Vice Versa; or, A Lesson to Fathers
by F. Anstey · English · Gutenberg #26853 · 548,125 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Vice Versa; or, A Lesson to Fathers
Author: F. Anstey
Release date: October 9, 2008 [eBook #26853]
Most recently updated: January 29, 2018
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICE VERSA; OR, A LESSON TO FATHERS ***
Produced by David Clarke, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
VICE VERSA
OR
A LESSON TO FATHERS
BY F. ANSTEY
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
FIRST EDITION (_Smith, Elder & Co._) _June 1882_
FIFTIETH IMPRESSION _May 1915_
_Reprinted_ (_F'cap 8vo_) (_John Murray_) _October 1917_
_Reprinted_ _March 1918_
_Reprinted_ _January 1920_
_Reprinted_ _August 1924_
_Reprinted_ _June 1926_
_Reprinted_ _August 1928_
_Reprinted_ (_Cr. 8vo_) _September 1929_
_Reprinted_ (_F'cap 8vo_) _December 1931_
_Reprinted_ _November 1937_
_Reprinted_ (_Cr. 8vo_) _June 1949_
_Reprinted_ _October 1954_
_Reprinted_ _March 1962_
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY LOWE AND BRYDONE (PRINTERS) LIMITED, LONDON,
N.W.10
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 1
1. BLACK MONDAY 3
2. A GRAND TRANSFORMATION SCENE 15
3. IN THE TOILS 31
4. A MINNOW AMONGST TRITONS 48
5. DISGRACE 69
6. LEARNING AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS 87
7. CUTTING THE KNOT 104
8. UNBENDING THE BOW 120
9. A LETTER FROM HOME 133
10. THE COMPLETE LETTER-WRITER 146
11. A DAY OF REST 155
12. AGAINST TIME 169
13. A RESPITE 185
14. AN ERROR OF JUDGMENT 195
15. THE RUBICON 207
16. HARD PRESSED 221
17. A PERFIDIOUS ALLY 240
18. RUN TO EARTH 258
19. THE RECKONING 269
_PREFACE_
There is an old story of a punctiliously polite Greek, who, while
performing the funeral of an infant daughter, felt bound to make his
excuses to the spectators for "bringing out such a ridiculously small
corpse to so large a crowd."
The Author, although he trusts that the present production has more
vitality than the Greek gentleman's child, still feels that in these
days of philosophical fiction, metaphysical romance, and novels with a
purpose, some apology may perhaps be needed for a tale which has the
unambitious and frivolous aim of mere amusement.
However, he ventures to leave the tale to be its own apology, merely
contenting himself with the entreaty that his little fish may be spared
the rebuke that it is not a whale.
In submitting it with all possible respect to the Public, he conceives
that no form of words he could devise would appeal so simply and
powerfully to their feelings as that which he has ventured to adopt from
a certain Anglo-Portuguese Phrase-Book of deserved popularity.
Like the compilers of that work, he--"expects then who the little book,
for the care what he wrote him and her typographical corrections, will
commend itself to the--_British Paterfamilias_--at which he dedicates
him particularly."
1. _Black Monday_
"In England, where boys go to boarding schools, if the holidays
were not long there would be no opportunity for cultivating the
domestic affections."--_Letter of Lord Campbell's, 1835_.
On a certain Monday evening late in January, 1881, Paul Bultitude, Esq.
(of Mincing Lane, Colonial Produce Merchant), was sitting alone in his
dining-room at Westbourne Terrace after dinner.
The room was a long and lofty one, furnished in the stern uncompromising
style of the Mahogany Age, now supplanted by the later fashions of
decoration which, in their outset original and artistic, seem fairly on
the way to become as meaningless and conventional.
Here were no skilfully contrasted shades of grey or green, no dado, no
distemper on the walls; the woodwork was grained and varnished after the
manner of the Philistines, the walls papered in dark crimson, with heavy
curtains of the same colour, and the sideboard, dinner-waggon, and row
of stiff chairs were all carved in the same massive and expensive style
of ugliness. The pictures were those familiar presentments of dirty
rabbits, fat white horses, bloated goddesses, and misshapen boors, by
masters who, if younger than they assume to be, must have been quite old
enough to know better.
Mr. Bultitude was a tall and portly person, of a somewhat pompous and
overbearing demeanour; not much over fifty, but looking considerably
older. He had a high shining head, from which the hair had mostly
departed, what little still remained being of a grizzled auburn,
prominent pale blue eyes with heavy eyelids and fierce, bushy
whitey-brown eyebrows. His general expression suggested a conviction of
his own extreme importance, but, in spite of this, his big underlip
drooped rather weakly and his double chin slightly receded, giving a
judge of character reason for suspecting that a certain obstinate
positiveness observable in Mr. Bultitude's manner might possibly be due
less to the possession of an unusually strong will than to the
circumstance that, by some fortunate chance, that will had hitherto
never met with serious opposition.
The room, with all its aesthetic shortcomings, was comfortable enough,
and Mr. Bultitude's attitude--he was lying back in a well-wadded leather
arm-chair, with a glass of claret at his elbow and his feet stretched
out towards the ruddy blaze of the fire--seemed at first sight to imply
that happy after-dinner condition of perfect satisfaction with oneself
and things in general, which is the natural outcome of a good cook, a
good conscience, and a good digestion.
At first sight; because his face did not confirm the impression--there
was a latent uneasiness in it, an air of suppressed irritation, as if he
expected and even dreaded to be disturbed at any moment, and yet was
powerless to resent the intrusion as he would like to do.
At the slightest sound in the hall outside he would half rise in his
chair and glance at the door with a mixture of alarm and resignation,
and as often as the steps died away and the door remained closed, he
would sink back and resettle himself with a shrug of evident relief.
Habitual novel readers on reading thus far will, I am afraid, prepare
themselves for the arrival of a faithful cashier with news of
irretrievable ruin, or a mysterious and cynical stranger threatening
disclosures of a disgraceful nature.
But all such anticipations must at once be ruthlessly dispelled. Mr.
Bultitude, although he was certainly a merchant, was a fairly successful
one--in direct defiance of the laws of fiction, where any connection
with commerce seems to lead naturally to failure in one of the three
volumes.
He was an elderly gentleman, too, of irreproachable character and
antecedents; no Damocles' sword of exposure was swinging over his bald
but blameless head; he had no disasters to fear and no indiscretions to
conceal. He had not been intended for melodrama, with which, indeed, he
would not have considered it a respectable thing to be connected.
In fact, the secret of his uneasiness was so absurdly simple and
commonplace that I am rather ashamed to have made even a temporary
mystery of it.
His son Dick was about to return to school that evening, and Mr.
Bultitude was expecting every moment to be called upon to go through a
parting scene with him; that was really all that was troubling him.
This sounds very creditable to the tenderness of his feelings as a
father--for there are some parents who bear such a bereavement at the
close of the holidays with extraordinary fortitude, if they do not
actually betray an unnatural satisfaction at the event.
But it was not exactly from softness of heart that he was restless and
impatient, nor did he dread any severe strain upon his emotions. He was
not much given to sentiment, and was the author of more than one of
those pathetically indignant letters to the papers, in which the British
parent denounces the expenses of education and the unconscionable length
and frequency of vacations.
He was one of those nervous and fidgety persons who cannot understand
their own children, looking on them as objectionable monsters whose next
movements are uncertain--much as Frankenstein must have felt towards
_his_ monster.
He hated to have a boy about the house, and positively writhed under the
irrelevant and irrepressible questions, the unnecessary noises and
boisterous high spirits which nothing would subdue; his son's society
was to him simply an abominable nuisance, and he pined for a release
from it from the day the holidays began.
He had been a widower for nearly three years, and no doubt the loss of a
mother's loving tact, which can check the heedless merriment before it
becomes intolerable, and interpret and soften the most peevish and
unreasonable of rebukes, had done much to make the relations between
parent and children more strained than they might otherwise have been.
As it was, Dick's fear of his father was just great enough to prevent
any cordiality between them, and not sufficient to make him careful to
avoid offence, and it is not surprising if, when the time came for him
to return to his house of bondage at Dr. Grimstone's, Crichton House,
Market Rodwell, he left his father anything but inconsolable.
Just now, although Mr. Bultitude was so near the hour of his
deliverance, he still had a bad quarter of an hour before him, in which
the last farewells must be said, and he found it impossible under these
circumstances to compose himself for a quiet half-hour's nap, or retire
to the billiard-room for a cup of coffee and a mild cigar, as he would
otherwise have done--since he was certain to be disturbed.
And there was another thing which harassed him, and that was a haunting
dread lest at the last moment some unforeseen accident should prevent
the boy's departure after all. He had some grounds for this, for only a
week before, a sudden and unprecedented snowstorm had dashed his hopes,
on the eve of their fulfilment, by forcing the Doctor to postpone the
day on which his school was to re-assemble, and now Mr. Bultitude sat on
brambles until he had seen the house definitely rid of his son's
presence.
All this time, while the father was fretting and fuming in his
arm-chair, the son, the unlucky cause of all this discomfort, had been
standing on the mat outside the door, trying to screw up enough courage
to go in as if nothing was the matter with him.
He was not looking particularly boisterous just then. On the contrary,
his face was pale, and his eyelids rather redder than he would quite
care for them to be seen by any of the "fellows" at Crichton House. All
the life and spirit had gone out of him for the time; he had a
troublesome dryness in his throat, and a general sensation of chill
heaviness, which he himself would have described--expressively enough,
if not with academical elegance--as "feeling beastly."
The stoutest hearted boy, returning to the most perfect of schools,
cannot always escape something of this at that dark hour when the sands
of the holidays have run out to their last golden grain, when the boxes
are standing corded and labelled in the hall, and some one is going to
fetch the fatal cab.
Dick had just gone the round of the house, bidding dreary farewells to
all the servants; an unpleasant ordeal which he would gladly have
dispensed with, if possible, and which did not serve to raise his
spirits.
Upstairs, in the bright nursery, he had found his old nurse sitting
sewing by the high wire fender. She was a stern, hard-featured old lady,
who had systematically slapped him through infancy into boyhood, and he
had had some stormy passages with her during the past few weeks; but she
softened now in the most unexpected manner as she said good-bye, and
told him he was a "pleasant, good-hearted young gentleman, after all,
though that aggravating and contrairy sometimes." And then she
predicted, with some of the rashness attaching to irresponsibility, that
he would be "the best boy this next term as ever was, and work hard at
all his lessons, and bring home a prize"--but all this unusual
gentleness only made the interview more difficult to come out of with
any credit for self-control.
Then downstairs, the cook had come up in her evening brown print and
clean collar, from her warm spice-scented kitchen, to remark cheerily
that "Lor bless his heart, what with all these telegrafts and things,
time flew so fast nowadays that they'd be having him back again before
they all knew where they were!" which had a certain spurious consolation
about it, until one saw that, after all, it put the case entirely from
her own standpoint.
After this Dick had parted from his elder sister Barbara and his young
brother Roly, and had arrived where we found him first, at the mat
outside the dining-room door, where he still lingered shivering in the
cold foggy hall.
Somehow, he could not bring himself to take the next step at once; he
knew pretty well what his father's feelings would be, and a parting is a
very unpleasant ceremony to one who feels that the regret is all on his
own side.
But it was no use putting it off any longer; he resolved at last to go
in and get it over, and opened the door accordingly. How warm and
comfortable the room looked--more comfortable than it had ever seemed to
him before, even on the first day of the holidays!
And his father would be sitting there in a quarter of an hour's time,
just as he was now, while he himself would be lumbering along to the
station through the dismal raw fog!
How unspeakably delightful it must be, thought Dick enviously, to be
grown up and never worried by the thoughts of school and lesson-books;
to be able to look forward to returning to the same comfortable house,
and living the same easy life, day after day, week after week, with no
fear of a swiftly advancing Black Monday.
