rain became rather bad and at four o'clock we entered the cavern. At least I did, but Morris stood at the door ready to run out and shout if by a lucky chance anybody came in sight on the edge of the qwarry. But nobody came and the next serious thing was that my voice began to get husky after so much shouting. Morris said it was the cigarets, but I told him it was owing to yelling all day every half-hour, which undoubtedly it was.

At six I went to sleep for some time in the cave and Morris did not wake me, because he said that I was gaining strength by it. When I woke it was getting darkish and I thort it would be a good thing to make a fire. Morris thort so too and we made one reddy with a lot of ded fern that Freckles had put long ago into the cavern. We took the paper that had rapped up our lunch, and put it under the fern, and covered it with my coat to keep it dry; and after dark we lighted it, and it made a good blaze for a minute but unfortunately went out owing to the rain.

The rain, in fact, began to pour steddily and it was a partickularly dark evening. Morris became a simple worm after dark. He took a small bite out of a sandwich and said his prayers from end to end every half-hour. I had only got my cake left now, and it seemed to me better to have one good meel and have done with it than keep messing about like Morris was. So I finished my cake and tried to go to sleep again.

We found that water came through the roof of the cavern in rather large quantities, and Morris had a new terror. He said--

"If we can't get out of the qwarry, then I don't see how water can get out, and so, if it rains more than a certain amount, the qwarry will get full and we shall be drowned."

Which showed what a footling state of mind Morris had got into.

Presently I sneezed and he said of corse that it was the beginning of pewmonia. Then he asked for a match to see the time and it was six minutes past ten. Then I shouted again at the cavern entrance without result.

He kept on asking for matches to see the time until there were only five left, and I said we must keep these for immergencies, and he said he supposed we must.

At last he went into a sort of sleep after shedding some teers and pretending it was a cold in his head. Then I lighted a cigaret and found much to my supprise that I was beginning to feal queer myself with a new sort of queerness quite new to me.

I woke Morris and told him that I was sorry to say I was ill; and he said he was undoubtedly very ill too and had been dreeming of his mother, which he only did when frightfully ill. He also asked me if I believed in ghosts and I said I thort I did. And he said he always did.

There were some awfully strange noises happening outside at this time, and I sakrificed another match and found it was neerly one o'clock. Then we went to the mouth of the cavern and listened to a peculiar creepy sound far off. The rain had stopped and a sloppy looking moon was coming up. Morris shivered.

"That might be the mournful yell of some wretched ghost," he said.

"It's owels," I said, but he did not think so. He thort it was too miserable for owels.

It came neerer and certainly was not owels.

Then a thort struck me.

"It's a resque party!" I said.

We shouted with all our might and screamed and yelled, and presently there was an ansering yell and we fealt that with any luck we were now saved. Soon toarches gleemed through the trees, and there were sounds of human feet and langwidge.

I said to Morris--

"We are now saved, Morris, and if you are not going to eat your piece of carraway seed cake, I should very much like to."

And he said--

"You can eat everything. I have such a fealing of thankfulness to be saved, that I couldn't eat for the moment, empty as I am. Besides there will be supper provided."

A man shouted above us and I heard the hated voice of Waxy West.

"Be you little devils down there?" he cried out.

"Yes, we are, Mr West," I answered him very loud. "We're doing no harm at all--merely waiting quietly to be resqued. We only came for draggon-flies, and the side of the qwarry gave way unfortunately, or we shouldn't have had to trouble you at such a late hour."

He growled in rather an unkind tone of voice, and we saw there were two other men with him. Then they began to make arrangements for the resque and one was told to go and get a rope.

"If ever I catch you in this place again, I'll break both your necks," said Waxy West; and though this was rather strong, it comforted Morris in a way, becorse it showed that West hadn't found his messages offering a handsome reward. If there had been any question of that, he would have been polite and kringeing; but he was just as usual.

We found out, after, that Matron had got in a funk and gone to the big house, where the people belonging to Merivale Grate Wood live; and the people had sent their keepers in all directions to save us.

These keepers got a rope and made knots in it and lowered it down, and told us that we must climb up it. And I let Morris go first, which he did; and then I went up, and the keepers saw us home.

I told Waxy West that I should mention the subject to my parints in India and that I hoped they might send at least a pound to him, and he said it wasn't likely, becorse he'd done them the worst turn any man could. And he said that if I wanted to reward him, I would never go into Merivale Grate Wood again; and I promised I wouldn't go in again for a full month. Which he evvidently didn't believe.

There was fritefully good tuck waiting for us at school, and the Matron, who had been blubbing, said a grate many rather unkind things while we eat it. But she promised not to tell Dr Dunstan and he does not no even to this day.

Morris didn't win the holiday competishun becorse, as he expected, both Slade and Thompson minor brort back draggon-flies. We might eesily have gone to the qwarry again, after the month I promised Waxy West was over, but nothing would tempt Morris to go, though I bought ten yards of good rope for my own use. However, he paid me sixpence for getting him back his killing-bottle and his butterfly-net and his caterpillar-box, which were forgot in the excitement of the resque; and that was all to the good.

*RICHMOND AND THE MAJOR-GENERAL*

*No. X*

*RICHMOND AND THE MAJOR-GENERAL*

The fellows talk such a lot of absolute piffle about what I did, and tell such a frightful number of regular right down lies about it, that I have decided to write out the whole thing myself from the beginning, that the truth shall be known. There is nothing like truth really, and it is the only thing that lasts, and I am going to tell the truth fearlessly, because honesty is the best policy, however hard it may be at the time.

Well, after I gave up preaching to the chaps at Merivale, owing to the row about Browne and Stopford and all the unpleasantness afterwards, I felt that my occupation was gone in a sort of way; and it so weighed on my mind that I was one of the first to get German measles and one of the last to recover. I was shut up in the hospital and had a great deal of time on my hands for thought, and the more I thought, the more I felt that my preaching gift ought not to be wasted like this. I tried preaching to myself once or twice, to keep my hand in, and I found that I was clean out of practice and couldn't work up to "thirdly and lastly" without getting regularly tied in a knot. Then I tried to preach to the matron, and she said it was morbid and told the doctor (for I heard her through the door) that I was very low and taking a most unhealthy interest in religion. After which I had a lot more most uncalled for and beastly medicine, and was isolated for three more days; because the doctor said it might be something else threatening. What was threatening really was my conscience. I was perfectly well and frightfully eager to be doing good in the world; and as it seemed simply useless to try to do any more good at Merivale, chiefly owing to that son of Belial called Stopford, I came to the terrific resolve of going. I decided to leave quietly. I thought on the last day of being isolated I would steal out into the world in a spirit of calm courage, and try to do good, and leave the rest to Providence.

I did nothing rashly, because it is well known that Heaven helps those who help themselves, and we must not throw all the burden on Providence, however much inclined we may feel to do so. We are given our talents to use, not to put under a bushel. I had ten shillings and a telescope, worth eight-and-six. I had nothing else but my volume of Skeleton Sermons. It seemed enough.

One is bound to be worldly-wise up to a certain point; and this is right and proper. If you have a mission, you must use the best means for carrying it out, and even money may be put to very proper purposes if it is spent with a high object. Besides, the labourer is worthy of his hire.

With my money I determined to use artificial means for getting as far from Merivale as possible. For ten shillings you can go an immense distance by train, though a half-ticket was no longer possible for me, as I was over twelve; but a train is far too public and I should have been discovered. Therefore I decided upon the simple plan of hiring a bicycle. The time was May and the evenings were long. Therefore I determined to hire the bicycle during the hour when everybody would be in chapel for evening prayer. Being isolated I could do this.

The eventful night was fine and warm. I slipped out unperceived, but I had taken the precaution not to wear my hat with the school colours, as that would have been instantly observed. So I went to my private box and took out my round bowler hat, which could not lead to detection. I then got over the hedge into the main road, because to have walked out of the gate by the lodge would have much decreased my chances of escape.

All went well. The people at the bicycle shop raised no difficulty, and for five shillings they let me have a machine for two hours--also matches to light the lamp. It was put into their minds to trust me, and I saw from the first that Providence was going to help me. The man even shortened the steps a little as I am unusually stumpy in the legs.

