The White Feather

by P. G. Wodehouse

  It was his last effort. He could do no more. Everything seemed black to him. He leaned against the ropes and drank in the air in great gulps.

  "Time!" said the referee.

  The word was lost in the shouts that rose from the packed seats.

  Sheen tottered to his corner and sat down.

  "Keep it up, sir, keep it up," said a voice. "Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Don't forget the guard. And the straight left beats the world."

  It was Joe—at the eleventh hour.

  With a delicious feeling of content Sheen leaned back in his chair. It would be all right now. He felt that the matter had been taken out of his hands. A more experienced brain than his would look after the generalship of the fight.

  As the moments of the half-minute's rest slid away he discovered the truth of Joe's remarks on the value of a good second. In his other fights the napping of the towel had hardly stirred the hair on his forehead. Joe's energetic arms set a perfect gale blowing. The cool air revived him. He opened his mouth and drank it in. A spongeful of cold water completed the cure. Long before the call of Time he was ready for the next round.

  "Keep away from him, sir," said Joe, "and score with that left of yours. Don't try the right yet. Keep it for guarding. Box clever. Don't let him corner you. Slip him when he rushes. Cool and steady does it. Don't aim at his face too much. Go down below. That's the de-partment. And use your feet. Get about quick, and you'll find he don't like that. Hullo, says he, I can't touch him. Then, when he's tired, go in."

  The pupil nodded with closed eyes.

  While these words of wisdom were proceeding from the mouth of Mr Bevan, another conversation was taking place which would have interested Sheen if he could have heard it. Mr Spence and the school instructor were watching the final from the seats under the side windows.

  "It's extraordinary," said Mr Spence. "The boy's wonderfully good for the short time he has been learning. You ought to be proud of your pupil."

  "Sir?"

  "I was saying that Sheen does you credit."

  "Not me, sir."

  "What! He told me he had been taking lessons. Didn't you teach him?"

  "Never set eyes on him, till this moment. Wish I had, sir. He's the sort of pupil I could wish for."

  Mr Spence bent forward and scanned the features of the man who was attending the Wrykinian.

  "Why," he said, "surely that's Bevan—Joe Bevan! I knew him at Cambridge."

  "Yes, sir, that's Bevan," replied the instructor. "He teaches boxing at Wrykyn now, sir."

  "At Wrykyn—where?"

  "Up the river—at the 'Blue Boar', sir," said the instructor, quite innocently—for it did not occur to him that this simple little bit of information was just so much incriminating evidence against Sheen.

  Mr Spence said nothing, but he opened his eyes very wide. Recalling his recent conversation with Sheen, he remembered that the boy had told him he had been taking lessons, and also that Joe Bevan, the ex-pugilist, had expressed a high opinion of his work. Mr Spence had imagined that Bevan had been a chance spectator of the boy's skill; but it would now seem that Bevan himself had taught Sheen. This matter, decided Mr Spence, must be looked into, for it was palpable that Sheen had broken bounds in order to attend Bevan's boxing-saloon up the river.

  For the present, however, Mr Spence was content to say nothing.

  * * *

  Sheen came up for the second round fresh and confident. His head was clear, and his breath no longer came in gasps. There was to be no rallying this time. He had had the worst of the first round, and meant to make up his lost points.

  Peteiro, losing no time, dashed in. Sheen met him with a left in the face, and gave way a foot. Again Peteiro rushed, and again he was stopped. As he bored in for the third time Sheen slipped him. The Ripton man paused, and dropped his guard for a moment.

  Sheen's left shot out once more, and found its mark. Peteiro swung his right viciously, but without effect. Another swift counter added one more point to Sheen's score.

  Sheen nearly chuckled. It was all so beautifully simple. What a fool he had been to mix it up in the first round. If he only kept his head and stuck to out-fighting he could win with ease. The man couldn't box. He was nothing more than a slogger. Here he came, as usual, with the old familiar rush. Out went his left. But it missed its billet. Peteiro had checked his rush after the first movement, and now he came in with both hands. It was the first time during the round that he had got to close quarters, and he made the most of it. Sheen's blows were as frequent, but his were harder. He drove at the body, right and left; and once again the call of Time extricated Sheen from an awkward position. As far as points were concerned he had had the best of the round, but he was very sore and bruised. His left side was one dull ache.