Gloomy moralists might have informed him that we cannot escape school by
simply growing up, and that, even for those who contrive this and make
a long holiday of their lives, there comes a time when the days are
grudgingly counted to a blacker Monday than ever made a school-boy's
heart quake within him.
But then Dick would never have believed them, and the moralists would
only have wasted much excellent common sense upon him.
Paul Bultitude's face cleared as he saw his son come in. "There you are,
eh?" he said, with evident satisfaction, as he turned in his chair,
intending to cut the scene as short as possible. "So you're off at last?
Well, holidays can't last for ever--by a merciful decree of Providence,
they don't last quite for ever! There, good-bye, good-bye, be a good boy
this term, no more scrapes, mind. And now you'd better run away, and put
on your coat--you're keeping the cab waiting all this time."
"No, I'm not," said Dick, "Boaler hasn't gone to fetch one yet."
"Not gone to fetch a cab yet!" cried Paul, with evident alarm, "why, God
bless my soul, what's the man thinking about? You'll lose your train! I
know you'll lose the train, and there will be another day lost, after
the extra week gone already through that snow! I must see to this
myself. Ring the bell, tell Boaler to start this instant--I insist on
his fetching a cab this instant!"
"Well, it's not my fault, you know," grumbled Dick, not considering so
much anxiety at all flattering, "but Boaler has gone now. I just heard
the gate shut."
"Ah!" said his father, with more composure, "and now," he suggested,
"you'd better shake hands, and then go up and say good-bye to your
sister--you've no time to spare."
"I've said good-bye to them," said Dick. "Mayn't I stay here till--till
Boaler comes?"
This request was due, less to filial affection than a faint desire for
dessert, which even his feelings could not altogether stifle. Mr.
Bultitude granted it with a very bad grace.
"I suppose you can if you want to," he said impatiently, "only do one
thing or the other--stay outside, or shut the door and come in and sit
down quietly. I cannot sit in a thorough draught!"
Dick obeyed, and applied himself to the dessert with rather an injured
expression.
His father felt a greater sense of constraint and worry than ever; the
interview, as he had feared, seemed likely to last some time, and he
felt that he ought to improve the occasion in some way, or, at all
events, make some observation. But, for all that, he had not the
remotest idea what to say to this red-haired, solemn boy, who sat
staring gloomily at him in the intervals of filling his mouth. The
situation grew more embarrassing every moment.
At last, as he felt himself likely to have more to say in reproof than
on any other subject, he began with that.
"There's one thing I want to talk to you about before you go," he began,
"and that's this. I had a most unsatisfactory report of you this last
term; don't let me have that again. Dr. Grimstone tells me--ah, I have
his letter here--yes, he says (and just attend, instead of making
yourself ill with preserved ginger)--he says, 'Your son has great
natural capacity, and excellent abilities; but I regret to say that,
instead of applying himself as he might do, he misuses his advantages,
and succeeds in setting a mischievous example to--if not actually
misleading--his companions.' That's a pleasant account for a father to
read! Here am I, sending you to an expensive school, furnishing you with
great natural capacity and excellent abilities, and--and--every other
school requisite, and all you do is to misuse them! It's disgraceful!
And misleading your companions, too! Why, at your age, they ought to
mislead _you_--No, I don't mean that--but what I may tell you is that
I've written a very strong letter to Dr. Grimstone, saying what pain it
gave me to hear you misbehaved yourself, and telling him, if he ever
caught you setting an example of any sort, mind that, _any_ sort, in the
future--he was to, ah, to remember some of Solomon's very sensible
remarks on the subject. So I should strongly advise you to take care
what you're about in future, for your own sake!"
This was not a very encouraging address, perhaps, but it did not seem to
distress Dick to any extent; he had heard very much the same sort of
thing several times before, and had been fully prepared for it then.
He had been seeking distraction in almonds and raisins, but now they
only choked instead of consoling him, and he gave them up and sat
brooding silently over his hard lot instead, with a dull, blank
dejection which those only who have gone through the same thing in their
boyhood will understand. To others, whose school life has been one
unchequered course of excitement and success, it will be
incomprehensible enough--and so much the better for them.
He sat listening to the grim sphinx clock on the black marble
chimneypiece, as it remorselessly ticked away his last few moments of
home-life, and he ingeniously set himself to crown his sorrow by
reviving recollections of happier days.
In one of the corners of the overmantel there was still a sprig of
withered laurel left forgotten, and his eye fell on it now with grim
satisfaction. He made his thoughts travel back to that delightful
afternoon on Christmas Eve, when they had all come home riotous through
the brilliant streets, laden with purchases from the Baker Street
Bazaar, and then had decorated the rooms with such free and careless
gaiety.
And the Christmas dinner too! He had sat just where he was sitting now,
with, ah, such a difference in every other respect--the time had not
come then when the thought of "only so many more weeks and days left"
had begun to intrude its grisly shape, like the skull at an ancient
feast.
And yet he could distinctly recollect now, and with bitter remorse, that
he had not enjoyed himself then as much as he ought to have done; he
even remembered an impious opinion of his that the proceedings were
"slow." Slow! with plenty to eat, and three (four, if he had only known
it) more weeks of holiday before him; with Boxing Day and the brisk
exhilarating drive to the Crystal Palace immediately following, with all
the rest of a season of licence and varied joys to come, which he could
hardly trust himself to look back upon now! He must have been mad to
think such a thing.
Overhead his sister Barbara was playing softly one of the airs from "The
Pirates" (it was Frederic's appeal to the Major-General's daughters),
and the music, freed from the serio-comic situation which it
illustrates, had a tenderness and pathos of its own which went to Dick's
heart and intensified his melancholy.
He had gone (in secret, for Mr. Bultitude disapproved of such
dissipations) to hear the Opera in the holidays, and now the piano
conjured the whole scene up for him again--there would be no more
theatre-going for him for a very long time!
By this time Mr. Bultitude began to feel the silence becoming once more
oppressive, and roused himself with a yawn. "Heigho!" he said, "Boaler's
an uncommonly long time fetching that cab!"
Dick felt more injured than ever, and showed it by drawing what he
intended for a moving sigh.
Unfortunately it was misunderstood.
"I do wish, sir," said his parent testily, "you would try to break
yourself of that habit of breathing hard. The society of a grampus (for
it's no less) delights no one and offends many--including me--and for
Heaven's sake, Dick, don't kick the leg of the table in that way; you
know it simply maddens me. What do you do it for? Why can't you learn to
sit at table like a gentleman?"
Dick mumbled some apology, and then, having found his tongue and
remembered his necessities, said, with a nervous catch in his voice,
"Oh, I say, father, will you--can you let me have some pocket-money,
please, to go back with?"
Mr. Bultitude looked as if his son had petitioned for a latch-key.
"Pocket-money!" he repeated, "why, you can't want money. Didn't your
grandmother give you a sovereign as a Christmas-box? And I gave you ten
shillings myself!"
"I do want it, though," said Dick; "that's all spent. And you know you
always _have_ given me money to take back."
"If I do give you some, you'll only go and spend it," grumbled Mr.
Bultitude, as if he considered money an object of art.
"I shan't spend it all at once, and I shall want some to put in the
plate on Sundays. We always have to put in the plate when it's a
collection. And there's the cab to pay."
"Boaler has orders to pay your cab--as you know well enough," said his
father, "but I suppose you must have some, though you cost me enough,
Heaven knows, without this additional expense."
And at this he brought up a fistful of loose silver and gold from one of
his trouser-pockets, and spread it deliberately out on the table in
front of him in shining rows.
Dick's eyes sparkled at the sight of so much wealth; for a moment or two
he almost forgot the pangs of approaching exile in the thought of the
dignity and credit which a single one of those bright new sovereigns
would procure for him.
It would ensure him surreptitious luxuries and open friendships as long
as it lasted. Even Tipping, the head boy of the school, who had gone
into tails, brought back no more, and besides, the money would bring
him handsomely out of certain pecuniary difficulties to which an
unexpected act of parental authority had exposed him; he could easily
dispose of all claims with such a sum at command, and then his father
could so easily spare it out of so much!
Meanwhile Mr. Bultitude, with great care and precision, selected from
the coins before him a florin, two shillings, and two sixpences, which
he pushed across to his son, who looked at them with a disappointment he
did not care to conceal.
"An uncommonly liberal allowance for a young fellow like you," he
observed. "Don't buy any foolishness with it, and if, towards the end of
the term you want a little more, and write an intelligible letter asking
for it, and I think proper to let you have it--why, you'll get it, you
know."
Dick had not the courage to ask for more, much as he longed to do so, so
he put the money in his purse with very qualified expressions of
gratitude.
In his purse he seemed to find something which had escaped his memory,
for he took out a small parcel and unfolded it with some hesitation.
"I nearly forgot," he said, speaking with more animation than he had yet
done, "I didn't like to take it without asking you, but is this any use?
May I have it?"
"Eh?" said Mr. Bultitude, sharply, "what's that? Something else--what is
it you want now?"
"It's only that stone Uncle Duke brought mamma from India; the thing, he
said, they called a 'Pagoda stone,' or something, out there."
"Pagoda stone? The boy means Garuda Stone. I should like to know how you
got hold of that; you've been meddling in my drawers, now, a thing I
will not put up with, as I've told you over and over again."
"No, I haven't, then," said Dick, "I found it in a tray in the
drawing-room, and Barbara said, perhaps, if I asked you, you might let
me have it, as she didn't think it was any use to you."
"Then Barbara had no right to say anything of the sort."
"But may I have it? I may, mayn't I?" persisted Dick.
"Have it? certainly not. What could you possibly want with a thing like
that? It's ridiculous. Give it to me."
Dick handed it over reluctantly enough. It was not much to look at,
quite an insignificant-looking little square tablet of greyish green
stone, pierced at one angle, and having on two of its faces faint traces
of mysterious letters or symbols, which time had made very difficult to
distinguish.
It looked harmless enough as Mr. Bultitude took it in his hand; there
was no kindly hand to hold him back, no warning voice to hint that there
might possibly be sleeping within that small marble block the pent-up
energy of long-forgotten Eastern necromancy, just as ready as ever to
awake into action at the first words which had power to evoke it.
There was no one; but even if there had been such a person, Paul
Bultitude was a sober prosaic individual, who would probably have
treated the warning as a piece of ridiculous superstition.
As it was, no man could have put himself in a position of extreme peril
with a more perfect unconsciousness of his danger.
2. _A Grand Transformation Scene_
"Magnaque numinibus vota exaudita malignis."
Paul Bultitude put on his glasses to examine the stone more carefully,
for it was some time since he had last seen or thought about it. Then he
looked up and said once more, "What use would a thing like this be to
you?"
Dick would have considered it a very valuable prize indeed; he could
have exhibited it to admiring friends--during lessons, of course, when
it would prove a most agreeable distraction; he could have played with
and fingered it incessantly, invented astonishing legends of its powers
and virtues; and, at last, when he had grown tired of it, have bartered
it for any more desirable article that might take his fancy. All these
advantages were present to his mind in a vague shifting form, but he
could not find either courage or words to explain them.
Consequently he only said awkwardly, "Oh, I don't know, I should like
it."
"Well, any way," said Paul, "you certainly won't have it. It's worth
keeping, whatever it is, as the only thing your uncle Marmaduke was ever
known to give to anybody."
Marmaduke Paradine, his brother-in-law, was not a connection of whom he
had much reason to feel particularly proud. One of those persons endowed
with what are known as "insinuating manners and address," he had, after
some futile attempts to enter the army, been sent out to Bombay as agent
for a Manchester firm, and in that capacity had contrived to be mixed up
in some more than shady transactions with rival exporters and native
dealers up the country, which led to an unceremonious dismissal by his
employers.