I gave him five shillings and set off. Pursuit would not begin till my supper was brought by the matron, and I had a clear hour before that time. Then I knew what would happen; because two terms before, young Watkinson, who was homesick, had run away and tried to walk from Merivale, in Devonshire, to Edinburgh, where his grandmother lives; but he had been taken by Mannering riding that way on his bicycle, two miles out of Merivale. So I knew that the masters on bicycles and policemen on foot would soon be after me, and I intended to avoid the main roads and spend the night in some harmless and wholesome cowhouse on a bed of sweet meadow hay. Then in the morning I should rise, get a drink of milk and a little bread-and-butter from some simple and kind-hearted housewife, and leave the bicycle with her to be returned by train to the bicycle shop at Merivale. What would happen after that I left entirely to Providence.

A telescope and a rather fat book are awkward things on a bicycle, and they bumped me rather heavily, one on each side, as I started. So after riding a few miles I dismounted, slung the telescope over my back and buttoned the Skeleton Sermons to my chest. Though not comfortable, they did not bump, and I went steadily on my way. At a quarter to nine I lighted my lamp and well knew that Mannering and Chambers had started, and that many telegrams, including one to my father, had probably been sent off by Dr. Dunstan from Merivale. For the first time I considered what view my father would take of my action, and I was bound to feel that he might not care much about it. My father, though a good father to me, has never trusted as much in Providence as I could have wished; which is curious, seeing that he is not only a clergyman but also a rural dean. He wants me to go into some lucrative business, but I never will, for I have no feeling for it. My father thinks that money is everything, and I know well it is not. He said to me once that you can always tell a gentleman by his neckties and the cigars he smokes. Which is childish, because many perfect gentlemen never smoke cigars at all.

I got rather depressed after dark--entirely owing to thinking about my father. I also got strangely hungry and was beginning to wonder whether I had better try for some supper anywhere, or just leave nature to settle that. Then a most serious and unforeseen thing happened and the hind tyre of the bicycle went off with a loud explosion, like a pistol. I dismounted instantly. I kept my nerve and quietly considered the situation. For a moment it looked as if Providence was against me, but I could not be sure of this yet. I wheeled the bicycle to a gate and sat on the gate and considered. Then, far down the road I had come, I saw a light and instantly perceived that another bicycle was approaching at quite twenty miles an hour. To drag my bicycle through the gate into the field, to shut the gate, extinguish the lamp, and crouch in the hedge motionless and silent, was the work of an instant. The bicycle flew past and the man on it grunted with little grunts. It was, in fact, the well-known grunt of Mannering--a sound he always makes at footer and hockey. So I saw that Providence was still with me and felt very much cheered; because, if the lyre had not burst, I should have been quietly riding along not thinking of Mannering, and he would have overtaken me and all would have been over.

My resolutions were soon made. I left the main road, which was evidently now no place for me, and wheeled the bicycle down a lane near a farm. I felt that it would be necessary to my health to eat something before sleeping, but cared little what it was, and decided that I would just take the fruits of the earth--corn or a few turnips, or anything. In the morning I should mention it to the farmer's wife and ask her to change my five-shilling piece. For the change from my ten-shilling piece, after paying for the bicycle hire, was a five-shilling piece.

I now became conscious of the fact that the bicycle was a hindrance rather than a help. To leave it behind was, therefore, the work of a moment. But first I took a leaf out of my pocketbook and wrote on it these words--

"_Kindly return this bicycle to the shop of Messrs. Jones and Garratt, bicycle works, Merivale, and all will be well. The hind wheel is punctured. The finder will probably be rewarded._"

To show, however, that I was not careless for the bicycle, I may say that I went on till I found a cowshed, so that the machine might be dry and not suffer from night dew or possible rain. It was not the sort of cowshed that I meant to sleep in myself, being evidently used purely for cows, and having no fragrant, clean hay or anything of the kind in it; but it was good enough for the bicycle; so I left it there and went on my way.

There are very peculiar and creepy sounds to be heard in the country at night, and I heard them all. Everything, in fact, is quite different to what it is by day. Especially the colours of things. There was a watery sort of moon, and it made all the leaves on the trees look as if they were cut out of dirty white paper. And it made gate-posts and tree-stems look as if they were alive. I got a curious sort of feeling about this time and lit a match and read a couple of Skeleton Sermons. This put me absolutely all right, and I went to seek some of the fruits of the earth. But May is evidently a bad time for that purpose. In fact, there were simply no fruits of the earth to eat anywhere, so I had to trust to young leaves. Beech leaves are all right in a way, but you soon have enough. That was all I could get, however, and I washed them down with a drink from a brook, but unluckily slipped in while filling my bowler hat with water. Then the thing was to find a comfortable place with sweet, snug straw; and I crept down to a farmhouse; and, hearing me creeping down unfortunately upset a dog so much that it barked steadily for half-an-hour and woke many other dogs for miles round.

At last I found a poorish sort of shed which had no sweet, fragrant hay but only a cart with sacks in it. The sacks had been used for guano. Still they were better than nothing, and I got into the cart and pulled the sacks over me, having first taken off my socks and hung them on the edge of the cart to dry. I slept, but not well, and when morning came I found myself deeply scented with guano and starving for food, but otherwise all right and still free. So I read a bit, and put on my socks, and set out boldly down a lane to the farm. But, after all, I did not go to this particular farm, because, instead of a motherly woman or some beautiful young girl standing at the door feeding chickens and pigeons, there were two men in a corner killing a pig, and the pig simply hated it; and to see this done on an empty stomach is very trying to the nerves. So I went hastily and boldly on, and at last found a quiet and humble cottage and a woman in it. I don't think she would have given me food for nothing; but when I said I would pay her a shilling for a breakfast, and showed her my five shillings to prove it, she met my views gladly and gave me three pieces of bread-and-butter, an egg, that was not laid yesterday, and some tea. Then she changed the five-shilling piece and gave me back four shillings.

Much refreshed and with nothing to trouble me but a cold in the head, doubtless owing to getting my feet wet, I went on my way. My idea was to get to Exeter and then boldly take my stand in the cathedral yard and try to begin doing good and arresting the careless passer-by, and leaving the rest to Providence. I did not know whether it might be possible to get to Exeter by lanes and footpaths over fields. Nothing happened except that I gave away two shillings in charity to a blind woman with four children. I also said a few encouraging words to her. And then, being now in the middle of a very lonely common covered with yellow gorse and white may, I came suddenly upon a man sitting under a bush smoking a cigarette. He was evidently not a happy man, being very ragged and with one laced boot and one elastic one. His hair was long, partly yellow and partly grey; his face was as brown as leather; and he had little rings in his ears. His clothes were faded and a good deal patched. He evidently did not mind what he wore. His eyes were blue and bright, but rather kind on the whole. There was a paper opened beside him. It was a bit of newspaper and contained bones and the sort of food you give to dogs. His nails were long and black, and some of his fingers perfectly yellow from smoking cigarettes.

I said--

"Good-morning! Can you kindly tell me the distance to Exeter?"

And he said--

"I'm going there myself after I've finished my breakfast. It's about ten miles from here."

I thought very likely that Providence had thrown this rather unsuccessful man into my path for a good purpose; so I said--

"As we are both going to Exeter, we might perhaps walk part of the way together. Only I like the quiet lanes and field-paths best--not the high road."

He seemed to think the idea quite possible. He said--

"Can't be too quiet for me."

I said--

"I cannot tell you my history, but I may tell you this much: I am quite determined to do some good in the world."

He said--

"Funny you should say that. I'm just the same. I'm nuts on doing some good myself. In fact, I was sitting here this minute wondering what the dickens it should be."

I said--

"The truest way to make yourself happy is to set to work to make other people happy."

And he said--

"Righto! I've always stuck to that. And I've been so busy lately, trying to make other people cheerful, that I've got rather down on my own luck."

He offered me the remains of his repast, which I declined. Then I told him that I had two shillings and that, if he was still hungry, he might share my lunch with me when we came to some quiet inn. He thanked me heartily and fell in with this. He said he wasn't hungry but was suffering from an agonizing thirst. He said that thirst was a disease with him, also smoking; and I told him that it was a terrible mistake to become the victim of a habit; and he said he knew only too well that it was.

I improved his mind a good deal before we came to an inn, and then, not wishing to be seen, I gave him one of my shillings and told him to spend sixpence on himself and sixpence on me. I merely wanted sixpennyworth of good, wholesome bread-and-cheese; and I went behind some haystacks and waited for him.

He was a long time coming, and, when he did come, I was surprised to find how little bread-and-cheese he brought for sixpence. Me admitted frankly that it was very little; but he said the landlord was a hard man and he would not give a crumb more for the money.

