Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “About David,” he said. “It’s only energy, Frank, and not viciousness. You gave just the same sort of trouble yourself, when you were his age.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Maddox. “But I don’t believe I was ever quite such a nuisance as David is. If ever there’s a crash in the house, it’s always David breaking a window or throwing his boots at somebody.”

  “Can’t you do anything with him?” asked Adams. “He’ll listen to you when he won’t attend to a word I say.”

  “Oh, he listens to me all right, “ said Maddox; “but then, he forgets. Besides, he’s so awfully funny: he makes me laugh.”

  Adams lit his pipe and sat down on the floor in front of the fire, for Maddox happened to be occupying his particular arm-chair. At the moment all the electric lights went out.

  “I’d bet a shilling,” said Maddox, “that David’s at the bottom of that. Shall I go and see, sir?”

  “Yes, do, and then come back.”

  Maddox felt his way along the passage to David’s study, and knocked. He always knocked before he went into other people’s rooms.

  “Come in,” shouted David. “But take care of yourself, whoever you are. There are inkpots about, and it’s as dark as hell and smells of cheese. Good old Bags; fancy finding a candle in this den. Hullo, Frank!”

  “Have you been fooling with the electric light?” asked Maddox.

  “Yes, of course. This beastly plug didn’t work and so I dug a knife into its bowels, and something went off, and gave me an awful start.”

  “Ass!” said Maddox. “You’ve put out the lights all over this passage and Adams’s study.”

  “Oh, what larks!” said David. “Let’s have a procession of the unemployed, who want to work like good little saps, and can’t work in the dark. Let’s—”

  “Let me just get at you,” said Maddox, as David dodged round the table. “I’ll teach you—”

  David squealed with hideous resonance.

  “Well, it wasn’t my fault,” he said. “I only jabbed it with a knife. Wow! Spare me! Have mercy upon me! Wow!”

  Frank drove David to a corner and punched him heavily in the ribs, and boxed his ears, and smacked his head. Summary and effectual justice being then done, he observed David’s patent lashed pens.

  “I know that trick,” he said. “What! is the virtuous Bags doing lines too?”

  “Oh yes,” said Bags airily. “Some of the fourth ‘Æneid.’”

  “For David, I suppose, eh?”

  “Well, yes,” said Bags.

  “How many lines is it this time?” asked Maddox. “And what for?”

  “Five hundred,” said David. “At present for a good little Owlers. Gosh, I wish you wouldn’t hit so hard.”

  “Do you? And what has good little Owlers done?”

  David began to laugh.

  “Oh, Lord, it was funny,” he said. “It was worth five hundred lines. He’s just as blind as possible, blinder than Tovey, you know; and I thought it was very likely I shouldn’t be put on construing—”

  “Why?” asked Maddox.

  “Oh, I don’t know; it seemed likely. Well, he was taking us in the museum, so I fetched down a stuffed seal, and stuck it up in my place, so that if he counted heads I should be there, and then I went to play squash. Bags, you go on. I didn’t see.”

  Bags took up the wondrous tale.

  “There we all were,” said Bags, “with the seal sitting up in David’s place. I saw Owlers count heads, and then we began construing. Then it didn’t quite pan out as David expected, for after a bit Owlers said ‘Go on, Blaize,’ and of course the seal didn’t say anything whatever.”

  “Poor thing, how could it?” said David.

  “And then Owlers said, looking very kind, ‘Perhaps you haven’t prepared quite as far, Blaize.’

  But the seal had nothing to say to that, and Owlers asked him why he didn’t answer. And then Owlers gave him a long jaw, and told him he was sulky, and there the seal sat with his glass eyes fixed on the ceiling. Finally Owlers got awful sick with him, and set him five hundred lines.”

  It was no use trying not to laugh: the idea of Owlers jawing the seal was too much for Maddox, and the three went off into peals of laughter.

  “And didn’t he spot the seal at all?” asked Maddox at length.