He had brought home the stone from India as a propitiatory token of
remembrance, more portable and less expensive than the lacquered
cabinets, brasses, stuffs and carved work which are expected from
friends at such a distance, and he had been received with pardon and
started once more, until certain other proceedings of his, shadier
still, had obliged Paul to forbid him the house at Westbourne Terrace.
Since then little had been heard of him, and the reports which reached
Mr. Bultitude of his disreputable relative's connection with the
promotion of a series of companies of the kind affected by the widow and
curate, and exposed in money articles and law courts, gave him no
desire to renew his acquaintance.
"Isn't it a talisman, though?" said Dick, rather unfortunately for any
hopes he might have of persuading his father to entrust him with the
coveted treasure.
"I'm sure I can't tell you," yawned Paul, "how do you mean?"
"I don't know, only Uncle Duke once said something about it. Barbara
heard him tell mamma. I say, perhaps it's like the one in Scott, and
cures people of things, though I don't think it's that sort of talisman
either, because I tried it once on my chilblains, and it wasn't a bit of
good. If you would only let me have it, perhaps I might find out, you
know."
"You might," said his father drily, apparently not much influenced by
this inducement, "but you won't have the chance. If it has a secret, I
will find it out for myself" (he little knew how literally he was to be
taken at his word), "and, by the way, there's your cab--at last."
There was a sound of wheels outside, and, as Dick heard them, he grew
desperate in his extremity; a wish he had long secretly cherished
unspoken, without ever hoping for courage to give it words, rose to his
lips now; he got up and moved timidly towards his father.
"Father," he said, "there's something I want to say to you so much
before I go. Do let me ask you now."
"Well, what is it?" said Paul. "Make haste, you haven't much time."
"It's this. I want you to--to let me leave Grimstone's at the end of the
term."
Paul stared at him, angry and incredulous, "Let you leave Dr.
Grimstone's (oblige me by giving him his full title when you speak of
him)," he said slowly. "Why, what do you mean? It's an excellent
school--never saw a better expressed prospectus in my life. And my old
friend Bangle, Sir Benjamin Bangle, who's a member of the School Board,
and ought to know something about schools, strongly recommended
it--would have sent his own son there, if he hadn't entered him at Eton.
And when I pay for most of the extras for you too. Dancing, by Gad, and
meat for breakfast. I'm sure I don't know what you would have."
"I'd like to go to Marlborough, or Harrow, or somewhere," whimpered
Dick. "Jolland's going to Harrow at Easter. (Jolland's one of the
fellows at Grimstone's--Dr. Grimstone's I mean.) And what does old
Bangle know about it? He hasn't got to go there himself! And--and
Grimstone's jolly enough to fellows he likes, but he doesn't like
_me_--he's always sitting on me for something--and I hate some of the
fellows there, and altogether it's beastly. Do let me leave! If you
don't want me to go to a public school, I--I could stop at home and have
a private tutor--like Joe Twitterley!"
"It's all ridiculous nonsense, I tell you," said Paul angrily,
"ridiculous nonsense! And, once for all, I'll put a stop to it. I don't
approve of public schools for boys like you, and, what's more, I can't
afford it. As for private tutors, that's absurd! So you will just make
up your mind to stay at Crichton House as long as I think proper to keep
you there, and there's an end of that!"
At this final blow to all his hopes, Dick began to sob in a subdued
hopeless kind of way, which was more than his father could bear. To do
Paul justice, he had not meant to be quite so harsh when the boy was
about to set out for school, and, a little ashamed of his irritation, he
sought to justify his decision.
He chose to do this by delivering a short homily on the advantages of
school, by which he might lead Dick to look on the matter in the calm
light of reason and common sense, and commonplaces on the subject began
to rise to the surface of his mind, from the rather muddy depths to
which they had long since sunk.
He began to give Dick the benefit of all this stagnant wisdom, with a
feeling of surprise as he went on, at his own powerful and original way
of putting things.
"Now, you know, it's no use to cry like that," he began. "It's--ah--the
usual thing for boys at school, I'm quite aware, to go about fancying
they're very ill-used, and miserable, and all the rest of it, just as if
people in my position had their sons educated out of spite! It's one of
those petty troubles all boys have to go through. And you mark my words,
my boy, when they go out into the world and have real trials to put up
with, and grow middle-aged men, like me, why, they see what fools
they've been, Dick; they see what fools they've been. All the--hum, the
innocent games and delights of boyhood, and that sort of thing, you
know--come back to them--and then they look back to those hours passed
at school as the happiest, aye, the very happiest time of their life!"
"Well," said Dick, "then I hope it won't be the happiest time in mine,
that's all! And you may have been happy at the school you went to,
perhaps, but I don't believe you would very much care about being a boy
again like me, and going back to Grimstone's, you know you wouldn't!"
This put Paul on his mettle; he had warmed well to his subject, and
could not let this open challenge pass unnoticed--it gave him such an
opening for a cheap and easy effect.
He still had the stone in his hand as he sank back into his chair,
smiling with a tolerant superiority.
"Perhaps you will believe me," he said, impressively, "when I tell you,
old as I am and much as you envy me, I only wish, at this very moment, I
could be a boy again, like you. Going back to school wouldn't make me
unhappy, I can tell you."
It is so fatally easy to say more than we mean in the desire to make as
strong an impression as possible. Well for most of us that--more
fortunate than Mr. Bultitude--we can generally do so without fear of
being taken too strictly at our word.
As he spoke these unlucky words, he felt a slight shiver, followed by a
curious shrinking sensation all over him. It was odd, too, but the
arm-chair in which he sat seemed to have grown so much bigger all at
once. He felt a passing surprise, but concluded it must be fancy, and
went on as comfortably as before.
"I should like it, my boy, but what's the good of wishing? I only
mention it to prove that I was not speaking at random. I'm an old man
and you're a young boy, and, that being so, why, of course--What the
dooce are you giggling about?"
For Dick, after some seconds of half-frightened open-mouthed staring,
had suddenly burst into a violent fit of almost hysterical giggling,
which he seemed trying vainly to suppress.
This naturally annoyed Mr. Bultitude, and he went on with immense
dignity, "I--ah--I'm not aware that I've been saying anything
particularly ridiculous. You seem to be amused?"
"Don't!" gasped Dick. "It, it isn't anything you're saying--it's,
it's--oh, can't you feel any difference?"
"The sooner you go back to school the better!" said Paul angrily. "I
wash my hands of you. When I do take the trouble to give you any advice,
it's received with ridicule. You always were an ill-mannered little cub.
I've had quite enough of this. Leave the room, sir!"
The wheels must have belonged to some other cab, for none had stopped at
the pavement as yet; but Mr. Bultitude was justly indignant, and could
stand the interview no longer. Dick, however, made no attempt to move;
he remained there, choking and shaking with laughter, while his father
sat stiffly on his chair, trying to ignore his son's unmannerly conduct,
but only partially succeeding.
No one can calmly endure watching other people laughing at him like
idiots, while he is left perfectly incapable of guessing what he has
said or done to amuse them. Even when this is known, it requires a
peculiarly keen sense of humour to see the point of a joke against
oneself.
At last his patience gave out, and he said coldly, "Now, perhaps, if you
are quite yourself again, you will be good enough to let me know what
the joke is?"
Dick, looking flushed and half-ashamed, tried again and again to speak,
but each time the attempt was too much for him. After a time he did
succeed, but his voice was hoarse and shaken with laughter as he spoke.
"Haven't you found it out yet? Go and look at yourself in the glass--it
will make you roar!"
There was the usual narrow sheet of plate glass at the back of the
sideboard, and to this Mr. Bultitude walked, almost under protest, and
with a cold dignity. It occurred to him that he might have a smudge on
his face or something wrong with his collar and tie--something to
account to some extent for his son's frivolous and insulting behaviour.
No suspicion of the terrible truth crossed his mind as yet.
Meanwhile Dick was looking on eagerly with a chuckle of anticipation, as
one who watches the dawning appreciation of an excellent joke.
But no sooner had Paul met the reflection in the glass than he started
back in incredulous horror--then returned and stared again and again.
Surely, surely, this could not be he!
He had expected to see his own familiar portly bow-windowed presence
there--but somehow, look as he would, the mirror insisted upon
reflecting the figure of his son Dick. Could he possibly have become
invisible and have lost the power of casting a reflection--or how was it
that Dick, and only Dick, was to be seen there?
How was it, too, when he looked round, there was the boy still sitting
there? It could not be Dick, evidently, that he saw in the glass.
Besides, the reflection opposite him moved when he moved, returned when
he returned, copied his every gesture!
He turned round upon his son with angry and yet hopeful suspicion. "You,
you've been playing some of your infernal tricks with this mirror, sir,"
he cried fiercely. "What have you done to it?"
"Done! how could I do anything to it? As if you didn't know that!"
"Then," stammered Paul, determined to know the worst, "then do you, do
you mean to tell me you can see any--alteration in me? Tell me the truth
now!"
"I should just think I could!" said Dick emphatically. "It's very queer,
but just look here," and he came up to the sideboard and placed himself
by the side of his horrified father. "Why," he said, with another
giggle, "we're--he-he--as like as two peas!"
They were indeed; the glass reflected now two small boys, each with
chubby cheeks and auburn hair, both dressed, too, exactly alike, in Eton
jackets and broad white collars; the only difference to be seen between
them was that, while one face wore an expression of intense glee and
satisfaction, the other--the one which Mr. Bultitude was beginning to
fear must belong to him--was lengthened and drawn with dismay and
bewilderment.
"Dick," said Paul faintly, "what is all this? Who has been, been taking
these liberties with me?"
"I'm sure I don't know," protested Dick. "It wasn't me. I believe you
did it all yourself."
"Did it all myself!" repeated Paul indignantly. "Is it likely I should?
It's some trickery, I tell you, some villainous plot. The worst of it
is," he added plaintively, "I don't understand who I'm supposed to be
now. Dick, who am I?"
"You can't be me," said Dick, "because here I am, you know. And you're
not yourself, that's very plain. You must be _somebody_, I suppose," he
added dubiously.
"Of course I am. What do you mean?" said Paul angrily. "Never mind who
I am. I feel just the same as I always did. Tell me when you first began
to notice any change. Could you see it coming on at all, eh?"
"It was all at once, just as you were talking about school and all that.
You said you only wished---- Why of course; look here, it must be the
stone that did it!"
"Stone! what stone?" said Paul. "I don't know what you're talking
about."
"Yes, you do--the Garuda Stone! You've got it in your hand still. Don't
you see? It's a real talisman after all! How jolly!"
"I didn't do anything to set it off; and besides, oh, it's perfectly
absurd! How can there be such things as talismans nowadays, eh? Tell me
that."
"Well, something's happened to you, hasn't it? And it must have been
done somehow," argued Dick.
"I was holding the confounded thing, certainly," said Paul, "here it is.
But what could I have said to start it? What has it done this to me
for?"
"I know!" cried Dick. "Don't you remember? You said you wished you were
a boy again, like me. So you are, you see, exactly like me! What a lark
it is, isn't it? But, I say, you can't go up to business like that, you
know, can you? I tell you what, you'd better come to Grimstone's with me
now, and see how you like it. I shouldn't mind so much if you came too.
Grimstone's face would be splendid when he saw two of us. Do come!"
"That's ridiculous nonsense you're talking," said Paul, "and you know
it. What should I do at school at my age? I tell you I'm the same as
ever inside, though I may have shrunk into a little rascally boy to look
at. And it's simply an abominable nuisance, Dick, that's what it is! Why
on earth couldn't you let the stone alone? Just see what mischief
you've done by meddling now--put me to all this inconvenience!"
"You shouldn't have wished," said Dick.