While I ate, Marmaduke FitzClarence Beresford--for that was this friend's name--told me something of his life. He was a gentleman by birth and also by education. He had, in fact, been to Eton and Oxford and also in the army. He had won the Victoria Cross and been mentioned several times in dispatches. He had even shaken hands with the King and been thanked by the House of Commons for his services in the Boer War. But then, at the very height of his worldly prosperity, a bank had broken and he had suddenly found himself quite ruined and penniless. Of course he had to leave the army, for in the position he had now reached, which was that of major-general, his mess bill alone ran into gold every week. A major-general has to buy champagne every day of his life, whether he drinks it or not. It is a rule in the British army and very important. But he said that nothing mattered as long as one tried to do good in the condition in life that one found oneself in. He said I was perfectly right to carry my Skeleton Sermons with me, and that the first thing he was going to do, when he had saved a little money, was to buy a volume himself. But, if anything, he was still more interested in my telescope. He said that it was good for five shillings and advised me to sell it. He explained that it was useless to me if I was going to devote the rest of my life to doing good; and of course this was true.

He said we had better stop where we were till dusk, and that there was a small town, two miles off, where it might be possible for him, as a favour to me, to get a friend of his to buy the telescope. So we sat a good many hours in this quiet field; and he smoked thousands of cigarettes, and I told him many things that it was useful for him to know; and he told me many things that it was not particularly useful for me to know, yet interesting. He was a well-meaning and religious officer, but he was rather soured, naturally enough, owing to the utter breaking of his bank and the loss of his hard-earned savings.

He admitted that I had made him see several things in a very new and different light, and then, towards evening, he said we might now start to sell the telescope. He said with a part of the proceeds I might get a fairly clean bed at the little town, and that he hoped, after a comfortable night's rest, I should be able to start refreshed and strong to do good at Exeter. I asked him where he was going to sleep, and he said in some ditch, because, for the moment, he was absolutely without means, having given away his last shilling to a poor tramp who was even worse off than himself. I told him he might be very sure that he would never regret that shilling; and he said probably not in the long run, but, just for the moment, as it was going to be a wet night and he had a bad cold on his chest developing into bronchitis, he felt a little weak and regretful. Then I said--

"You shall share this telescope with me, Major-general Beresford, and if you like to throw in your lot with me, we will take a humble lodging for the night and start to do good to-morrow."

He said it was almost more than he had a right to expect; and yet it showed how wicked he had been to doubt Providence for a moment. He almost cried, and I cheered him up and told him to be courageous and hopeful. Then he said he would try to be; and then he went off with the telescope, while I waited just outside the small town behind a hoarding. The major-general had said that he should be about an hour, as a thing of this kind wanted a good deal of doing; but he wasn't: he came back in twenty minutes, and he brought the telescope with him, and he was in a frightful rage and spoke several soldierly words that were not at all right to use for a man who wanted to do good.

Me said--

"The blighters won't let me pop it! They all want to know how I came by it! Dash their infernal impudence! Why, they'd have had the cops on me if I'd stopped to argue about it! You'd better take it yourself. But I'll be even with some of 'em yet, clash and bash them! I'll burn their very bad-word houses down about their ears before they're much older!"

In this dreadful way he went on for some time; then I tried to calm him down and told him he must not feel too much hurt because common, crafty men in shops regarded him suspiciously. I said--

"You evidently lost your temper with them, and that is never right or wise. It was your boots that made them doubt you. You ought quietly to have told them who you are, and about the King shaking hands with you, and the bank breaking, and so on. Then they would have understood, and if they had been Christian men, they would have sympathized with you and very likely have given six or seven shillings for the telescope."

He said, rather foolishly--

"Given six or seven grandmothers for the telescope!"

Then he seemed to grow suddenly suspicious of me and he asked--

"Where did _you_ get it from anyhow? If I thought you'd sneaked it, I'd----"

"I got it from my Uncle Horace," I said. "He is an amateur astronomer and understands the stars."

"Well, I ought to understand three balls by this time," answered the major-general, though what this meant I have never understood myself to this day.

Then he began to make me rather uncomfortable, and I detected a good deal of vulgarity in him. But doubtless it often turns people vulgar and brutal to come down in the world, owing to having to mix with their inferiors and suchlike.

Now he began to ask me about myself in a very cross-questioning manner, and at last it seemed to me that I must tell him the truth. In fact, he kept on so about who I was and where I had come from, that it got to be a simple question between telling him the truth and telling him a lie. Therefore, of course, I told him the truth, and said that my name was Richmond and that I had lately changed my way of life by leaving school in order to do some public work in the way of goodness.

He seemed much surprised.

"You've run away from school then?" he exclaimed.

"Yes," I said; "but of course I am telling you this in the strictest confidence."

He quite saw that, and said that he regarded the confidence as a great compliment to him. He became perfectly friendly again and said that, when a boy, he had run away from school also, and that most boys of spirit did so--in fact, nearly every boy who ever made much of a mark in the world began in that manner. I reminded him that he had been to Eton and Oxford, and he admitted it. It was from Eton that he had run away, but he had been subsequently captured and taken back.

"Now you have confided in me," he said, "I think I can really be of some practical use to you."

He guessed at the time and said, that if we put our best foot foremost, we ought to be in Exeter by midnight. I remember, curiously enough, wondering which was his best foot--the one in the lace-up boot, or the one with elastic sides. Anyway, we set off after I had shared my last shilling with him. This he changed into food and drink at a small public-house by the wayside.

"At Exeter," he said, "I am widely known and respected. When we get there, certain people will welcome me in a friendly spirit, and I am quite sure they will welcome you too. In fact, I can promise you a very warm welcome and a good night's rest."

"Will they take the telescope?" I asked.

"No," he said. "They are not people like that. When they understand the situation, they will be perfectly well satisfied with you as you are."

I was glad that the major-general had come back to this quieter and wiser frame of mind, and thanked him.

"I hope it may be in my power to do you a service some day," I said; and then, in his turn, he thanked me.

"You never know," he replied. "You may be able to do me a good turn even sooner than you think for."

He smoked thousands more cigarettes, and asked me about my home and my family. He was rather interested to hear that my father was a rural dean, and kindly hoped that he made a good thing out of it. I told him that I believed he did; but I explained to him that money was not everything--indeed, far from it--and that too much is a great temptation. He said that he had never had enough, even in his palmiest days, to judge; and I said--

"There are many precious things that money will not buy, major-general. You must admit that. It won't buy affection, for instance."

He sniffed and evidently doubted this. He said--

"It will buy all the affection I want--and a bit over."

Then the lights of Exeter at last appeared and I was frightfully exhausted by now and jolly glad to see them.

"Here we are at last, thank the Lord," said my companion, though not in a very pious tone. Then, at the outskirts of the town, we came to a building with a light outside, and the major-general pushed me in in front of him--rather roughly, I thought. The inside was brightly illuminated with gas and, to my amazement, the building contained nothing but policemen. One of these was much astonished to see us.

"Hullo, Slimey Sam!" he said to my companion. "'Tisn't often you give us a call without a little help from behind!"

Then, to my horror, the major-general cast subterfuge to the winds and appeared in his true character.

"No," he said. "It took four of you blue worms to carry me in last time I was here; but this is just a friendly visit. I've been doing a bit of your work, in fact."

Instantly I perceived my position and made a dart for the door; but my faithless companion was too quick for me.

"No, you don't, my little man!" he cried out, and grabbed me by the collar as he did so. "This is the missing link," he said to the policemen, and they were much interested instantly.

"The boy from Merivale?"

"Yes."

Several policemen hastened to the telephone, and one hurried off to the main police-station of Exeter, and all was excitement, disorder and confusion. Slimey Samuel--for this was the real name of the treacherous and unfeeling man--told them the whole story in my hearing; but he omitted the part about not being able to sell the telescope, and the only thing that interested him personally was the question of the reward.

And really there is not much more to add, because what my father said, and what Dr. Dunstan said and did, and what Mannering said, and what the bicycle people said, and what the other chaps said when I went back, is none of it particularly interesting in a general way.

In fact, the only thing that would have been very interesting and that I should really like to be able to tell, is what Slimey Samuel said when he got his blood-money for giving me up to justice. He declared to the police in my hearing that it ought to be good for a hundred quid at least. But his nature was far too hopeful, and as a matter of fact he only got two pounds from my father and an offer of honest work. He only took the money; and I expect he felt rather bitter about it; and I felt rather bitter about it in secret also; because it seemed to show that my father did not put much value on me. Two pounds for a human life--let alone your own son--is really rather little. No doubt my father will go on thinking nothing of me till I am a man. Then, perhaps, the day may come when I shall be able to show him that, after all, money is mere dust in the balance against a son, who can do the sort of things I hope and intend to do, when I grow up into manhood.