  “Rather not. He went tottering out at the end of the hour, just reminding the seal to show them up to-morrow.”

  David took up his double pen again.

  “Oh! wish somebody else had done it,” he said, “for I missed Owlers jawing the seal. But it was my idea.”

  Maddox got up.

  “Well, you’ll get into worse trouble if you don’t look out,” he said. “I’m talking you over with Adams.”

  “Oh, may I come and listen outside the door?”

  “You may not.”

  “Well, stick up for me,” said David encouragingly.

  Maddox went back to his house master, still giggling.

  “Well, did David make the darkness?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, rather. He investigated the electric plug with a knife, and something went off, he said. So I hit him about. They’re putting another fuse in.”

  He laughed again.

  “David was writing five hundred lines as usual,” he said, “with Bags helping. I think I must tell you why.”

  Adams made no attempt at gravity and shook with laughter.

  “But it can’t go on, “he said. “David’s becoming a nuisance, and gating him and giving him lines to write is no earthly good. What he wants is a good licking and plenty of exercise. There’s not an ounce of harm in him.”

  “Oh, he’s the straightest chap in the world,” said Maddox.

  “Well, you might warn him. Tell him next time he’s reported to me, I shall send him to the Head with a request that he shall be swished. And how’s the rest of the house?”

  “Oh, pretty slack, sir. It’s rotten weather, you see. Weather makes a lot of difference to us.”

  “I know. There’s always more trouble this half than any. Try to keep them up to the mark, Frank.”

  “I’ll do my best sir. But I’ve got an awful lot of work with this Trinity scholarship exam, coming or in a fortnight. I’m as rusty as nails over my history.”

  Adams smoked his pipe for a little in silence.

  “By the way, you pull all right with Cruikshank now, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Rather. I used to bar him awfully, but we — well, we had a talk after Hughes was sent away, and decided to get on better together. Crookles is a good chap.”

  “Glad you’ve found that out,” said Adams. “You never would believe me when I told you so.

  Well, tell David that the wooden eye of Nemesis is on him, and see if you can’t make him less obstreperous. He thinks more of what you say than of what any one else says. He simply jumped down my throat the other day in your defence.”

  “What about, sir?”

  “Because I ventured to criticise your play in that house-racquet tie, when we were nearly beaten by Thomas’s. I said I thought we should have won more easily if you had served with more care and less force. David turned quite purple, and said, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if he knew what he was about.’”

  “Frightful cheek,” said Maddox.

  “Well, I don’t know. He only reminded me that you know more about racquets than I do, which is perfectly true. Well, are you off? Tell David not to make himself so conspicuous.”

  Maddox went upstairs again after this to his study, where his fag was putting out his tea-things. David, of course, after his promotion into the fifth form, had ceased to be in a state of servitude, and his successor was a small bony youth called Jevons, who usually had a cold in the head, and an inky handkerchief with which to minister to it. There was no kind of briskness about him; he was timid and slovenly and melancholy, and went about his duties as if laying out the bake-meats for the funeral of a dear departed friend. Maddox did his best with him, tried
to encourage him to look the world in the face a little more, and wash a little more, and not drag his feet as he walked; but it was a dismal change from being attended to by the adroit and willing David. David, it is true, sometimes smashed things by running with them, or from excess of zeal in cleaning the inside of a tea-cup, but that was better than finding forgotten tea-leaves in the pot one day, or crumbs and other foreign substances in the sugar, and little bits of butter sticking to the bottom of the plates. But though Maddox was kind to this spiritless youth, David, on the occasions when he came across him, was severely critical. It seemed to him a dreadful affair that his place should be filled by so abject a specimen, and, mixed with his contempt for Jevons, there was a certain jealousy that he should go in and out of Maddox’s study as he chose, and joylessly perform all the offices in which David had delighted. Fifth-form boy as he was, he would have loved to continue fagging for Maddox, for the sake of seeing that he was properly looked after, and for the intimacy which that would give him. Now, since their ages and places sundered them so widely in ordinary school-life, David necessarily saw much less of him than before. He knew that this must be so, but it did not make him like Jevons the more.