"Wished!" echoed Mr. Bultitude. "Why, to be sure," he said, with a gleam
of returning hopefulness, "of course--I never thought of that. The
thing's a wishing stone; it must be! You have to hold it, I suppose, and
then say what you wish aloud, and there you are. If that's the case, I
can soon put it all right by simply wishing myself back again. I--I
shall have a good laugh at all this by and by--I know I shall!"
He took the stone, and got into a corner by himself where he began
repeating the words, "I wish I was back again," "I wish I was the man I
was five minutes ago," "I wish all this had not happened," and so on,
until he was very exhausted and red in the face. He tried with the stone
held in his left hand, as well as his right, sitting and standing, under
all the various conditions he could think of, but absolutely nothing
came of it; he was just as exasperatingly boyish and youthful as ever at
the end of it.
"I don't like this," he said at last, giving it up with a rather
crestfallen air. "It seems to me that this diabolical invention has got
out of order somehow; I can't make it work any more!"
"Perhaps," suggested Dick, who had shown throughout the most
unsympathetic cheerfulness, "perhaps it's one of those talismans that
only give you one wish, and you've had it, you know?"
"Then it's all over!" groaned Paul. "What the dooce am I to do? What
shall I do? Suggest something, for Heaven's sake; don't stand cackling
there in that unfeeling manner. Can't you see what a terrible, mess I've
got into? Suppose--only suppose your sister or one of the servants were
to come in, and see me like this!"
This suggestion simply enchanted Dick. "Let's have 'em all up," he
laughed; "it would be such fun! How they will laugh when we tell them!"
And he rushed to the bell.
"Touch that bell if you dare!" screamed Paul. "I won't be seen in this
condition by anybody! What on earth could have induced that scoundrelly
uncle of yours to bring such a horrible thing as this over I can't
imagine! I never heard of such a situation as this in my life. I can't
stay like this, you know--it's not to be thought of! I--I wonder whether
it would be any use to send over to Dr. Bustard and ask him to step in;
he might give me something to bring me round. But then the whole
neighbourhood would hear about it! If I don't see my way out of this
soon, I shall go raving mad!"
And he paced restlessly up and down the room with his brain on fire.
All at once, as he became able to think more coherently, there occurred
to him a chance, slender and desperate enough, but still a chance, of
escaping even yet the consequences of his folly.
He was forced to conclude that, however improbable and fantastic it
might appear in this rationalistic age, there must be some hidden power
in this Garuda Stone which had put him in his present very unpleasant
position. It was plain too that the virtues of the talisman refused to
exert themselves any more at his bidding.
But it did not follow that in another's hands the spell would remain as
powerless. At all events, it was an experiment well worth the trial, and
he lost no time in explaining the notion to Dick, who, by the sparkle in
his eyes and suppressed excitement in his manner, seemed to think there
might be something in it.
"I may as well try," he said, "give it to me."
"Take it, my dear boy," said Paul, with a paternal air that sorely tried
Dick's recovered gravity, it contrasted so absurdly with his altered
appearance. "Take it, and wish your poor old father himself again!"
Dick took it, and held it thoughtfully for some moments, while Paul
waited in nervous impatience. "Isn't it any use?" he said dolefully at
last, as nothing happened.
"I don't know," said Dick calmly, "I haven't wished yet."
"Then do so at once," said Paul fussily, "do so at once. There's no time
to waste, every moment is of importance--your cab will be here directly.
Although, although I'm altered in this ridiculous way, I hope I still
retain my authority as a father, and as a father, by Gad, I expect you
to obey me, sir!"
"Oh, all right," said Dick indifferently, "you may keep the authority if
you like."
"Then do what I tell you. Can't you see how urgent it is that a scandal
like this shouldn't get about? I should be the laughing-stock of the
city. Not a soul must ever guess that such a thing has happened. You
must see that yourself."
"Yes," said Dick, who all this time was sitting on a corner of the
table, swinging his legs, "I see that. It will be all right. I'm going
to wish in a minute, and no one will guess there has been anything the
matter."
"That's a good boy!" said Paul, much relieved, "I know your heart is in
the right place--only do make haste."
"I suppose," Dick asked, "when you are yourself again, things would go
on just as usual?"
"I--I hope so."
"I mean you will go on sitting here, and I shall go off to Grimstone's?"
"Of course, of course," said Paul; "don't ask so many questions. I'm
sure you quite understand what has to be done, so get on. We might be
found like this any minute."
"That settles it," said Dick, "any fellow would do it after that."
"Yes, yes, but you're so slow about it!"
"Don't be in a hurry," said Dick, "you mayn't like it after all when
I've done it."
"Done what?" asked Mr. Bultitude sharply, struck by something sinister
and peculiar in the boy's manner.
"Well, I don't mind telling you," said Dick, "it's fairer. You see, you
wished to be a boy just like me, didn't you?"
"I didn't mean it," protested Paul.
"Ah, you couldn't expect a stone to know that; at any rate, it made you
into a boy like me directly. Now, if I wish myself a man just like you
were ten minutes ago, before you took the stone, that will put things
all right again, won't it?"
"Is the boy mad?" cried Paul, horrified at this proposal. "Why, why,
that would be worse than ever!"
"I don't see that," objected Dick, stubbornly. "No one would know
anything about it then."
"But, you little blockhead, can't I make you understand? It wouldn't do
at all. We should both of us be wrong then--each with the other's
personal appearance."
"Well," said Dick blandly, "I shouldn't mind that."
"But I should--I mind very much. I object strongly to such a--such a
preposterous arrangement. And what's more, I won't have it. Do you hear,
I forbid you to think of any such thing. Give me back that stone. I
can't trust you with it after this."
"I can't help it," said Dick doggedly. "You've had your wish, and I
don't see why I shouldn't have mine. I mean to have it, too."
"Why, you unnatural little rascal!" cried the justly-enraged father, "do
you mean to defy me? I tell you I will have that stone! Give it up this
instant!" and he made a movement towards his son, as if he meant to
recover the talisman by main force.
But Dick was too quick for him. Slipping off the table with great
agility, he planted himself firmly on the hearth-rug, with the hand that
held the stone clenched behind his back, and the other raised in
self-defence.
"I'd much rather you wouldn't make me hit you, you know," he said,
"because, in spite of what's happened, you're still my father, I
suppose. But if you interfere with me before I've done with this stone,
I'm afraid I shall have to punch your head."
Mr. Bultitude retreated a few steps apprehensively, feeling himself no
match for his son, except in size and general appearance; and for some
moments of really frightful intensity they stood panting on the
hearth-rug, each cautiously watching the other, on his guard against
stratagem and surprise.
It was one of those painful domestic scenes which are fortunately rare
between father and son.
Overhead, the latest rollicking French polka was being rattled out, with
a savage irony of which pianos, even by the best makers, can at times be
capable.
Suddenly Dick drew himself up. "Stand out of my way!" he cried
excitedly, "I am going to do it. I wish I was a man like you were just
now!"
And as he spoke, Mr. Bultitude had the bitterness of seeing his
unscrupulous son swell out like the frog in the fable, till he stood
there before him the exact duplicate of what Paul had so lately been!
The transformed Dick began to skip and dance round the room in high
glee, with as much agility as his increased bulk would allow. "It's all
right, you see," he said. "The old stone's as good as ever. You can't
say anyone would ever know, to look at us."
And then he threw himself panting into a chair, and began to laugh
excitedly at the success of his unprincipled manoeuvres.
As for Paul, he was perfectly furious at having been so outwitted and
overreached. It was a long time before he could command his voice
sufficiently to say, savagely: "Well, you've had your way, and a pretty
mess you've made of it. We're both of us in false positions now. I hope
you're satisfied, I'm sure. Do you think you'll care about going back to
Crichton House in that state?"
"No," said Dick, very decidedly: "I'm quite sure I shouldn't."
"Well, I can't help it. You've brought it on yourself; and, provided the
Doctor sees no objection to take you back as you are and receive you as
one of his pupils, I shall most certainly send you there."
Paul did not really mean this, he only meant to frighten him; for he
still trusted that, by letting Boaler into the secret, the charm might
be set in motion once more, and the difficulty comfortably overcome. But
his threat had a most unfortunate effect upon Dick; it hardened him to
take a course he might otherwise have shrunk from.
"Oh," he said, "you're going to do that? But doesn't it strike you that
things are rather altered with us now?"
"They are, to a certain extent, of course," said Paul, "through my folly
and your wicked cunning; but a word or two of explanation from me----"
"You'll find it will take more explanation than you think," said Dick;
"but, of course, you can try, if you think it worth while--when you get
to Grimstone's."
"When I,--I don't understand. When I,--what did you say?" gasped Paul.
"Why, you see," exclaimed Dick, "it would never have done for us both to
go back; the chaps would have humbugged us so, and as I hate the place
and you seem so fond of being a boy and going back to school and that, I
thought perhaps it would be best for you to go and see how you liked
it!"
"I never will! I'll not stir from this room! I dare you to try to move
me!" cried Paul. And just then there was the sound of wheels outside
once more. They stopped before the house, the bell rang sharply--the
long-expected cab had come at last.
"You've no time to lose," said Dick, "get your coat on."
Mr. Bultitude tried to treat the affair as a joke. He laughed a ghastly
little laugh.
"Ha! ha! you've fairly caught your poor father this time; you've proved
him in the wrong. I admit I said more than I exactly meant. But that's
enough. Don't drive a good joke too far; shake hands, and let us see if
we can't find a way out of this!"
But Dick only warmed his coat tails at the fire as he said, with a very
ungenerous reminiscence of his father's manner: "You are going back to
an excellent establishment, where you will enjoy all the comforts of
home--I can specially recommend the stickjaw; look out for it on
Tuesdays and Fridays. You will once more take part in the games and
lessons of happy boyhood. (Did you ever play 'chevy' when you were a boy
before? You'll enjoy chevy.) And you will find your companions easy
enough to get on with, if you don't go giving yourself airs; they won't
stand airs. Now good-bye, my boy, and bless you!"
Paul stood staring stupidly at this outrageous assumption; he could
scarcely believe yet that it was meant in cruel earnest. Before he could
answer, the door opened and Boaler appeared.
"Had a deal of trouble to find a keb, sir, on a night like this," he
said to the false Dick, "but the luggage is all on top, and the man says
there's plenty of time still."
"Good-bye then, my boy," said Dick, with well-assumed tenderness, but a
rather dangerous light in his eye. "My compliments to the Doctor,
remember."
Paul turned indignantly from him to the butler; he, at least, would
stand by him. Boaler would not see a master who had always been fair, if
not indulgent, to him driven from his home in this cold-blooded manner!
He made two or three attempts to speak, for his brain whirled so with
scathing, burning things to say. He would expose the fraud then and
there, and defy the impudent usurper; he would warn every one against
this spurious pinchbeck imitation of himself. The whole household should
be summoned and called upon to judge between the two!
No doubt, if he had had enough self-command to do all this effectually,
while Dick had as yet not had the time thoroughly to adapt himself to
his altered circumstances, he might have turned the situation at the
outset, and spared himself some very painful experiences.
But it is very often precisely those words which are the most vitally
important to be said that refuse to pass our lips on a sudden emergency.
We feel all the necessity of saying something at once, but the necessary
words unaccountably desert us at the critical moment.
Mr. Bultitude felt himself in this unfortunate position. He made more
wild efforts to explain, but the sense of his danger only petrified his
mind instead of stimulating it. Then he was spared further conflict. A
dark mist rose before his eyes; the walls of the room receded into
infinite space; and, with a loud singing in his ears, he fell, and
seemed to himself to be sinking down, down, through the earth to the
very crust of the antipodes. Then the blackness closed over him--and he
knew no more.