*THE GOOD CONDUCT PRIZE*

*No. XI*

*THE GOOD CONDUCT PRIZE*

*I*

Going through the school-room of the third, which is my own form, I chanced to see Saunders minor and Fowle there; and, just as I passed them, Saunders minor said that he wished he was dead.

This, from Saunders minor, was a bit out of the common, so I stopped and asked him why. He said--

"It's only a manner of speaking, Thwaites; but, all the same, I do, because of the Good Conduct Prize."

"Well," I said, "you're a snip for it; everybody knows that."

"Not now," he answered. "In fact, it's all up, and the silver watch and chain are gone."

Of course, when young Saunders talked about a silver watch and chain, he didn't mean Dr. Dunstan's footling Good Conduct Prize, which is always a book of a particularly deadly kind, such as _Lays of Ancient Rome_; but he meant the special prize his father had promised him if he won the highest marks for good conduct in his class. And he was simply romping home when this happened.

"Of course, it's that beast Foster," said Fowle. "I always hated Foster, and now, knowing he couldn't win by fair means, he made that peculiar face at Saunders just as the Doctor came in to say prayers last night; and Saunders laughed, not knowing the Doctor had actually come in; and the Doctor took off five conduct marks at one fell swoop."

"Foster must win now," said Saunders. "But it's a blackguard thing."

"And if Foster doesn't win, you will," said Fowle to me.

Curiously enough, this was true. I had been going rather strong on good conduct this term for private reasons. In fact, my father had promised me--not a silver watch--but a flogging, or very likely two, if I came home again with a holiday punishment.

You must know that at Merivale there was a putrid system called 'holiday punishments,' and if you didn't get a certain number of good conduct marks in the term, instead of going home in glory with a good report, you went home with a holiday punishment. Well, owing to one thing and another, I had taken home a holiday punishment four terms running; and my father began to get rather nasty about it. As a rule, he is a sort of father who talks very ferociously but doesn't do much; therefore, when he actually does flog me, which happens now and then, it comes as a great and unpleasant surprise. And I felt, in the matter of the good conduct marks, that if I went back with another holiday punishment, he would certainly keep his word and flog me to the best of his power. Therefore, I bucked up in a very unusual way, and though miles behind Saunders minor and Foster, was miles in front of the others; and when suddenly Fowle said this to me, that if Foster also smashed up as Saunders had done, I must get the Good Conduct Prize in the third, I felt quite giddy. Needless to say, I had never taken home a prize in my life. In fact, it seemed almost too much. My people would never believe it.

Of course, if such a thing really did happen, it would be a frightful score off my father; but then there was Foster. He stood six clear marks ahead of me, and unless some awful catastrophe overtook Foster, it was impossible for me to catch him. Then it seemed to me as Foster, in the most unsporting manner, had made his well-known comic face that always forced Saunders minor to laugh, and so he had got ahead of Saunders by a paltry trick, therefore it was only right that Foster should be scored off too. Needless to say, I was quite prepared to score off Foster myself; but then, very likely that would end by smashing me up, so it seemed to me that the thing to do was to try and get some outside person to score off Foster, like he had scored off Saunders minor.

I thought a lot about it, but I couldn't see any way that was perfectly sportsmanlike. Then Fowle, who is not sportsmanlike but very cunning, said there was a way. I felt pretty certain his way must be mean and piffling; but for once he thought of rather a good way. At least, it seemed good to me.

"I can't do anything myself," Fowle said, "because the last time I was interested in a fight, you will remember, the result was very unpleasant for me; but all the same, in a case like this, there ought to be a fight, and very likely if you explained in a perfectly friendly spirit to Saunders minor that he owes it to himself to fight Foster, he will be much obliged to you, and so into training for it."

Well, I was bound to admit that for once Fowle seemed to be right. Because, if Saunders minor fought Foster, the marks of battle would appear on Foster, even if he won; and they would be noticed by Browne, who hates fighting, and always takes off half the term's good conduct marks when he finds a chap who has clearly had a fight.

So I put it to Saunders minor.

I said, "I come in a perfectly friendly spirit, Saunders minor, and I don't want to put you to any inconvenience with Foster. But, as he's knocked you out of the Good Conduct Prize and your silver watch, which your father may never offer again, as they often change their minds, you have a frightful and bitter grievance against Foster."

"You may also add that Queen Anne is dead," said Saunders minor.

"I know," I said. "But the point is that I'm rather worried to see you taking this lying down. It isn't worthy of the third. We've always been a fighting form, and, in fact, you ought to resist this tooth and nail; and I'd be your second like a shot; and West, the champion of the lower school, would referee--to oblige me."

Saunders minor was a good deal interested.

"D'you think I ought to lick him?" he asked.

"I think you ought to try," I said; "and you might even succeed if you went into training, and had a bit of luck."

Saunders minor thought. He was a pale, putty-coloured chap, and when he thought, he frowned terrifically till his forehead got quite wrinkled and old. There was also a very peculiar vein on his temple you could see when he was thinking extra hard, but not at other times.

"The question is what I should gain," he said.

"Also what he would lose," I said. This was, of course, Fowle's idea, but it came in jolly handy here.

"What can he lose unless I lick him?"

"Well, the beauty of it would be," I explained, "that if you licked him, or if he licked you, it would be all the same as far as the Good Conduct Prize is concerned. If you knock him about a bit and black an eye or so, Browne will pounce upon him for certain, as well as you, and away go half his conduct marks for the term, and bang goes the Good Conduct Prize."

Saunders minor nodded.

"Did you think of this?" he asked.

"Yes," I said; "with help from Fowle."

"As a matter of fact, if this happened you'd get the Good Conduct Prize, Thwaites," said Saunders minor.

"It seems rather a wild idea," I answered, "but as a matter of fact I should--unless, of course, I come to grief myself before the end of the term. I've had to be awful keen on conduct this term, owing to my father, who has rather overdone it about conduct lately; and so I've been piling up marks in a small way, but of course such a thing as a good conduct prize is bang out of my line."

"Or any prize," added Saunders minor thoughtfully.

"Or any prize, as you truly say," I answered.

"Well, we've always been friendly enough," kindly remarked Saunders minor.

Needless to say I agreed.

"It would, of course, be a terrific act of kindness on your part to me if you knocked Foster out," I said; "and also it would be an act of justice to yourself; and also it would be what is expected of third form chaps."

"You speak as a fighter yourself," said Saunders minor.

"I am, of course, a great fighter," I said, "and have only once been beaten, and that by West, who is a champion and nearly two years older than me. But I believe you would be a very good fighter if you cared about it."

"I never should care about it," said Saunders minor. "But the point is Foster. Supposing he refuses to fight?"

"My dear chap," I said, "he couldn't. You've got a frightful grievance against him. The sixth, when they heard, would mighty soon make him fight."

"You'll second me, Thwaites, if it comes off?"

"Yes," I said. "Certainly I will."

Saunders minor began to think again, and his forehead became much furrowed.

"I'm just wondering, if I explained to my father about it, whether he'd still give me the watch if I succeeded in licking Foster," he said.

I told him that from what I knew of fathers like his it was very unlikely, and he'd better not hope.

"I have heard you say that your father is a clergyman," I said. "Don't buoy yourself up to think that he'll give you the watch if you lick Foster. Far from it. In the case of Morrison it was very different. His father always gave him half-a-crown if he went home with a black eye, and Morrison generally managed to do so; but then his father was a royal sea captain, and had commanded a first-class battleship. Your father is religious, naturally, and against fighting for certain."

It happened that just at this moment Foster and some other chaps, including his chum, Tin Lin Chow--commonly called 'Tinned Cow'--the Chinaman, came by, and Saunders minor, in the excitement of the moment, stopped Foster and spoke--

He said, "I've been thinking over losing the Good Conduct Prize, Foster; and as it was your fault, something must be done."

Foster said, "I've apologized. Nothing more can be done."

But Saunders minor said, "Much more can be done. In fact, I challenge you to fight; and Thwaites is my second, and West will referee."

Foster was much astonished at this.

"I'm bigger than you," he said. "It wouldn't be fair. I'm bound to lick you if we have a real serious fight."

"You might lick me, no doubt," said Saunders minor. "But I shall do a bit first: and I dare say you'll know what'll happen then."