  "Keep away from him, sir," said Joe Bevan. "You were ahead on that round. Keep away all the time unless he gets tired. But if you see me signalling, then go in all you can and have a fight."

  There was a suspicion of weariness about the look of the Ripton champion as he shook hands for the last round. He was beginning to feel the effects of his hurricane fighting in the opening rounds. He began quietly, sparring for an opening. Sheen led with his left. Peteiro was too late with his guard. Sheen tried again—a double lead. His opponent guarded the first blow, but the second went home heavily on the body, and he gave way a step.

  Then from the corner of his eye Sheen saw Bevan gesticulating wildly, so, taking his life in his hands, he abandoned his waiting game, dropped his guard, and dashed in to fight. Peteiro met him doggedly. For a few moments the exchanges were even. Then suddenly the Riptonian's blows began to weaken. He got home his right on the head, and Sheen hardly felt it. And in a flash there came to him the glorious certainty that the game was his.

  He was winning—winning—winning.

  * * *

  "That's enough," said the referee.

  The Ripton man was leaning against the ropes, utterly spent, at almost the same spot where Sheen had leaned at the end of the first round. The last attack had finished him. His seconds helped him to his corner.

  The referee waved his hand.

  "Sheen wins," he said.

  And that was the greatest moment of his life.

  A SURPRISE FOR SEYMOUR'S

  Seymour's house took in one copy of the Sportsman daily. On the morning after the Aldershot competition Linton met the paper-boy at the door on his return from the fives courts, where he had been playing a couple of before-breakfast games with Dunstable. He relieved him of the house copy, and opened it to see how the Wrykyn pair had performed in the gymnastics. He did not expect anything great, having a rooted contempt for both experts, who were small and, except in the gymnasium, obscure. Indeed, he had gone so far on the previous day as to express a hope that Biddle, the more despicable of the two, would fall off the horizontal bar and break his neck. Still he might as well see where they had come out. After all, with all their faults, they were human beings like himself, and Wrykinians.

  The competition was reported in the Boxing column. The first thing that caught his eye was the name of the school among the headlines. "Honours", said the headline, "for St Paul's, Harrow, and Wrykyn".

  "Hullo," said Linton, "what's all this?"

  Then the thing came on him with nothing to soften the shock. He had folded the paper, and the last words on the half uppermost were, "Final. Sheen beat Peteiro".

  Linton had often read novels in which some important document "swam before the eyes" of the hero or the heroine; but he had never understood the full meaning of the phrase until he read those words, "Sheen beat Peteiro".

  There was no mistake about it. There the thing was. It was impossible for the Sportsman to have been hoaxed. No, the incredible, outrageous fact must be faced. Sheen had been down to Aldershot and won a silver medal! Sheen! Sheen!! Sheen who had—who was—well, who, in a word, was SHEEN!!!

  Linton read on lik
e one in a dream.

  "The Light-Weights fell," said the writer, "to a newcomer Sheen, of Wrykyn" (Sheen!), "a clever youngster with a strong defence and a beautiful straight left, doubtless the result of tuition from the middle-weight ex-champion, Joe Bevan, who was in his corner for the final bout. None of his opponents gave him much trouble except Peteiro of Ripton, whom he met in the final. A very game and determined fight was seen when these two met, but Sheen's skill and condition discounted the rushing tactics of his adversary, and in the last minute of the third round the referee stopped the encounter." (Game and determined! Sheen!!) "Sympathy was freely expressed for Peteiro, who has thus been runner-up two years in succession. He, however, met a better man, and paid the penalty. The admirable pluck with which Sheen bore his punishment and gradually wore his man down made his victory the most popular of the day's programme."

  Well!

  Details of the fighting described Sheen as "cutting out the work", "popping in several nice lefts", "swinging his right for the point", and executing numerous other incredible manœuvres.