3. _In the Toils_
"I beseech you let his lack of years be no impediment to let him
lack a reverend estimation, for I never knew so young a body with
so old a head."--_Merchant of Venice_, Act iv.
When Mr. Bultitude recovered his senses, which was not for a
considerable time, he found that he was being jolted along through a
broad well-lit thoroughfare, in a musty four-wheeler.
His head was by no means clear yet, and for some minutes he could hardly
be said to think at all; he merely lay back dreamily listening to the
hard grinding jar of the cab windows vibrating in their grooves.
His first distinct sensation was a vague wonder what Barbara might be
intending to give him for dinner, for, oddly enough, he felt far from
hungry, and was conscious that his palate would require the adroitest
witching.
With the thought of dinner his dining-room was almost inseparably
associated, and then, with an instant rush of recollection, the whole
scene there with the Garuda Stone surged into his brain. He shuddered as
he did so; it had all been so real, so hideously vivid and coherent
throughout. But all unpleasant impressions soon yielded to the delicious
luxury of his present security.
As his last conscious moment had been passed in his own dining-room, the
fact that he opened his eyes in a cab, instead of confirming his worst
fears, actually helped to restore the unfortunate gentleman's serenity;
for he frequently drove home from the city in this manner, and believed
himself now, instead of being, as was actually the case, in that
marvellous region of cheap photography, rocking-horses, mild stone
lions, and wheels and ladders--the Euston Road--to be bowling along
Holborn.
Now that he was thoroughly awake he found positive amusement in going
over each successive incident of his nightmare experience with the
talisman, and smiling at the tricks his imagination had played him.
"I wonder now how the dickens I came to dream such outrageous nonsense!"
he said to himself, for even his dreams were, as a rule, within the
bounds of probability. But he was not long in tracing it to the devilled
kidneys he had had at the club for lunch, and some curious old brown
sherry Robinson had given him afterwards at his office.
"Gad, what a shock the thing has given me!" he thought. "I can hardly
shake off the feeling even now."
As a rule, after waking up on the verge of a fearful crisis, the effect
of the horror fades swiftly away, as one detail after another evades a
memory which is never too anxious to retain them, and each moment
brings a deeper sense of relief and self-congratulation.
But in Paul's case, curiously enough, as he could not help thinking, the
more completely roused he became, the greater grew his uneasiness.
Perhaps the first indication of the truth was suggested to him by a
lurking suspicion--which he tried to dismiss as mere fancy--that he
filled rather less of the cab than he had always been accustomed to do.
To reassure himself he set his thoughts to review all the proceedings of
that day, feeling that if he could satisfactorily account for the time
up to his taking the cab, that would be conclusive as to the unreality
of any thing that appeared to have happened later in his own house. He
got on well enough till he came to the hour at which he had left the
office, and then, search his memory as he would, he could not remember
hailing any cab!
Could it be another delusion, too, or was it the fact that he had found
himself much pressed for time and had come home by the Underground to
Praed Street? It must have been the day before, but that was Sunday.
Saturday, then? But the recollection seemed too recent and fresh; and
besides, on Saturday, he had left at two, and had taken Barbara to see
Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke's performance.
Slowly, insidiously, but with irresistible force, the conviction crept
upon him that he had dined, and dined well.
"If I have dined already," he told himself, "I can't be going home to
dinner; and if I am not going home to dinner, what--what am I doing in
this cab?"
The bare idea that something might be wrong with him after all made him
impatient to put an end to all suspense. He must knock this scotched
nightmare once for all on the head by a deliberate appeal to his senses.
The cab had passed the lighted shops now, and was driving between
squares and private houses, so that Mr. Bultitude had to wait until the
sickly rays of a street lamp glanced into the cab for a moment, and, as
they did so, he put his feet up on the opposite seat and examined his
boots and trousers with breathless eagerness.
It was not to be denied; they were not his ordinary boots, nor did he
ever wear such trousers as he saw above them! Always a careful and
punctiliously neat person, he was more than commonly exacting concerning
the make and polish of his boots and the set of his trousers.
These boots were clumsy, square-toed, and thick-soled; one was even
patched on the side. The trousers were heavy and rough, of the kind
advertised as "wear-resisting fabrics, suitable for youths at school,"
frayed at the ends, and shiny--shamefully shiny--about the knees!
In hot despair he rapidly passed his hands over his body. It felt
unusually small and slim, Mr. Bultitude being endowed with what is
euphemistically termed a "presence," and it was with an agony rarely
felt at such a discovery that he realised that, for the first time for
more than twenty years, he actually had a waist.
Then, as a last resource, he took off his hat and felt for the broad,
smooth, egg-like surface, garnished by scanty side patches of thin hair,
which he knew he ought to find.
It was gone--hidden under a crop of thick close curling locks!
This last disappointment completely overcame him; he had a kind of short
fit in the cab as the bitter truth was brought home to him unmistakably.
Yes, this was no dream of a distempered digestion, but sober reality.
The whole of that horrible scene in the dining-room had really taken
place; and now he, Paul Bultitude, the widely-respected merchant of
Mincing Lane, a man of means and position, was being ignominiously
packed off to school as if he were actually the schoolboy some hideous
juggle had made him appear!
It was only with a violent effort that he could succeed in commanding
his thoughts sufficiently to decide on some immediate action. "I must be
cool," he kept muttering to himself, with shaking lips, "quite cool and
collected. Everything will depend on that now!"
It was some comfort to him in this extremity to recognise on the box the
well-known broad back of Clegg, a cabman who stabled his two horses in
some mews near Praed Street, and whom he had been accustomed to
patronise in bad weather for several years.
Clegg would know him, in spite of his ridiculous transformation.
His idea was to stop the cab, and turn round and drive home again, when
they would find that he was not to be got rid of again quite so easily.
If Dick imagined he meant to put up tamely with this kind of treatment,
he was vastly mistaken; he would return home boldly and claim his
rights!
No reasonable person could be perverse enough to doubt his identity when
once matters came to the proof; though at first, of course, he might
find a difficulty in establishing it. His children, his clerks, and his
servants would soon get used to his appearance, and would learn to look
below the mere surface, and then there was always the possibility of
putting everything right by means of the magic stone.
"I won't lose a minute!" he said aloud; and letting down the window,
leaned out and shouted "Stop!" till he was hoarse.
But Clegg either could not or would not hear; he drove on at full speed,
a faster rate of progress than that adopted by most drivers of
four-wheeled cabs being one of his chief recommendations.
They were now passing Euston. It was a muggy, slushy night, with a thin
brown fog wreathing the houses and fading away above their tops into a
dull, slate-blue sky. The wet street looked like a black canal; the
blurred forms, less like vehicles than nondescript boats, moving over
its inky surface, were indistinctly reflected therein; the gas-lights
flared redly through the murky haze. It was not a pleasant evening in
which to be out-of-doors.
Paul would have opened the cab-door and jumped out had he dared, but his
nerve failed him, and, indeed, considering the speed of the cab, the
leap would have been dangerous to a far more active person. So he was
forced to wait resignedly until the station should be reached, when he
determined to make Clegg understand his purpose with as little loss of
time as possible.
"I must pay him something extra," he thought; "I'll give him a sovereign
to take me back." And he searched his pockets for the loose coin he
usually carried about with him in such abundance; there was no gold in
any of them.
He found, however, a variety of minor and less negotiable articles,
which he fished out one by one from unknown depths--a curious
collection. There was a stumpy German-silver pencil case, a broken prism
from a crystal chandelier, a gilded Jew's harp, a little book in which
the leaves on being turned briskly, gave a semblance of motion to the
sails of a black windmill drawn therein, a broken tin soldier, some
Hong-Kong coppers with holes in them, and a quantity of little cogged
wheels from the inside of a watch; while a further search was rewarded
by an irregular lump of toffee imperfectly enfolded in sticky brown
paper.
He threw the whole of these treasures out of the window with
indescribable disgust, and, feeling something like a purse in a side
pocket, opened it eagerly.
It held five shillings exactly, the coins corresponding to those he had
pushed across to his son such a little while ago! It did not seem to him
quite such a magnificent sum now as it had done then; he had shifted his
point of view.
It was too clear that the stone must have carried out his thoughtless
wish with scrupulous and conscientious exactness in every detail. He had
wanted, or said he wanted, to be a boy again like Dick, and accordingly
he had become a perfect duplicate, even to the contents of the pockets.
Evidently nothing on the face of things showed the slightest difference.
Yet--and here lay the sting of the metamorphosis--he was conscious under
it all of being his old original self, in utter discordance with the
youthful form in which he was an unwilling prisoner.
By this time the cab had driven up the sharp incline, and under the high
pointed archway of St. Pancras terminus, and now drew up with a jerk
against the steps leading to the booking office.
Paul sprang out at once in a violent passion. "Here, you, Clegg!" he
said, "why the devil didn't you pull up when I told you? eh?"
Clegg was a burly, red-faced man, with a husky voice and a general
manner which conveyed the impression that he regarded teetotalism, as a
principle, with something more than disapproval.
"Why didn't I pull up?" he said, bending stiffly down from his box.
"'Cause I didn't want to lose a good customer, that's why I didn't pull
up!"
"Do you mean to say you don't know me?"
"Know yer?" said Clegg, with an approach to sentiment: "I've knowed yer
when you was a babby in frocks. I've knowed yer fust nuss (and a fine
young woman she were till she took to drinking, as has been the ruin of
many). I've knowed yer in Infancy's hour and in yer byhood's bloom! I've
druv yer to this 'ere werry station twice afore. Know yer!"
Paul saw the uselessness of arguing with him. "Then, ah--drive me back
at once. Let those boxes alone. I--I've important business at home which
I'd forgotten."
Clegg gave a vinous wink. "Lor, yer at it agin," he said with
admiration. "What a artful young limb it is! But it ain't what yer may
call good enough, so to speak, it ain't. Clegg don't do that no more!"
"Don't do what?" asked Paul.
"Don't drive no young gents as is a-bein' sent to school back agin into
their family's bosims," said Clegg sententiously. "You was took ill
sudden in my cab the larst time. Offal bad you was, to be sure--to hear
ye, and I druv' yer back; and I never got no return fare, I didn't, and
yer par he made hisself downright nasty over it, said as if it occurred
agin he shouldn't employ me no more. I durstn't go and offend yer par;
he's a good customer to me, he is."
"I'll give you a sovereign to do it," said Paul.
"If yer wouldn't tell no tales, I might put yer down at the corner
p'raps," said Clegg, hesitating, to Paul's joy; "not as it ain't cheap
at that, but let's see yer suffering fust. Why," he cried with lofty
contempt as he saw from Paul's face that the coin was not producible,
"y'ain't got no suffering! Garn away, and don't try to tempt a pore
cabby as has his livin' to make. What d'ye think of this, porter, now?
'Ere's a young gent a tryin' to back out o' going to school when he
ought to be glad and thankful as he's receivin' the blessin's of a good
eddication. Look at me. I'm a 'ard-workin' man. I am. I ain't 'ad no
eddication. The kids, they're a learnin' French, and free'and drorin,
and the bones on a skellington at the Board School, and I pays my
coppers down every week cheerful. And why, porter? Why, young master?
'Cause I knows the vally on it! But when I sees a real young gent a
despisin' of the oppertoonities as a bountiful Providence and a
excellent par has 'eaped on his 'ed, it--it makes me sick, it inspires
Clegg with a pity and a contemp' for such ingratitood, which he cares
not for to 'ide from public voo!"
Clegg delivered this harangue with much gesture and in a loud tone,
which greatly edified the porters and disgusted Mr. Bultitude.
"Go away," said the latter, "that's enough. You're drunk!"
"Drunk!" bellowed the outraged Clegg, rising on the box in his wrath.