"The only thing that can happen is that you'll have to give in," said Foster.

"Something else will happen besides that," answered Saunders minor. "However, you'll see. To-morrow week in the wood, if that will suit you."

He mentioned a half-holiday, and as the first had no match on, West would be able to referee comfortably, while everybody was looking at the second eleven match fixed for that day.

"Saturday week in the wood; but you'd better think twice," said Foster.

"I have," said Saunders minor.

And then Foster himself appeared to think twice. At least, Tin Lin Chow reminded him of something, and he came back rather mildly to us after he had walked away in a very cold and haughty manner.

"Look here, Saunders," he said; "would you mind putting off this fight till next term? I'm not in the least anxious not to oblige you; but for private reasons I would rather not fight this term."

"Yes, I know," said Saunders minor; "and for private reasons I rather would. You've knocked me out of the Good Conduct Prize when it was a dead certainty for me; and now----"

Foster went away to think; but, needless to say, his thinking didn't get him out of the mess. In fact, the fight had to come off, though Foster met Saunders minor three times before the day, and once actually sank to offering him a valuable and remarkable knife if he would put off the fight till the next term.

But Saunders minor jolly well scorned to do so.

*II*

What Foster did in the matter of training I don't know, but Saunders minor had rather bad luck. We sat together, and I gave up my meat at meals to him in exchange for his pudding. Well, of course, to eat all my meat as well as his own ought to have made him strong. But, unfortunately, it didn't. He seemed to miss his puddings frightfully, and his tongue went white the day before the fight, and he got a headache. The matron spotted him looking a bit off, and then a frightful thing happened, for the very night before the fight she made him take a huge dose of some beastliness, and of course, instead of being full of solid meat and strength for the fight, when the time came Saunders minor was quite the reverse.

Needless to say, he gave up all hope, and at dinner wouldn't eat any meat worth mentioning, and wouldn't give up his apple tart to me, but ate it himself. He said he was bound to lose, so it didn't matter, especially as apple tart was his favourite food.

The time came, and those in the fight sneaked off to the great wood that runs by Merivale playing-fields, and everything went very smoothly indeed. Saunders minor had me and Saunders minimus for his seconds, and Foster had Tin Lin Chow and Trelawny. And West not only was referee, but he wrote a magnificent description of the fight, like a newspaper. He had read about thousands of proper prize fights in a book of his brother's at home; so he understood everything about it. And he and Trelawny rather hoped that Masterman, who is the editor of our school magazine, would put the fight in; and if he had, it would have been far and away the best thing that he ever did put in. But Masterman wouldn't, though he was jolly sorry not to. He said--

"You see, West, the people who read the magazine most are the parents, and they like improving articles about foreign travel and what old boys are doing, and poetry, and so on. If I published this fight, the Doctor would get into an awful bate, because it would be too ferocious, and very likely frighten the parents of future new boys away when they read it."

Certainly it was a very horrid account written as West wrote it; but as he most kindly let me have the description to copy, I shall write it out again here; because certainly I couldn't do it half so well as him--him being champion of the lower school, and champion of the upper school, too, when Trelawny goes.

This is word for word what West wrote--

"Description of the fight between Foster and Saunders minor, written by Lawrence Basil West, Esquire, Champion of the Lower School of Merivale, and brother of Lieutenant Theodore Travers West, Middle-weight Boxing Champion of the Army.

"The men came into the ring in pretty good condition, though Foster had the advantage owing to Saunders minor getting a set back in his training the day before the battle. The ring was cleared, and the combatants shook hands for

"THE FIGHT.

"Round 1.--Some cautious sparring ended by Saunders letting fly with the right and left, and missing with both. Foster then steadied his antagonist with a light blow on the chest. More sparring followed, then, with a round-arm blow, Saunders got home on Foster's ear, and the men closed. They fell side by side, and on rising instantly prepared to renew the battle; but as the round was over, the referee (Lawrence Basil West, Esquire) ordered them to their corners.

"Round 2.--The men were very fresh and eager for business when time was called. There was some good counter hits, and then Foster received a prop on the nose which drew the claret. First blood for Saunders minor claimed and allowed. The fighting became rather unscientific towards the end of this round, and finally Foster closed and threw Saunders minor with a cross-buttock. Both men were rather exhausted after this round.

"Round 3.--Foster, using his superior height, landed with his right on Saunders minor's kisser. Then he repeated the dose, and in return caught it on the left optic. Some good milling followed, with no advantage to either side. Saunders minor got pepper towards the end of the round, and when he was finally thrown, his seconds offered to carry him to his corner; but he refused, and walked there.

"Round 4.--Foster came first to the scratch. Both cautious, and Saunders minor very active on his trotters. But he gave some good blows, and managed to hit Foster again on the left peeper. Foster in return landed with the right on Saunders minor's smelling-bottle, and liberated a plentiful supply of the ruby. A good round. At its conclusion, Thwaites and Saunders minimus wanted Saunders minor to give in; but as he was far from beaten, he very properly refused to do so.

"Round 5.--In this round Saunders minor was receiver general, and received heavy punishment. It was claimed that Foster hit him a clean knock-down blow, but the referee would not allow it. In the wrestle at the close Saunders minor got the best of it, and fell on Foster, much to Foster's surprise.

"Round 6.--Saunders minor was badly cut up in this round, and received heavy blows on the potato trap and olfactory organs. The fighting was very wild and unscientific, and both men fell exhausted towards the finish.

"Round 7.--Nothing done. Both fell exhausted.

"Round 8.--Some good in-fighting. Saunders minor got his second wind, and, making useful play with his left, landed on Foster's throat and his right eye. It was nearly a case of shutters up with Foster. They fell side by side with the ruby circulating freely. The sight of so much gore upset Saunders minimus, and he had to leave the ensanguined field. Fortescue took his place by permission of the referee. But the end was now near at hand.

"Round 9.--Both very weak. Referee had to caution both combatants for holding. Nothing much done, except that Saunders minor lost a tooth, said to be loose before the fight.

"Round 10 (and last).--Foster came first to the scratch, and managed to get home on Saunders minor's forehead and left aural appendage. Saunders minor was almost too tired to put up his hands. He tried to fight, but nature would not be denied, and Saunders minor fell in a very done-up state. He was counted out by the referee, and Thwaites flung up Saunders minor's sponge in token of defeat.

"When Foster discovered that he had won, he shed tears. But Saunders minor, though defeated, was quite collected in his mind. The men then shook hands and left the field with their friends.

"Remarks--

"We have seen better fights, and we have also seen worse ones. Foster has some good useful blows, but he wants patience and practice. He is not a born fighter, but might improve if he took pains. He had much the best of it in height and weight, including age, being a good deal older than his redoubtable antagonist. Though defeated, Saunders minor was by no means disgraced. He put up a very good fight, and at one time looked like winning; but luck was against him. Saunders minor, however, might give a very good account of himself with a man of his own size, and we hope soon to see him in the ring again. He has the knack of hitting hard and getting away. He was very little marked at the end of the battle, whereas his opponent's right eye will long bear the marks of his prowess.

(Signed) "LAWRENCE BASIL WEST, Esquire, "Referee."

I read this to Saunders minor, and he agreed with it all, except the bit about being in the ring again soon. He assured me he did not care about fighting in a general way, or want to live for it, like West and me, but only now and again for some very special reason, as in the case of Foster. At any rate, though the loser, he had done all he wanted to do, and Foster had a caution of an eye that went on turning different colours, like a firework, till the very end of the term.

Such a wonderful, bulgy and curious eye could not of course be overlooked even by such a blind bat as old Briggs; and, needless to say, Browne jolly soon saw it. Then the truth came out, and that was the end of the Good Conduct Prize as far as Foster was concerned. He was frightfully sick about it; and when it began to appear that owing to these extraordinary things I, of all people, must get the Good Conduct Prize, he was sicker still, and called it a burlesque of justice, whatever that may be.

Anyway, it actually happened, and when prize day came, it was a clear and evident thing that I, Thwaites, had got the Good Conduct Prize in the third form. The Doctor began to read out the name; then, evidently under the idea that he had got it wrong, stopped and whispered to Mr. Warren, our form master; and Mr. Warren nodded, and the Doctor put on a puzzled look. Then he dashed at it and read out my name, and I had to go up and get the prize.