  Sheen!

  You caught the name correctly? SHEEN, I'll trouble you.

  Linton stared blankly across the school grounds. Then he burst into a sudden yell of laughter.

  On that very morning the senior day-room was going to court-martial Sheen for disgracing the house. The resolution had been passed on the previous afternoon, probably just as he was putting the finishing touches to the "most popular victory of the day's programme". "This," said Linton, "is rich."

  He grubbed a little hole in one of Mr Seymour's flower-beds, and laid the Sportsman to rest in it. The news would be about the school at nine o'clock, but if he could keep it from the senior day-room till the brief interval between breakfast and school, all would be well, and he would have the pure pleasure of seeing that backbone of the house make a complete ass of itself. A thought struck him. He unearthed the Sportsman, and put it in his pocket.

  He strolled into the senior day-room after breakfast.

  "Any one seen the Sporter this morning?" he inquired.

  No one had seen it.

  "The thing hasn't come," said some one.

  "Good!" said Linton to himself.

  At this point Stanning strolled into the room. "I'm a witness," he said, in answer to Linton's look of inquiry. "We're doing this thing in style. I depose that I saw the prisoner cutting off on the—whatever day it was, when he ought to have been saving our lives from the fury of the mob. Hadn't somebody better bring the prisoner into the dock?"

  "I'll go," said Linton promptly. "I may be a little time, but don't get worried. I'll bring him all right."

  He went upstairs to Sheen's study, feeling like an impresario about to produce a new play which is sure to create a sensation.

  Sheen was in. There was a ridge of purple under his left eye, but he was otherwise intact.

  "'Gratulate you, Sheen," said Linton.

  For an instant Sheen hesitated. He had rehearsed this kind of scene in his mind, and sometimes he saw himself playing a genial, forgiving, let's-say-no-more-about-it-we-all-make-mistakes-but-in-future! role, sometimes being cold haughty, and distant, and repelling friendly advances with icy disdain. If anybody but Linton had been the first to congratulate him he might have decided on this second line of action. But he liked Linton, and wanted to be friendly with him.

  "Thanks," he said.

  Linton sat down on the table and burst into a torrent of speech.

  "You are a man! What did you want to do it for? Where the dickens did you learn to box? And why on earth, if you can win silver medals at Aldershot, didn't you box for the house and smash up that sidey ass Stanning? I say, look here, I suppose we haven't been making idiots of ourselves all the time, have we?"

  "I shouldn't wonder," said Sheen. "How?"

  "I mean, you did—What I mean to say is—Oh, hang it, you know! You did cut off when we had that row in the town, didn't you?"

  "Yes," said Sheen, "I did."

  With that medal in his pocket it cost him no effort to make the confession.

  "I'm glad of that. I mean, I'm glad we haven't been such fools as we might have been. You see, we only had Stanning's word to go on."

  Sheen started.

  "Stanning!" he said. "What do you mean?"

  "He was the chap who started the story. Didn't you know? He told everybody."

  "I thought it was Drummond," said Sheen blankly. "You remember meeting me outside his study the day after? I thought he told you then."

  "Drummond! Not a bit of it. He swore you hadn't been with him at all. He was as sick as anything when I said I thought I'd seen you with him."

  "I—" Sheen stopped. "I wish I'd known," he concluded. Then, after a pause, "So it was Stanning!"

  "Yes,—conceited beast. Oh. I say."

  "Um?"

  "I see it all now. Joe Bevan taught you to box."

  "Yes."

  "Then that's how you came to be at the 'Blue Boar' that day. He's the Bevan who runs it."

  "That's his brother. He's got a gymnasium up at the top. I used to go there every day."

  "But I say, Great Scott, what are you going to do about that?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "Why, Spence is sure to ask you who taught you to box. He must know you didn't learn with the instructor. Then it'll all come out, and you'll get dropped on for going up the river and going to the pub."

  "Perhaps he won't ask," said Sheen.

  "Hope not. Oh, by the way—"

  "What's up?"