"'Ear that. 'Ark at this 'ere young cock sparrer as tells a fam'ly man
like Clegg as he's drunk! Drunk, after drivin' his par in this 'ere
werry cab through frost and fine fifteen year and more! I wonder yer
don't say the old 'orse is drunk; you'll be sayin' that next! Drunk! oh,
cert'nly, by all means. Never you darken my cab doors no more. I shall
take and tell your par, I shall. Drunk, indeed! A ill-conditioned young
wiper as ever I see. Drunk! yah!"
And with much cursing and growling, Clegg gathered up his reins and
drove off into the fog, Boaler having apparently pre-paid the fare.
"Where for, sir, please?" said a porter, who had been putting the
playbox and portmanteau on a truck during the altercation.
"Nowhere," said Mr. Bultitude. "I--I'm not going by this train; find me
a cab with a sober driver."
The porter looked round. A moment before there had been several cabs
discharging their loads at the steps; now the last had rolled away
empty.
"You might find one inside the station by the arrival platform," he
suggested; "but there'll be sure to be one comin' up here in another
minute, sir, if you like to wait."
Paul thought the other course might be the longer one, and decided to
stay where he was. So he walked into the lofty hall in which the booking
offices are placed and waited there by the huge fire that blazed in the
stove until he should hear the cab arrive which could take him back to
Westbourne Terrace.
One or two trains were about to start, and the place was full. There
were several Cambridge men "going up" after the Christmas vacation, in
every variety of ulster; some tugging at refractory white terriers, one
or two entrusting bicycles to dubious porters with many cautions and
directions. There were burly old farmers going back to their quiet
countryside, flushed with the prestige of a successful stand under
cross-examination in some witness-box at the Law Courts; to tell and
retell the story over hill and dale, in the market-place and
bar-parlour, every week for the rest of their honest lives. There was
the usual pantomime "rally" on a mild scale, with real frantic
passengers, and porters, and trucks, and trays of lighted lamps.
Presently, out of the crowd and confusion, a small boy in a thick pilot
jacket and an immensely tall hat, whom Paul had observed looking at him
intently for some time, walked up to the stove and greeted him
familiarly.
"Hallo, Bultitude!" he said, "I thought it was you. Here we are again,
eh? Ugh!" and he giggled dismally.
He was a pale-faced boy with freckles, very light green eyes, long,
rather ragged black hair, a slouching walk, and a smile half-simpering,
half-impudent.
Mr. Bultitude was greatly staggered by the presumption of so small a boy
venturing to address him in this way. He could only stare haughtily.
"You might find a word to say to a fellow!" said the boy in an aggrieved
tone. "Look here; come and get your luggage labelled."
"I don't want it labelled," said Paul stiffly, feeling bound to say
something. "I'm waiting for a cab to take me home again."
The other gave a loud whistle. "That'll make it rather a short term,
won't it, if you're going home for the holidays already? You're a cool
chap, Bultitude! If I were to go back to my governor now, he wouldn't
see it. It would put him in no end of a bait. But you're chaffing----"
Paul walked away from him with marked coolness. He was not going to
trouble himself to talk to his son's schoolfellows.
"Aren't you well?" said the boy, not at all discouraged by his
reception, following him and taking his arm. "Down in the mouth? It is
beastly, isn't it, having to go back to old Grimstone's! The snow gave
us an extra week, though--we've that much to be thankful for. I wish it
was the first day of the holidays again, don't you? What's the matter
with you? What have I done to put you in a wax?"
"Nothing at present," said Paul. "I don't speak to you merely because I
don't happen to have the--ah--pleasure of your acquaintance."
"Oh, very well, then; I daresay you know best," said the other huffily.
"Only I thought--considering we came the same half, and have been chums,
and always sat next one another ever since--you might perhaps just
recollect having met me before, you know."
"Well, I don't," said Mr. Bultitude. "I tell you I haven't the least
idea what your name is. The fact is there has been a slight mistake,
which I can't stop to talk about now. There's a cab just driven up
outside now. You must excuse me, really, my boy, I want to go."
He tried to work his arm free from the close and affectionate grip of
his unwelcome companion, who was regarding him with a sort of admiring
leer.
"What a fellow you are, Bultitude!" he said; "always up to something or
other. You know me well enough. What is the use of keeping it up any
longer? Let's talk, and stop humbugging. How much grub have you brought
back this time?"
To be advised to stop humbugging, and be persecuted with such idle
questions as these, maddened the poor gentleman. A hansom really had
rolled up to the steps outside. He must put an end to this waste of
precious time, and escape from this highly inconvenient small boy.
He forced his way to the door, the boy still keeping fast hold of his
arm. Fortunately the cab was still there, and its late occupant, a tall,
broad man, was standing with his back to them paying the driver. Paul
was only just in time.
"Porter!" he cried. "Where's that porter? I want my box put on that cab.
No, I don't care about the luggage; engage the cab. Now, you little
ruffian, are you going to let me go? Can't you see I'm anxious to get
away?"
Jolland giggled more impishly than ever. "Well, you _have_ got cheek!"
he said. "Go on, I wish you may get that cab, I'm sure!"
Paul, thus released, was just hurrying towards the cab, when the
stranger who had got out of it settled the fare with satisfaction to
himself and turned sharply round.
The gas-light fell full on his face, and Mr. Bultitude recognised that
the form and features were those of no stranger--he had stumbled upon
the very last person he had expected or desired to meet just then--his
flight was intercepted by his son's schoolmaster, Dr. Grimstone himself!
The suddenness of the shock threw him completely off his balance. In an
ordinary way the encounter would not of course have discomposed him, but
now he would have given worlds for presence of mind enough either to
rush past to the cab and secure his only chance of freedom before the
Doctor had fully realised his intention, or else greet him affably and
calmly, and, taking him quietly aside, explain his awkward position with
an easy man-of-the-world air, which would ensure instant conviction.
But both courses were equally impossible. He stood there, right in Dr.
Grimstone's path, with terrified starting eyes and quivering limbs, more
like an unhappy guinea-pig expecting the advances of a boa, than a
British merchant in the presence of his son's schoolmaster! He was sick
and faint with alarm, and the consciousness that appearances were all
against him.
There was nothing in the least extraordinary in the fact of the Doctor's
presence at the station. Mr. Bultitude might easily have taken this
into account as a very likely contingency and have provided accordingly,
had he troubled to think, for it was Dr. Grimstone's custom, upon the
first day of the term, to come up to town and meet as many of his pupils
upon the platform as intended to return by a train previously specified
at the foot of the school-bills; and Paul had even expressly insisted
upon Dick's travelling under surveillance in this manner, thinking it
necessary to keep him out of premature mischief.
It makes a calamity doubly hard to bear when one looks back and sees by
what a trivial chance it has come upon us, and how slight an effort
would have averted it altogether; and Mr. Bultitude cursed his own
stupidity as he stood there, rooted to the ground, and saw the hansom (a
"patent safety" to him in sober earnest) drive off and abandon him to
his fate.
Dr. Grimstone bore down heavily upon him and Jolland, who had by this
time come up. He was a tall and imposing personage, with a strong black
beard and small angry grey eyes, slightly blood-tinged; he wore garments
of a semi-clerical cut and colour, though he was not in orders. He held
out a hand to each with elaborate geniality.
"Ha, Bultitude, my boy, how are you? How are you, Jolland? Come back
braced in body and mind by your vacation, eh? That's as it should be.
Have you tickets? No? follow me then. You're both over age, I believe.
There you are; take care of them."
And before Paul could protest, he had purchased tickets for all three,
after which he laid an authoritative hand upon Mr. Bultitude's shoulder
and walked him out through the booking hall upon the platform.
"This is awful," thought Paul, shrinking involuntarily; "simply awful.
He evidently has no idea who I really am. Unless I'm very careful I
shall be dragged off to Crichton House before I can put him right. If I
could only get him away alone somewhere."
As if in answer to the wish, the Doctor guided him by a slight pressure
straight along by the end of the station, saying to Jolland as he did
so, "I wish to have a little serious conversation with Richard in
private. Suppose you go to the bookstall and see if you can find out any
of our young friends. Tell them to wait for me there."
When they were alone the Doctor paced solemnly along in silence for some
moments, while Paul, who had always been used to consider himself a
fairly prominent object, whatever might be his surroundings, began to
feel an altogether novel sensation of utter insignificance upon that
immense brown plain of platform and under the huge span of the arches
whose girders were lost in wreaths of mingled fog and smoke.
Still he had some hope. Was it not possible, after all, that the Doctor
had divined his secret and was searching for words delicate enough to
convey his condolences?
"I wished to tell you, Bultitude," said the Doctor presently, and his
first words dashed all Paul's rising hopes, "that I hope you are
returning this term with the resolve to do better things. You have
caused your excellent father much pain in the past. You little know the
grief a wilful boy can inflict on his parent."
"I think I have a very fair idea of it," thought Paul, but he said
nothing.
"I hope you left him in good health? Such a devoted parent,
Richard--such a noble heart!"
At any other time Mr. Bultitude might have felt gratified by these
eulogies, but just then he was conscious that he could lay no claim to
them. It was Dick who had the noble heart now, and he himself felt even
less of a devoted parent than he looked.
"I had a letter from him during the vacation," continued Dr. Grimstone,
"a sweet letter, Richard, breathing in every line a father's anxiety and
concern for your welfare."
Paul was a little staggered. He remembered having written, but he would
scarcely perhaps have described his letter as "sweet," as he had not
done much more than enclose a cheque for his son's account and object to
the items for pew-rent and scientific lectures with the diorama as
excessive.
"But--and this is what I wanted to say to you, Bultitude--his is no
blind doting affection. He has implored me, for your own sake, if I see
you diverging ever so slightly from the path of duty, not to stay my
hand. And I shall not forget his injunctions."
A few minutes ago, and it would have seemed to Paul so simple and easy a
matter to point out to the Doctor the very excusable error into which he
had fallen. It was no more than he would have to do repeatedly upon his
return, and here was an excellent opportunity for an explanation.
But, somehow the words would not come. The schoolmaster's form seemed so
tremendous and towering, and he so feeble and powerless before him, that
he soon persuaded himself that a public place, like a station platform,
was no scene for domestic revelations of so painful a character.
He gave up all idea of resistance at present. "Perhaps I had better
leave him in his error till we get into the train," he thought; "then we
will get rid of that other boy, and I can break it to him gradually in
the railway carriage as I get more accustomed to him."
But in spite of his determination to unbosom himself without further
delay, he knew that a kind of fascinated resignation was growing upon
him and gaining firmer hold each minute.
Something must be done to break the spell and burst the toils which were
being woven round him before all effort became impossible.
"And now," said the Doctor, glancing up at the great clock-face on which
a reflector cast a patch of dim yellow light, "we must be thinking of
starting. But don't forget what I have said."
And they walked back towards the book-stalls with their cheery warmth
of colour, past the glittering buffet, and on up the platform, to a part
where six boys of various sizes were standing huddled forlornly together
under a gaslight.
"Aha!" said Dr. Grimstone, with a slight touch of the ogre in his tone,
"more of my fellows, eh? We shall be quite a party. How do you do, boys?
Welcome back to your studies."
And the six boys came forward, all evidently in the lowest spirits, and
raised their tall hats with a studied politeness.
"Some old friends here, Bultitude," said the Doctor, impelling the
unwilling Paul towards the group. "You know Tipping, of course; Coker,
too, you've met before--and Coggs. How are you, Siggers? You're looking
well. Ah, by the way, I see a new face--Kiffin, I think? Kiffin, this is
Bultitude, who will make himself your mentor, I hope, and initiate you
into our various manners and customs."
And, with a horrible dream-like sense of unreality, Mr. Bultitude found
himself being greeted by several entire strangers with a degree of
warmth embarrassing in the extreme.