"A pleasing and unexpected circumstance, Geoffrey Thwaites," said the Doctor. "To be frank, that you should achieve this palm of victory causes me no little astonishment; but I can assure you that my surprise is only equalled by my gratification. You have not forgotten what I said to you last term, and I hope this satisfactory amelioration of manners may, when we reassemble, be followed by a corresponding increase of scholastic achievement. It will be no small gratification to your father, Geoffrey Thwaites, to welcome you under these conditions, instead of with the usual melancholy addition of a holiday punishment."

Then the Doctor picked up the Good Conduct Prize with a sort of innocent, inquiring air that he always puts on when giving the prizes. He pretends to be frightfully astonished at the beauty and magnificence of each book in turn; which, considering he chooses them all himself, is fearful bosh, and deceives nobody but a few mothers, who sometimes come if their sons happen to have pulled off anything.

Now Dr. Dunstan picked up a tidy-looking book, as far as its outside was concerned.

"What have we here?" he said, as if he had just found a bird's nest. "Why, no less a classic than Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_! Fortunate boy! Here, bound in scarlet and gold, and richly illustrated, is a copy of that immortal work. Know, Thwaites, that in receiving the _Pilgrim's Progress_ you become enriched by possession of one among the noblest and most elevated and improving masterpieces in the English language. Take it and read it again and again, my lad; and when you shall have mastered it, lend it to those less fortunate, that they, too, may profit by the wisdom and piety of these luminous pages."

Then the chaps clapped and stamped, and I bowed and took the book, and shook hands with the Doctor and cleared out.

Needless to say, my father was even more astonished than Dr. Dunstan. I came into his study to wish him good-evening when I got home, and he said, "Well, boy, holidays again? How have you got on? Don't--don't tell me there's any more trouble!"

"Far from it, father," I said. "I've got a prize."

"Good Heavens!" said my father. "You--a prize. What on earth for?"

"You mightn't think it, but for good conduct," I said.

"Good _what_?" cried out my father.

"Good conduct," said my mother. "I always told you there was a mistake. A beautiful, expensive-looking book with his name in it, written by Dr. Dunstan himself--the name I mean--not the book."

"Wonders never cease," said my father. Then he added, "Well done, capital! I'm more pleased to hear this than you've any idea of. You must keep it up through the holidays, though."

"If Saunders minor had won it, his father was going to give him a silver watch and chain," I said, just to see how that would strike my father.

"No doubt Saunders minor's father felt perfectly safe," said my father.

Which shows how people misunderstand.

However, my father was jolly decent about it; and, in fact, so was everybody.

My sister asked me if I should read the Good Conduct Prize.

"The pictures are ripping," she said. "Giants and all sorts of things."

"The pictures, as you say, are ripping," I told her; "but, unfortunately, the story itself is far from ripping."

"How do you know if you haven't read it?" she said.

"By what the Doctor told me," I answered. "It is one of the noblest and most improving masterpieces in the English language, so, needless to say, I've got no use for it."

*TOMKINS ON 'TINNED COW'*

*No. XII*

*TOMKINS ON 'TINNED COW'*

Tin Lin Chow was his proper name, but we called him 'Tinned Cow,' though he never much liked it, and said that his father would have made it hot for us if we had been in China. But we were at Merivale School in England, so we reckoned that Tinned Cow was near enough, that being good English anyway.

The chap was exactly the same colour as the stomach of the guinea-pig of Vincent Peters; and his father was allowed to wear a gold button in his hat, so he said, that being a sign of a man who wrote books in China. He wrote Chinese books for a living, and when we asked Tinned Cow if his father could turn out stuff a patch on Henty or Mayne Reid, he said much better. But he had to confess afterwards that his father was only doing a history of China in a hundred volumes, or some such muck; so evidently he was no real good, for all his gold button.

When the kid first came to learn English and get English ideas--owing to his father having convinced himself that Chinese ideas were rotten--he rather gave himself airs, and seemed to think because he was somebody at Pekin he must be at Merivale; but the only person who made anything of him was the Doctor. He used to bring everything round to China--even arithmetic, and he evidently thought it was rather fine to have a mandarin's son in the school. Especially as Tinned Cow had brothers coming on, who might follow. What a mandarin is exactly, Tinned Cow didn't know himself; but he seemed to think they were about equal to dukes, which, of course, must be nonsense, because dukes can become kings in time, whereas mandarins can't be emperors. In fact, the only mandarins I ever heard of till then were oranges.

He was a frightful liar, but good as a maker of kites. And Browne, the master in the lower fourth, said that both things were common to the Chinese character. For mere lies we had Fowle and Steggles, and others, even better than Tinned Cow, because his knowledge of English wasn't up to lying without being found out for some terms; but at kites he could smash anybody. His kites, in fact, were corkers, and he taught us to kite-fight, which is not bad sport when there's nothing better on. Chinese kites are very light, and all made of tissue-paper and cane, or bamboo, split up fine. For a cane, Tinned Cow had the beautiful cheek to go into Dr. Dunstan's study, when he was reading prayers in the chapel, and rout about in the cane corner and steal a good specimen, and hide it in the gym. That was the first thing that made me like the kid. But he said it was nothing, and seemed surprised that I thought much of it. He also said that over the pictures in a huge volume of Shakespeare the Doctor had, was tissue-paper of such a choice kind that it must undoubtedly be Chinese, and that, if so, it was the best in the world for kites. He said that if I would allow him to be my chum, he would get several sheets of this paper in a quiet moment, and make me the best kite he had yet made. Well, I never guessed then what a Chinese kid really is in the way of being a worm; so I agreed, provided he made two kites and put my initials on them in silver paper from a packet of chocolate--the initials, of course, being N.T. They stand for Norman Tomkins--merely Tomkins now, but Tomkins major next term, when my young brother comes to Merivale.

The chap was so frightfully keen to become my chum (my being captain of the second footer eleven) that he agreed to the two kites without a murmur, and stole the tissue paper and used the cane for the framework. So, rather curiously, the tissue paper from a swagger Shakespeare and a bit of one of old Dunstan's canes soared up to a frightful height over the school; and it happened that the Doctor saw it, and, little dreaming of what was soaring, patted Tinned Cow on the head, and greatly praised him, and said that the art of kite-flying in China was tremendously ancient, and that in the matter of kites, as well as many other more important things, China had instructed the world. Yet, when Fuller tried to sneak a quill pen for a private purpose, believing the Doctor was not in the study at the time, whereas he had merely gone behind a screen to find a book, Fuller got five hundred lines and the eighth Commandment to translate into Latin and Greek, and French and German. Which shows that to be found out is its own punishment, as Steggles told Fuller afterwards.

Well, I let Tinned Cow be my chum, and found him fairly decent, considering he was a Chinaman, for two terms. Then he began to settle down and learn English and football, and say that Merivale was better by long chalks than China. In fact, he rather hated China really, and said, except for toys and sweets and fireworks, that England was really far better. I may mention that his feet were small, but not like pictures, and he said that only wretched girls had their feet squashed in his country. He had a sister whose feet were squashed, and he said that she was pretty, which must have been another lie, because pictures show all Chinese women to be exactly and hideously all alike. But he had to admit that English girls were prettier, because Trelawny made him, and also said that he'd tattoo a lion and unicorn on the middle of his chest if he didn't. So he yielded; in fact, he always yielded very readily to force, though Fowle often tried, unknown to me, to arrange a fight for him. He had no idea even of doubling a decent fist, and said that only wild beasts fight without proper weapons. But once he took on Bray with single-sticks, and they chose a half-holiday and went into the wood by the cricket ground and fought well for two hours and a half; and a bruise on a Chinese skin is very interesting to see. Bray turned yellow, then blue, that deepened to black on the fourth day; but Tinned Cow, from the usual putty-like tint of his body, went lead-colour where Bray whacked his arm and leg. And Tinned Cow's bravery surprised me; but it was a draw, and he assured me that he didn't care a bit about being alive, and would have gone on hammering and being hammered until Bray had killed him if necessary. He said that in his country, when two chaps are going to fight, they begin by cutting frightful attitudes, and standing in rum and awful positions, and sticking out their muscles and making faces, like Ajax defying the lightning in the Dictionary of Antiquities. This the idiots do, each hoping to terrify the other chap, and funk him, and so defeat him without striking a blow. Tinned Cow said that most battles were settled in this way; and once, when Martin minimus called him a yellow weasel, he puffed out his cheeks and frowned, as well as you can without eyebrows, and crooked his hands like a bird's claws and tried to horrify Martin minimus, which he did; but it was young Martin's first term, and the kid was barely eight years old.