  "Just remembered what I came up for. It's an awful rag. The senior day-room are going to court-martial you."

  "Court-martial me!"

  "For funking. They don't know about Aldershot, not a word. I bagged the Sportsman early, and hid it. They are going to get the surprise of their lifetime. I said I'd come up and fetch you."

  "I shan't go," said Sheen.

  Linton looked alarmed.

  "Oh, but I say, you must. Don't spoil the thing. Can't you see what a rag it'll be?"

  "I'm not going to sweat downstairs for the benefit of the senior day-room."

  "I say," said Linton, "Stanning's there."

  "What!"

  "He's a witness," said Linton, grinning.

  Sheen got up.

  "Come on," he said.

  Linton came on.

  * * *

  Down in the senior day-room the court was patiently awaiting the prisoner. Eager anticipation was stamped on its expressive features.

  "Beastly time he is," said Clayton. Clayton was acting as president.

  "We shall have to buck up," said Stanning. "Hullo, here he is at last. Come in, Linton."

  "I was going to," said Linton, "but thanks all the same. Come along, Sheen."

  "Shut that door, Linton," said Stanning from his seat on the table.

  "All right, Stanning," said Linton. "Anything to oblige. Shall I bring up a chair for you to rest your feet on?"

  "Forge ahead, Clayton," said Stanning to the president.

  The president opened the court-martial in unofficial phraseology.

  "Look here, Sheen," he said, "we've come to the conclusion that this has got a bit too thick."

  "You mustn't talk in that chatty way, Clayton," interrupted Linton. "'Prisoner at the bar's' the right expression to use. Why don't you let somebody else have a look in? You're the rottenest president of a court-martial I ever saw."

  "Don't rag, Linton," said Clayton, with an austere frown. "This is serious."

  "Glad you told me," said Linton. "Go on."

  "Can't you sit down, Linton!" said Stanning.

  "I was only waiting for leave. Thanks. You were saying something, Clayton. It sounded pretty average rot, but you'd better unburden your soul."

  The president resumed.

  "We want to know if you've anything to say—"

  "You don't give him a chance," said Lin
ton. "You bag the conversation so."

  "—about disgracing the house."

  "By getting the Gotford, you know, Sheen," explained Linton. "Clayton thinks that work's a bad habit, and ought to be discouraged."

  Clayton glared, and looked at Stanning. He was not equal to the task of tackling Linton himself.

  Stanning interposed.

  "Don't rot, Linton. We haven't much time as it is."

  "Sorry," said Linton.

  "You've let the house down awfully," said Clayton.

  "Yes?" said Sheen.

  Linton took the paper out of his pocket, and smoothed it out.

  "Seen the Sporter?" he asked casually. His neighbour grabbed at it.

  "I thought it hadn't come," he said.

  "Good account of Aldershot," said Linton.

  He leaned back in his chair as two or three of the senior day-room collected round the Sportsman.

  "Hullo! We won the gym.!"

  "Rot! Let's have a look!"

  This tremendous announcement quite eclipsed the court-martial as an object of popular interest. The senior day-room surged round the holder of the paper.

  "Give us a chance," he protested.

  "We can't have. Where is it? Biddle and Smith are simply hopeless. How the dickens can they have got the shield?"

  "What a goat you are!" said a voice reproachfully to the possessor of the paper. "Look at this. It says Cheltenham got it. And here we are—seventeenth. Fat lot of shield we've won."

  "Then what the deuce does this mean? 'Honours for St Paul's, Harrow, and Wrykyn'."

  "Perhaps it refers to the boxing," suggested Linton.

  "But we didn't send any one up. Look here. Harrow won the Heavies. St Paul's got the Middles. Hullo!"

  "Great Scott!" said the senior day-room.

  There was a blank silence. Linton whistled softly to himself.

  The gaze of the senior day-room was concentrated on that ridge of purple beneath Sheen's left eye.

  Clayton was the first to speak. For some time he had been waiting for sufficient silence to enable him to proceed with his presidential duties. He addressed himself to Sheen.