He would have liked to protest and declare himself there and then in his
true colours, but if this had been difficult alone with the Doctor under
the clock, it was impossible now, and he submitted ruefully enough to
their unwelcome advances.
Tipping, a tall, red-haired, raw-boned boy, with sleeves and trousers he
had outgrown, and immense boots, wrung Paul's hand with misdirected
energy, saying "how-de-do?" with a gruff superiority, mercifully
tempered by a touch of sheepishness.
Coggs and Coker welcomed him with open arms as an equal, while Siggers,
a short, slight, sharp-featured boy, with a very fashionable hat and
shirt-collars, and a horse-shoe pin, drawled, "How are you, old boy?"
with the languor of a confirmed man about town.
The other two were Biddlecomb, a boy with a blooming complexion and a
singularly sweet voice, and the new-comer, Kiffin, who did not seem much
more at home in the society of other boys than Mr. Bultitude himself,
for he kept nervously away from them, shivering with the piteous
self-abandonment of an Italian greyhound.
Paul was now convinced that unless he exerted himself considerably, his
identity with his son would never even be questioned, and the danger
roused him to a sudden determination.
However his face and figure might belie him, nothing in his speech or
conduct should encourage the mistake. Whatever it might cost him to
overcome his fear of the Doctor, he would force himself to act and talk
ostentatiously, as much like his own ordinary self as possible, during
the journey down to Market Rodwell, so as to prepare the Doctor's mind
for the disclosures he meant to make at the earliest opportunity. He was
beginning to see that the railway carriage, with all those boys sitting
by and staring, would be an inconvenient place for so delicate and
difficult a confession.
The guard having warned intending passengers to take their seats, and
Jolland, who had been unaccountably missing all this time, having
appeared from the direction of the refreshment buffet, furtively
brushing away some suspicious-looking flakes and crumbs from his coat,
and contrived to join the party unperceived, they all got into a
first-class compartment--Paul with the rest.
He longed for moral courage to stand out boldly and refuse to leave
town, but, as we have seen, it was beyond his powers, and he temporised.
Very soon the whistle had sounded and the train had begun to glide
slowly out beyond the platform and arch, past the signal boxes and long
low sheds and offices which are the suburbs of a large terminus--and
then it was too late.
4. _A Minnow amongst Tritons_
"Boys are capital fellows in their own way among their mates; but
they are unwholesome companions for grown people."--_Essays of
Elia._
For some time after they were fairly started the Doctor read his evening
paper with an air of impartial but severe criticism, and Mr. Bultitude
as he sat opposite him next to the window, found himself overwhelmed
with a new and very unpleasant timidity.
He knew that, if he would free himself, this utterly unreasonable
feeling must be wrestled with and overcome; that now, if ever, was the
time to assert himself, and prove that he was anything but the raw youth
he was conscious of appearing. He had merely to speak and act, too, in
his ordinary everyday manner; to forget as far as possible the change
that had affected his outer man, which was not so very difficult to do
after all--and yet his heart sank lower and lower as each fresh
telegraph post flitted past.
"I will let him speak first," he thought; "then I shall be able to feel
my way." But there was more fear than caution in the resolve.
At last, however, the Doctor laid down his paper, and, looking round
with the glance of proprietorship on his pupils, who had relapsed into a
decorous and gloomy silence, observed: "Well, boys, you have had an
unusually protracted vacation this time--owing to the unprecedented
severity of the weather. We must try to make up for it by the zest and
ardour with which we pursue our studies during the term. I intend to
reduce the Easter holidays by a week by way of compensation."
This announcement (which by no means relieved the general
depression--the boys receiving it with a sickly interest) was good news
to Paul, and even had the effect of making him forget his position for
the time.
"I'm uncommonly glad to hear it, Dr. Grimstone," he said heartily, "an
excellent arrangement. Boys have too many holidays as it is. There's no
reason, to my mind, why parents should be the sufferers by every
snowstorm. It's no joke, I can assure you, to have a great idle boy
hanging about the place eating his empty head off!"
A burglar enlarging upon the sanctity of the law of property, or a sheep
exposing the fallacies of vegetarianism, could hardly have produced a
greater sensation.
Every boy was roused from his languor to stare and wonder at these
traitorous sentiments, which, from the mouth of any but a known and
tried companion, would have roused bitter hostility and contempt. As it
was, their wonder became a rapturous admiration, and they waited for the
situation to develop with a fearful and secret joy.
It was some time before the Doctor quite recovered himself; then he said
with a grim smile, "This is indeed finding Saul amongst the prophets;
your sentiments, if sincere, Bultitude--I repeat, if sincere--are very
creditable. But I am obliged to look upon them with suspicion!" Then, as
if to dismiss a doubtful subject, he inquired generally, "And how have
you all been spending your holidays, eh!"
There was no attempt to answer this question, it being felt probably
that it was, like the conventional "How do you do?" one to which an
answer is neither desired nor expected, especially as he continued
almost immediately, "I took my boy Tom up to town the week before
Christmas to see the representation of the 'Agamemnon' at St. George's
Hall. The 'Agamemnon,' as most of you are doubtless aware, is a drama by
AEschylus, a Greek poet of established reputation. I was much pleased by
the intelligent appreciation Tom showed during the performance. He
distinctly recognised several words from his Greek Grammar in the course
of the dialogue."
No one seemed capable of responding except Mr. Bultitude, who dashed
into the breach with an almost pathetic effort to maintain his
accustomed stiffness.
"I may be old-fashioned," he said, "very likely I am; but
I--ah--decidedly disapprove of taking children to dramatic exhibitions
of any kind. It unsettles them, sir--unsettles them!"
Dr. Grimstone made no answer, but he put a hand on each knee, and glared
with pursed lips and a leonine bristle of the beard at his youthful
critic for some moments, after which he returned to his _Globe_ with a
short ominous cough.
"I've offended him now," thought Paul. "I must be more careful what I
say. But I'll get him into conversation again presently."
So he began at the first opportunity: "You have this evening's paper, I
see. No telegrams of importance, I suppose?"
"No, sir," said the Doctor shortly.
"I saw a report in to-day's _Times_," said poor Mr. Bultitude, with a
desperate attempt at his most conversational and instructive manner, "I
saw a report that the camphor crop was likely to be a failure this
season. Now, it's a very singular thing about camphor, that the
Japanese----" (he hoped to lead the conversation round to colonial
produce, and thus open the Doctor's eyes by the extent of his
acquaintance with the subject).
"I am already acquainted with the method of obtaining camphor, thank
you, Bultitude," said the Doctor, with dangerous politeness.
"I was about to observe, when you interrupted me," said Paul, "(and this
is really a fact that I doubt if you are aware of), that the Japanese
never----"
"Well, well," said the Doctor, with some impatience, "probably they
never do, sir, but I shall have other opportunities of finding out what
you have read about the Japanese."
But he glanced over the top of the paper at the indignant Paul, who was
not accustomed to have his information received in this manner, with
less suspicion and a growing conviction that some influence during the
holidays had changed the boy from a graceless young scapegrace into a
prig of the first water.
"He's most uncivil"--Mr. Bultitude told himself--"almost insulting, but
I'll go on. I'm rousing his curiosity. I'm making way with him; he sees
a difference already." And so he applied himself once more.
"You're a smoker, of course, Dr. Grimstone?" he began. "We don't stop
anywhere, I think, on the way, and I must confess myself, after dinner,
a whiff or two--I think I can give you a cigar you'll appreciate."
And he felt for his cigar-case, really forgetting that it was gone, like
all other incidents of his old self; while Jolland giggled with
unrestrained delight at such charming effrontery.
"If I did not know, sir," said the Doctor, now effectually roused, "that
this was ill-timed buffoonery, and not an intentional insult, I should
be seriously angry. As it is, I can overlook any exuberance of mirth
which is, perhaps, pardonable when the mind is elated by the return to
the cheerful bustle and activity of school-life. But be very careful."
"He needn't be so angry," thought Paul, "how could I know he doesn't
smoke? But I'm afraid he doesn't quite know me, even now."
So he began again: "Did I hear you mention the name of Kiffin amongst
those of your pupils here, Doctor? I thought so. Not the son of Jordan
Kiffin, of College Hill, surely? Yes? Why, bless my soul, your father
and I, my little fellow, were old friends in days before you were born
or thought of--born or thought of. He was in a very small way then, a
very small---- Eh, Dr. Grimstone, don't you feel well?"
"I see what you're aiming at, sir. You wish to prove to me that I'm
making a mistake in my treatment of you."
"That was my idea, certainly," said Paul, much pleased. "I'm very glad
you take me, Doctor."
"I shall take you in a way you won't appreciate soon, if this goes on,"
said the Doctor under his breath.
"When the time comes I shall know how to deal with you. Till then
you'll have the goodness to hold your tongue," he said aloud.
"It's not a very polite way of putting it," Paul said to himself, "but,
at any rate, he sees how the case stands now, and after all, perhaps, he
only speaks like that to put the boys off the scent. If so, it's
uncommonly considerate and thoughtful of him, by Gad. I won't say any
more."
But by-and-by, the open window made him break his resolution. "I'm sorry
to inconvenience you, Dr. Grimstone," he said, with the air of one used
to having his way in these matters, "but I positively must ask you
either to allow me to have this window up or to change places with you.
The night air, sir, at this time of the year is fatal, my doctor tells
me, simply fatal to a man of my constitution."
The Doctor pulled up the window with a frown, and yet a somewhat puzzled
expression. "I warn you, Bultitude," he said, "you are acting very
imprudently."
"So I am," thought Paul, "so I am. Good of him to remind me. I must keep
it up before all these boys. This unpleasant business mustn't get about.
I'll hold my tongue till we get in. Then, I daresay, Grimstone will see
me off by the next train up, if there is one, and lend me enough for a
bed at an hotel for the night. I couldn't get to St. Pancras till very
late, of course. Or he might offer to put me up at the school. If he
does, I think I shall very possibly accept. It might be better."
And he leant back in his seat in a much easier frame of mind; it was
annoying, of course, to have been turned out of his warm dining-room,
and sent all the way down to Market Rodwell on a fool's errand like
this; but still, if nothing worse came of it, he could put up with the
temporary inconvenience, and it was a great relief to be spared the
necessity of an explanation.
The other boys watched him furtively with growing admiration, which
expressed itself in subdued whispers, varied by little gurgles and
"squirks" of laughter; they tried to catch his eye and stimulate him to
further feats of audacity, but Mr. Bultitude, of course, repulsed all
such overtures with a coldness and severity which at once baffled and
piqued them.
At last his eccentricity took a shape which considerably lessened their
enthusiasm. Kiffin, the new boy, occupied the seat next to Paul; he was
a nervous-looking little fellow, with a pale face and big pathetic brown
eyes like a seal's, and his dress bore plain evidence of a mother's
careful supervision, having all the uncreased trimness and specklessness
rarely to be observed except in the toilettes of the waxen prodigies in
a shop-window.
It happened that, as he lay back in the padded seat between the
sheltering partitions, watching the sickly yellow dregs of oil surging
dismally to and fro with the motion in the lamp overhead, or the black
indistinct forms flitting past through the misty blue outside, the
pathos of his situation became all at once too much for him.
He was a home-bred boy, without any of that taste for the companionship
and pursuits of his fellows, or capacity for adapting himself to their
prejudices and requirements, which give some home-bred boys a ready
passport into the roughest communities.
His heart throbbed with no excited curiosity, no conscious pride, at
this his first important step in life; he was a forlorn little stranger,
in an unsympathetic strange land, and was only too well aware of his
position.
So that it is not surprising that as he thought of the home he had left
an hour or two ago which now seemed so shadowy, so inaccessible and
remote, his eyes began to smart and sting, and his chest to heave
ominously, until he felt it necessary to do something to give a partial
vent to his emotions and prevent a public and disgraceful exhibition of
grief.