Now I come to that little brute Milly Dunstan, the Doctor's youngest daughter. She didn't care much about Tinned Cow at first, for she always takes about three terms to see what a new chap's like; but after the mandarin in China had sent Dr. Dunstan a gift of some rusty armour and screens and old religious books--more like window-blinds than decent books--and a live Chinese dog with a tongue like as if it had been licking ink, then Milly, who's the greediest little hateful wretch, even for a girl, I ever saw, suddenly dropped Blount, whose father was merely a lawyer, and began to encourage Tinned Cow like anything. He didn't understand her character as I and a few other chaps did. Bruce and Mathers and Fordyce knew her real nature, because she had pretty well absorbed all their pocket-money for term after term; and so I told Tinned Cow that her blue eyes and curls and little silly ways generally were simply a whitewashed sepulchre, and certainly wouldn't last longer than a hamper from Pekin; which, I told him, he'd jolly soon find out. But there's nothing so obstinate as the Chinese nation; and if she'd asked him for his pigtail, I believe Tinned Cow would have chopped it off for her, though he would not have dared to go home to his father after that till he'd grown a new one.

It seemed rather a horrid thing, Mathers said, a Christian girl to encourage a chap the colour of parsnips, not to mention his eyes, which were like buttonholes; but that was only because Milly had chucked Mathers; and we all knew what she really was; and, as Steggles said, she'd have sacrificed her whole family for a new sort of lemon drop; and of course when Tinned Cow found out how mad she was after sweets, he wrote to China, to his mother, for the best sweets in Pekin; which she sent. But while he was waiting for them, the Chinese dog got homesick, or something, and bit the boot-boy and was poisoned painlessly. Still Milly stuck to Tinned Cow, and walked openly about the playing-fields on match-days with him. And silly grown-up women, little knowing the bitter truth, said it was just like Dr. Dunstan's dear little girl to encourage a poor lonely foreign kid; but we knew what she was encouraging him for well enough.

In fact, Tinned Cow had translated part of his letter home to me. It was in Chinese characters, and went down the paper instead of along, and looked as if you'd dipped a grasshopper in ink and then put him out to dry. But his mother evidently understood, and sent such sweets as were never before sucked in England--since the Christian era very likely. And Tinned Cow had also asked for one of his mother's precious rings for Milly; but this he didn't much expect her to send; and she didn't. So he bought Milly a ring from a proper ring-shop with three weeks' pocket-money; which, seeing that he had the huge sum of five bob a week, amounted to fifteen shillings; and it had a real precious stone in it, though no one, not even Gideon, exactly knew what.

Anyway, Milly wore it at chapel, and flashed it at Tinned Cow when the Doctor had his back turned saying the Litany. And Blount said the flash of it was like a knife in his heart. Which shows what a footling ass Blount was over this wretched girl. I warned Tinned Cow, all the same, that he'd simply chucked fifteen bob away; because she'd change again the moment his Chinese sweets were finished. And she never gave back presents when she changed; as Millbrook had found to his cost, being an awfully rich chap, who gave her a bracelet that cost one pound ten--so he said. And when she threw him over and wouldn't give it up, Millbrook, who was certainly rich but a frightful hound, went to the Doctor. So he got his bracelet and left soon afterwards; and Milly, much to her horror, was sent to a boarding school for a term or two. But then old Dunstan, who is simply an infant in Milly's hands, gave way and let her come home again because she cried over a letter and splashed it with tears, or more likely common water, and told him that nobody in the world could teach her Greek but him. Which shows the cunningness of her. And many suchlike things she did.

Myself, though I despise all girls, I never hated one worse than this. The best a girl can be at any time is harmless; but Milly Dunstan was brimful of trickery, and, just because her eyes were accidentally blue, thought she could score off everybody and everything. Not that she ever scored off me. She knew that I barred her altogether, and scorned me in consequence, and called me "Master Tomkins" to make me waxy, me being only about four months younger than her.

She got his mother's pet name for him out of Tinned Cow, and called him by it in secret. Not that I ever heard it, or wanted to. And she also gave out that anybody calling him Tinned Cow any more would be her enemy; and one or two chaps were feeble enough actually to stop.

She utterly wrecked his character. Before, he'd been as keen as knives about sport and so on, and there is no doubt that he would have got into the second footer team next term if Gregson minor had passed his exam. for the army. But Milly Dunstan didn't care a straw about footer, though she understood cricket fairly well for a girl; and so Tinned Cow, like a fool, gave up all hope of getting on at footer, at which he promised to be some use, and went in like mad for cricket, at which he never could be any earthly good whatever. And that made another row, because Milly promised to walk twice round old Dunstan's private garden with Street, the captain of the third eleven (cricket), if he'd give Tinned Cow a trial in an unimportant match; and Street said "Right." And they went, during prep., and it happened that the Doctor, coming out of his greenhouse, caught them; and Street got five hundred lines; which naturally made him in such a bate, thinking it was a trap, that he refused to try Tinned Cow for ever.

I'm sure I did all I could, for, though I'd lost any feeling for him since he let this girl sit on him, still I was his chum once. And I tried to save him, and asked him, many a time and oft, why he let himself go dotty about a skimpy girl. And he said that it was her skimpiness he liked, for she put him in mind of his sister--only his sister was smaller, and, of course, had squashed feet. To see a girl who can walk about seems to be a fearful treat to the Chinese; so what they let theirs all squash their feet for, the Lord knows.

Tinned Cow confessed to me that Milly Dunstan was pretty sharp, and had been reading up all about China in one of the Doctor's books. In fact, he confessed also that she knew a lot more about China in general than he did. And some things she liked, and some she hated; and especially the marriage customs she hated; and she told Tinned Cow that unless he let her father marry them in a proper Christian church when the time came, it was off. So he promised; and he also promised, though very reluctantly, not to say a word about it to Dr. Dunstan until he got to be head of the sixth and the school. But he knew that at the rate he was going, he would never get there till he was at least fifty years old. And sons of mandarins marry very early indeed in their own country, so he said--as soon as they like, in fact--so Tinned Cow promised about getting to the top of the sixth reluctantly. Then he took to working and swatting; yet all his swatting only got him into the lower fourth in three terms. Then, seeing what a lot it meant getting into the sixth, and what a frightful hard thing it was, especially for a foreigner, to do it, Tinned Cow fell back upon the customs of his country; and his methods of cribbing were certainly fine and new. But they couldn't get him into the sixth, let alone to the top of it; and he tried still other Chinese customs in an arithmetic exam, and attempted to bribe Mr. Thwaites with four weeks' pocket-money--a pound, in fact--if he would arrange to let him get enough marks to go up a form. Of course, everybody knew that Mr. Thwaites had a wife and hundreds of small children at Merivale, and, though a sixteenth wrangler in olden times, was at present frightfully hard up. But what is a paltry pound to a sixteenth wrangler? Anyway Mr. Thwaites raged with great fierceness and took Tinned Cow to the Doctor; and as the Doctor hates strategy of this kind, he made it jolly hot for Tinned Cow and flogged him pretty badly. I asked if it hurt, being the first time the Doctor had ever flogged him, and he said the only thing that hurt was the horrid feeling that he'd offered too little to Thwaites. He said that in his country, and especially among mandarins, offering too little was almost as great a crime as offering too much, and that he deserved to be flogged on the feet as well as elsewhere. He said that his father was such a good judge of people that he always offered just the right sum; and he felt certain that in the case of Thwaites not a penny less than ten pounds ought to have been offered. It was the well-known hard-upishness of Thwaites that made him think a pound would do; but now, seeing what a little way money seemed to go with a man, he felt about the only chap within reach of being bribed was the drill sergeant; and of course he couldn't help Tinned Cow to get into the sixth. Besides, the drill sergeant had fought in China in his early days, and he had a sort of warlike repugnance against Tinned Cow that would have taken at least several pounds to get over.

So things went on until the arrival of the sweets from China; and they were all right, though Tinned Cow told me that Milly wasn't as keen about them as he expected, or at any rate she pretended not to be. The truth is that some of the very swaggerest Chinese sweets take nearly a lifetime thoroughly to like; and by the time that Milly began to feel the remarkable splendour of this sort, she'd finished them. However, she was fairly just--for her, and didn't throw the beggar over before the taste of the last sweet was out of her mouth, as you might have expected. In fact, she kept friendly for a matter of several weeks; and then she began to get rather sick of his Chinese ways--so she said--and cool off towards him, even though in his despair he promised to become a Christian and get her idols and fireworks and many other curiosities that probably wouldn't have been sent even if he'd written home for them.