  There was the sound of cheerful whistling going on from the bath-room where David was washing up on his own account, when Maddox came up to his study, but it ceased as Jevons went in to fill his kettle, and a half-cracked admonitory voice took its place.

  “Well, have you put a nice bit of butter in the milk-jug to-day,” it asked — the voice was as unmistakably David’s as the whistle— “or have you rubbed it round the edge of the teacup? Lord, rinse out the kettle before you fill it, can’t you?

  Here, give it me. I say, you really should smarten yourself up a bit, Jevons. Wash your hands while I get the kettle ready. I wonder Maddox can eat a thing when you’ve touched his crockery.”

  “David!” shouted Maddox.

  “Want me?” asked David.

  “Yes, come here a minute. I’ve got something to say to you.”

  David went to his study followed by the depressed Jevons, who shuffled about the room for a bit, dropped a knife, and then left them.

  “Jove, it’s jolly in here,” said David appreciatively, “though how you can stand that scug mucking about, I can’t think. I used to run you much better than this, Frank. What do you want me about?”

  “I’ve been talking to Adams about you,” said Frank, “and I should advise you to try to go steadier. Adams told me to tell you that the wooden eye of Nemesis is on you, and the next time you’re reported he’s going to send you to the Head to be swished.”

  David shrugged his shoulders.

  “Wooden eye is good,” he said. “But I don’t much care. I’m not sure I wouldn’t sooner he swished than be writing lines to all eternity. I never get them done; there are always some more.”

  “Finished that five hundred?” said Maddox parenthically.

  “Lord no, but I was just washing up and taking an easy. Bags is going on.”

  “Well, I said I would pass on Adams’s message. Of course you can be swished if you like: nothing easier. But the Head makes you feel a bit cheap first, and afterwards lays on.”

  David sighed heavily.

  “I suppose I ought to promise you to be an absolute record for saintliness,” he said, “but it’s no use. Something goes ‘fizz’ inside me, and I can’t help playing the fool. I wish I was older or younger. If I was older I suppose I should see what a rotter I am, and if I was younger I should simply do what you told me. I know you’re right, but then comes a minute and I can’t help doing something foolish on any account, if you know what I mean.”

  David looked round the study again, and it made him feel rather melancholy. He hadn’t seen much of Frank this term, for Frank had been working hard, and again the sense of the distance they were apart in the world of school severed them. It was greater now that he was an independent person in the fifth than it had been when he was Frank’s fag, and in Remove A. And the intimacy which had been theirs at Naseby was no longer possible at school. At that moment, also, a tooth began suddenly to ache and gave him a series of staccato stabs with a really brilliant touch.

  “Gosh, and I’ve got the toothache,” he said. “It’s suddenly begun hurting like hell.”

  “Sorry,” said Frank.

  David leaned back in his chair, with his long arms and legs sprawling.

  “It ached yesterday,” he said, “but then I didn’t mind as I was having a good time over the seal. But it’s rot having toothache when other things are beastly. Why should this blighter decay? My other teeth don’t. What a rotten show it all is!”

  “What’s up, David?” asked Frank.

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s a sort of conspiracy against me. Whatever I do gets found out, and I’m writing lines and being gated the whole blooming time. And the sight of your study gives me the hump. I haven’t been here for a week I should think, and now you’re sick with me, and so’s Adams.”

  “Well, don’t play the goat,” said Frank. “Yes, it’s easy to say that,” observed David, “but it isn’t as if I set out to play the goat. It just comes: it just happens. Oh, Lord, the seal was so funny, sitting there on its sloping bim, and staring with its glass eyes at the ceiling, and all my books spread out in front of it. Soon as I’d got it fixed, I hopped out of the window, you know. There it was looking at the ceiling all moth-eaten, and the Owlers never guessed it wasn’t a boy.” David gave a shrill laugh that began in a high treble and ended baritone, for his voice was cracking. Then he became quite grave again.