But Chinese chaps have quite different ideas to English chaps, owing to their bringing-up; and things we utterly bar and consider caddish, such as sneaking, a Chinese chap will do freely without the least idea he is making a beast of himself. I didn't know this, or else I should never have allowed Tinned Cow to be my chum, but at last I discovered the fatal truth; and the worst of it was that he sneaked against my bitterest enemy, called Forrester, thinking that he was doing a right and proper thing towards me.

This chap Forrester I hated for many reasons, but chiefly because he'd beaten me, by about ten marks only, in a Scripture exam, owing to knowing the names of the father and mother of Moses, which are not generally known. I always had a fixed idea, funnily enough, that Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter; and I said so, and I added, as a shot--for shots often come off, though they are dangerous--that Holy Writ was quite silent concerning the father of Moses. And the Doctor frightfully hates a shot that misses, so I had to write out the whole business of Moses fifty times, till I was sick of the very name of the man; whereas Forrester won the prize. Well, this Forrester kept sardines in his desk and ate them freely during Monsieur Michel's class. But one tin, already opened, he forgot for several weeks, owning to its getting hidden behind his paint-box and caterpillar cage. And these sardines--being rather doubtful of them when he found them again--he gave to Milly Dunstan's Persian kitten; and Tinned Cow saw him do it. Well, the kitten showed that Forrester was quite right to be doubtful about the sardines by dying. It disappeared from that very hour, and was believed to have gone next door to die, as cats are generally very unwilling to die in their own homes, and always go next door to do so, curious to say. And Milly was in an awful bate when Tinned Cow told her, thinking it would please me; whereas, if anything could have made me get friends with Forrester again, it would have been to know he'd got this terrific score off Milly Dunstan. But her rage against Forrester was pretty frightful--especially, she said, because a boy whose strong point was Scripture could have done this thing; and she made Tinned Cow tell the Doctor; and such was his piffling weakness where she was concerned, that he did. But old Dunstan, who hated cats, and did not mind the kitten going in the least, said it was a case of circumstantial evidence--whatever that is--and the proofs of the cat's death were too slight, seeing the body couldn't be found, and also remembering a cat's power of eating sardines, even when a bit off. Then he turned against Tinned Cow, and told him that the character of an informer ill became any pupil of Dunstan's, and that to try and undo a fellow-student might be Oriental but was far from English, and so on--all in words that you can find in dictionaries, but nowhere else that I ever heard of.

Which showed the Doctor wasn't so keen about Tinned Cow as he used to be; and that was chiefly because Tinned Cow's younger brother was not coming to be educated in England after all, as Dr. Dunstan had hoped, but was going to Germany instead.

Anyway, when it was found out that Tinned Cow was a sneak--by birth, as you might say--chaps naturally flung him over; and Maynard refused to let the kid fag for him any more; and I, of course, told him that I was no longer his chum. He made a frightful fuss about this, and implored me to go on being his chum, and offered me a Chinese charm that had undoubtedly been the eye of a Buddhist idol in its time; but he was such an utter worm, and took such a Chinese view of things, that I had to refuse the charm and let him go. He was frightfully down about it, and slunk about in corners and offered to make kites for the smallest kids in the school--simply that he might have somebody friendly to him.

Then, when I think he was beginning to change his mind about England being better than China, the last straw came in the shape of a new boy called Vernon Vere--a chap of a good age--sixteen at least. He was the nephew of a viscount, or a marquis, or some such person, and he explained that with any luck he would be a marquis himself some day, because his only brother, though older, having shaky lungs, for which he was in the Canary Islands at that moment, might pass away and lose his turn.

I heard what followed from Corkey minimus, who was Milly's spy and carrier, for which he got a peach from the Doctor's orchard-house now and again in summer; but only ones that fell off. He told me that Milly received no less than three letters from Vernon Vere before he'd been at Merivale a month. And the third she answered.

So we knew that Tinned Cow was done for; and very soon he found it out himself, and then he turned several shades yellower and moped in the gymnasium for hours together, and lost all hope of doing any good at work, and sank down to the bottom of the lower fourth and spent all his spare time doing impositions. He went about like a dog that's frightened of being kicked; and many chaps did kick him, out of sheer cheerfulness, because he seemed as if he only wanted a kick to complete the picture. Then, one day, very civilly, he asked Freckles for his celebrated bowie-knife, that he goes bush-ranging with on half-holidays, and Freckles very kindly lent it, after Tinned Cow had promised not to cut anything harder than wood with it. Then Tinned Cow thanked him and went into the gym., saying that he only wanted to cut something soft. He didn't come back, and when the bell rang, Freckles and I--he being rather anxious about his bowie-knife--went up to the gym. to see what Tinned Cow was after. Suddenly Freckles shouted out from the shower-bath room, and, hearing him yell, I rushed in. And there was the wretched Tinned Cow in a most horrible mess. He'd taken off his shirt and given himself a dig in the ribs, or possibly two, and he was lying in a comfortable position bleeding to death. At least, so he hoped; and he begged us earnestly to mind our own business and leave him to 'salute the world,' as he said, without any bother. But we hooked it for Thwaites and Browne and Mannering; and they came and carried him in; and ruined their clothes with Chinese gore.

Of course we all thought Tinned Cow was booked, and Freckles, knowing the deadly sharpness of his knife, said the kid must kick to a certainty if he'd used the knife with proper care. Yet, strange to relate, he didn't die, but lived; which seemed to show that the knife of Freckles wasn't nearly such a fine one as he fancied. But he said that it only showed Tinned Cow had lost his nerve, and funked what he was doing at the critical moment.

Two mornings afterwards Dr. Dunstan told us all about it after prayers.

"This unhappy Asiatic," he said, "this young Celestial, from the pagan fastnesses of his native land, despite months not a few of tuition in this our manly and civilized atmosphere of Merivale, has relapsed upon the degraded and barbaric customs of a great but benighted country--a proof of the natural cowardice and baseness of the human heart when unillumined by the light of Christianity. The vain folly, which led him to his rash act is not for your ears. Let it suffice that Tin Lin Chow in a fit of mental infirmity, not to say active insanity, sought to deliver himself from imaginary miseries by the act of self-destruction--the 'hari-kari,' or 'happy dispatch,' as we translate it, of the Chinese. Thanks to fear at the crucial moment, or an ignorance of his own anatomy, or, as we should rather believe, the direct interposition of a merciful Providence that still has work for him to do, Tin Lin Chow failed of his fearful project and is now out of danger. For the rest, I may inform you that your comrade, when fit to travel, will return to his native land, and I can only hope and pray that the traditions of Merivale, its teaching and its tone, will cleave to him and leave their mark upon his character."

Of course the thing that was not for our ears was the reason why this little Chinese idiot had tried to kill himself. And that was because Milly Dunstan and everybody else had chucked him, but especially Milly. Anyway, his vitals healed up in a fortnight, and after six weeks or so had passed by, he was back at school again. But only for a few days. Then a ship sailed from London for China and, as Steggles very truly said, the only 'happy dispatch' that Tinned Cow got was a dispatch back to his native land. And probably he liked it better than England, when all was said and done; because the schools out there have got no sixth forms, so he told us. Therefore he'll be all right very likely--and live to thank his stars that he didn't kill himself after all. Though myself, I think he honestly tried and the fault was in the knife. Still, after two such sickening failures--I mean Milly Dunstan, and the attempt to hari-kari himself--I expect the kid won't ever want to make friends with girls again, or try to gash open his stomach, but just lead an ordinary sort of life without fuss, like other people do.

I made it up with him in a sort of way after his attempt to kill himself failed; and he explained to me how he ought to have done it; but the details were no use to me, because I wouldn't do it myself for all the girls in the world. Then Tinned Cow left, and he seemed sorry to go at the last moment; and he promised to send me some chopsticks and some chrysanthemum and other flower seeds of beautiful plants--knowing how frightfully keen I was about flowers--and materials for birds'-nest soup and other interesting things. But he never sent one of them; and I never thought he would, and didn't count upon it in the least, because, once back in his own country, where everybody tells lies from morning till night, simply from the habit of centuries and centuries, owing to China being the birthplace of civilization, you couldn't expect the beggar to keep his word.

And I expect nobody in this country will ever hear of him again. Not that that matters. But if I ever go to China, which I very likely shall do when I have time, I may look him up, I think--just to see if he got any good from coming over here. But I shouldn't think he really did.

THE END

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

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*DICKENS FOR THE PLATFORM*

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*IN PROSE*

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