  “Things are rotten,” he said. “I get amused like a kid, and suddenly in the middle of it, I remember I’m not quite such a kid. I know it really, but I can’t help skipping about and butting round. Why can’t I be your fag instead of that mucky Jevons, and, if not, why can’t I be a sensible person? I made Jevons wash while I made your kettle decent again; you should have seen his fingers. And then he sniffs and blows his beastly nose with a sort of tight sound. And I’m no better; I’ve got the toothache and I’m gated at five, and I’ve the best part of five hundred lines to write still, and you’re sick with me, and I shall get swished if I don’t take care.”

  Frank had been through this: he knew the transitional disquiet of being fifteen, which has just got to be lived through. He poured out a cup of tea and handed it to David.

  “I think I won’t,” he said. “I’ve just had tea. Isn’t it rum how you can be no end cheerful, as I was when I jabbed the electric light, and then suddenly go rotten? I dare say it’s only toothache.” Frank got up.

  “There’s some chloroform somewhere,” he said, “which I used for killing butterflies. If you stick some on cotton wool, and jam it in your tooth, it’ll be all right.”

  He rummaged in his cupboard, and with the aid of a pin put the soaked wool into David’s tooth.

  “Gosh, that’s better already,” said David after a minute. “Thanks awfully. Perhaps if I drank some tea the other side, it wouldn’t hurt it.”

  There was a cake also, and David was induced to try this as well.

  “Better,” he said at last.

  “That’s good. More?”

  “Well, just a little. Then I’ll wash up for you properly, just for once.”

  “That’ll be ripping of you. And, as we’re pretending you’re my fag again, I shall just jaw you. You see, I know quite well what it feels like to do something goatish, just because it’s against the rules, but that wears off, David. You’ll get to know that most rules are pretty sensible. You see you couldn’t have a whole division of stuffed seals. Therefore you mustn’t have any.” David laughed in a full-mouthed manner.

  “Oh, but wouldn’t they look ripping?” he said. “Yes, but things couldn’t go on if every one behaved like you. Therefore you mustn’t. See? By the way, I told Adams you were the straightest chap in the world.”

  David flushed with pleasure.

  “Oh, did you really?” he
said.

  “Yes, why not? But he’ll send you to be swished just the same if you bore him.”

  David got out of his chair.

  “Well, I’ll try not to,” he said; “so I’d better get on with those lines.”

  “Perhaps you had. I must work, too. And don’t get any more. You’ve only got to stump along, and be ordinary. By the by, I’ve got a racquet court to-morrow at twelve, and I can’t use it. You may have it if you like.”

  “Oh, ripping,” said David. “Tooth out first, then racquets. Thanks awfully.”

  He lingered a moment.

  “What jolly good days those were at Naseby,” he said.

  “I know that. They’re all alive too. There’ll be lots more of it.”

  David put his hands on Frank’s shoulders, as they stood together for a moment by the fireplace.

  “I believe they are,” he said. “And I believe I’m as tall as you.”

  “Oh, you’re getting a big lout,” said Maddox.

  But the evil star continued to shine balefully on David next day. The device of the double pen was promptly detected by Mr. Howliss, his lines were torn over, all to be done again, and Bags’s friendly help was vain labour also. Bags had been opposed to the patent-pen system, on the ground that it was liable to detection, and though theoretically it saved time, it didn’t save so much, as nobody could wield the double pen with the same swiftness as the single one. Consequently he made no renewed offer of help with regard to the reimposed imposition, and David had to stop in at twelve next day after an excruciating interview with the dentist instead of playing racquets. And this parsimonious dentist quite refused to whip out the aching tooth, and have done with it (a pang to which David had strung himself up); he said it could be saved, and the salvation thereof included a whizzing drill, and the stuffing of it with something painful to the feelings and obnoxious to the taste, and implied a further visit the day after tomorrow.