Unhappily for him he found this safety-valve in a series of suppressed
but distinctly audible sniffs.
Mr. Bultitude bore this for some time with no other protest than an
occasional indignant bounce or a lowering frown in the offender's
direction, but at last his nerves, strung already to a high pitch by all
he had undergone, could stand it no longer.
"Dr. Grimstone," he said with polite determination, "I'm not a man to
complain without good reason, but really I must ask you to interfere.
Will you tell this boy here, on my right, either to control his feelings
or to cry into his pocket-handkerchief, like an ordinary human being? A
good honest bellow I can understand, but this infernal whiffling and
sniffing, sir, I will not put up with. It's nothing less than unnatural
in a boy of that size."
"Kiffin," said the Doctor, "are you crying?"
"N--no, sir," faltered Kiffin; "I--I think I must have caught cold,
sir."
"I hope you are telling me the truth, because I should be sorry to
believe you were beginning your new life in a spirit of captiousness and
rebellion. I'll have no mutineers in my camp. I'll establish a spirit of
trustful happiness and unmurmuring content in this school, if I have to
flog every boy in it as long as I can stand over him! As for you,
Richard Bultitude, I have no words to express my pain and disgust at the
heartless irreverence with which you persist in mimicking and
burlesquing a fond and excellent parent. Unless I perceive, sir, in a
very short time a due sense of your error and a lively repentance, my
disapproval will take a very practical form."
Mr. Bultitude fell back into his seat with a gasp. It was hard to be
accused of caricaturing one's own self, particularly when conscious of
entire innocence in that respect, but even this was slight in comparison
with the discovery that he had been so blindly deceiving himself!
The Doctor evidently had failed to penetrate his disguise, and the
dreaded scene of elaborate explanation must be gone through after all.
The boys (with the exception of Kiffin) still found exquisite enjoyment
in this extraordinary and original exhibition, and waited eagerly for
further experiment on the Doctor's patience.
They were soon gratified. If there was one thing Paul detested more than
another, it was the smell of peppermint--no less than three office boys
had been discharged by him because, as he alleged, they made the clerks'
room reek with it,--and now the subtle searching odour of the hated
confection was gradually stealing into the compartment and influencing
its atmosphere.
He looked at Coggs, who sat on the seat opposite to him, and saw his
cheeks and lips moving in slow and appreciative absorption of something.
Coggs was clearly the culprit.
"Do you encourage your boys to make common nuisances of themselves in a
public place, may I ask, Dr. Grimstone?" he inquired, fuming.
"Some scarcely seem to require encouragement, Bultitude," said the
Doctor pointedly: "what is the matter now?"
"If he takes it medicinally," said Paul, "he should choose some other
time and place to treat his complaint. If he has a depraved liking for
the abominable stuff, for Heaven's sake make him refrain from it on
occasions when it is a serious annoyance to others!"
"Will you explain? Who and what are you talking about?"
"That boy opposite," said Paul, pointing the finger of denunciation at
the astonished Coggs; "he's sucking an infernal peppermint lozenge
strong enough to throw the train off the rails!"
"Is what Bultitude tells me true, Coggs?" demanded the Doctor in an
awful voice.
Coggs, after making several attempts to bolt the offending lozenge, and
turning scarlet meanwhile with confusion and coughing, stammered huskily
something to the effect that he had "bought the lozenges at a
chemist's," which he seemed to consider, for some reason, a mitigating
circumstance.
"Have you any more of this pernicious stuff about you?" said the Doctor.
Very slowly and reluctantly Coggs brought out of one pocket after
another three or four neat little white packets, made up with that
lavish expenditure of time, string, and sealing-wax, by which the
struggling chemist seeks to reconcile the public mind to a charge of two
hundred and fifty per cent. on cost price, and handed them to Dr.
Grimstone, who solemnly unfastened them one by one, glanced at their
contents with infinite disgust, and flung them out of window.
Then he turned to Paul with a look of more favour than he had yet shown
him. "Bultitude," he said, "I am obliged to you. A severe cold in the
head has rendered me incapable of detecting this insidious act of
insubordination and self-indulgence, on which I shall have more to say
on another occasion. Your moral courage and promptness in denouncing the
evil thing are much to your credit."
"Not at all," said Paul, "not at all, my dear sir. I mentioned it
because I--ah--happen to be peculiarly sensitive on the subject and----"
Here he broke off with a sharp yell, and began to rub his ankle. "One of
these young savages has just given me a severe kick; it's that fellow
over there, with the blue necktie. I have given him no provocation, and
he attacks me in this brutal manner, sir; I appeal to you for
protection!"
"So, Coker" (Coker wore a blue necktie), said the Doctor, "you emulate
the wild ass in more qualities than those of stupidity and stubbornness,
do you? You lash out with your hind legs at an inoffensive
school-fellow, with all the viciousness of a kangaroo, eh? Write out all
you find in Buffon's Natural History upon those two animals a dozen
times, and bring it to me by to-morrow evening. If I am to stable wild
asses, sir, they shall be broken in!"
Six pairs of sulky glowering eyes were fixed upon the unconscious Paul
for the rest of the journey; indignant protests and dark vows of
vengeance were muttered under cover of the friendly roar and rattle of
tunnels. But the object of them heard nothing; his composure was
returning once more in the sunshine of Dr. Grimstone's approbation, and
he almost decided on declaring himself in the station fly.
And now at last the train was grinding along discordantly with the
brakes on, and, after a little preliminary jolting and banging over the
points, drew up at a long lighted platform, where melancholy porters
paced up and down, croaking "Market Rodwell!" like so many Solomon
Eagles predicting woe.
Paul got out with the others, and walked forward to the guard's van,
where he stood shivering in the raw night air by a small heap of
portmanteaux and white clamped boxes.
"I should like to tell him all about it now," he thought, "if he wasn't
so busy. I'll get him to go in a cab alone with me, and get it over
before we reach the house."
Dr. Grimstone certainly did not seem in a very receptive mood for
confidences just then. No flys were to be seen, which he took as a
personal outrage, and visited upon the station-master in hot
indignation.
"It's scandalous, I tell you," he was saying: "scandalous! No cabs to
meet the train. My school reassembles to-day, and here I find no
arrangements made for their accommodation! Not even an omnibus! I shall
write to the manager and report this. Let some one go for a fly
immediately. Boys, go into the waiting room till I come to you.
Stay--there are too many for one fly. Coker, Coggs, and, let me see,
yes, Bultitude, you all know your way. Walk on and tell Mrs. Grimstone
we are coming."
Paul Bultitude was perhaps more relieved than disappointed by this
postponement of a disagreeable interview, though, if he had seen Coker
dig Coggs in the side with a chuckle of exultant triumph, he might have
had misgivings as to the prudence of trusting himself alone with them.
As it was he almost determined to trust the pair with his secret. "They
will be valuable witnesses," he said to himself, "that, whoever else I
may be, I am not Dick."
So he went on briskly ahead over a covered bridge and down some
break-neck wooden steps, and passed through the wicket out upon the
railed-in space, where the cabs and omnibuses should have been, but
which was now a blank spectral waste with a white ground-fog lurking
round its borders.
Here he was joined by his companions, who, after a little whispering,
came up one on either side and put an arm through each of his.
"Well," said Paul, thinking to banter them agreeably; "here you are,
young men, eh? Holidays all over now! Work while you're young, and
then---- Gad, you're walking me off my legs. Stop; I'm not as young as I
used to be----"
"Grim can't see us here, can he, Coker?" said Coggs when they had
cleared the gates and palings.
"Not he!" said Coker.
"Very well, then. Now then, young Bultitude, you used to be a decent
fellow enough last term, though you _were_ coxy. So, before we go any
further--what do you mean by this sort of thing?"
"Because," put in Coker, "if you aren't quite right in your head,
through your old governor acting like a brute all the holidays, as you
said he does, just say so, and we won't be hard on you."
"I--he--always an excellent father," stammered Paul. "What am I to
explain?"
"Why, what did you go and sneak of _him_ for bringing tuck back to
school for, eh?" demanded Coker.
"Yes, and sing out when he hacked your shin?" added Coggs; "and tell
Grimstone that new fellow was blubbing? Where's the joke in all that,
eh? Where's the joke?"
"You don't suppose I was bound to sit calmly down and allow you to suck
your villainous peppermints under my very nose, do you?" said Mr.
Bultitude. "Why shouldn't I complain if a boy annoys me by sniffing, or
kicks me on the ankle? Just tell me that? Suppose my neighbour has a
noisy dog or a smoky chimney, am I not to venture to tell him of it? Is
he to----"
But his arguments, convincing as they promised to be, were brought to a
sudden and premature close by Coker, who slipped behind him and
administered a sharp jog below his back, which jarred his spine and
caused him infinite agony.
"You little brute!" cried Paul, "I could have you up for assault for
that!"
But upon this Coggs did the very same thing only harder. "Last term
you'd have shown fight for much less, Bultitude," they both observed
severely, as some justification for repeating the process.
"Now, perhaps, you'll drop it for the future," said Coker. "Look here!
we'll give you one more chance. This sneaking dodge is all very well for
Chawner. Chawner could do that sort of thing without getting sat upon,
because he's a big fellow; but we're not going to stand it from you.
Will you promise on your sacred word of honour, now, to be a decent sort
of chap again, as you were last term?"
But Mr. Bultitude, though he longed for peace and quietness, dreaded
doing or saying anything to favour the impression that he was the
schoolboy he unluckily appeared to be, and he had not skill and tact
enough to dissemble and assume a familiar genial tone of equality with
these rough boys.
"You don't understand," he protested feebly. "If I could only tell
you----"
"We don't want any fine language, you know," said the relentless Coggs.
"Yes or no. Will you promise to be your old self again?"
"I only wish I could," said poor Mr. Bultitude--"but I can't!"
"Very well, then," said Coggs firmly, "we must try the torture. Coker,
will you screw the back of his hand, while I show him how they make
barley-sugar?"
And he gave Paul an interesting illustration of the latter branch of
industry by twisting his right arm round and round till he nearly
wrenched it out of the socket, while Coker seized his left hand and
pounded it vigorously with the first joint of his forefinger, causing
the unfortunate Paul to yell for mercy.
At last he could bear no more, and breaking away from his tormentors
with a violent effort, he ran frantically down the silent road towards a
house which he knew from former visits to be Dr. Grimstone's.
He was but languidly pursued, and, as the distance was short, he soon
gained a gate on the stuccoed posts of which he could read "Crichton
House" by the light of a neighbouring gas-lamp.
"This is a nice way," he thought, as he reached it breathless and
trembling, "for a father to visit his son's school!"
He had hoped to reach sanctuary before the other two could overtake him;
but he soon discovered that the gate was shut fast, and all his efforts
would not bring him within reach of the bell-handle--he was too short.
So he sat down on the doorstep in resigned despair, and waited for his
enemies. Behind the gate was a large many-windowed house, with steps
leading up to a portico. In the playground to his right the school
gymnasium, a great gallows-like erection, loomed black and grim through
the mist, the night wind favouring the ghastliness of its appearance by
swaying the ropes till they creaked and moaned weirdly on the hooks, and
the metal stirrups clinked and clashed against one another in irregular
cadence.
He had no time to observe more, as Coker and Coggs joined him, and, on
finding he had not rung the bell, seized the occasion to pummel him at
their leisure before announcing their arrival.
Then the gate was opened, and the three--the revengeful pair assuming an
air of lamb-like inoffensiveness--entered the hall and were met by Mrs.
Grimstone.
"Why, here you are!" she said, with an air of surprise, and kissing them
with real kindness. "How cold you look! So you actually had to walk. No
cabs as usual. You poor boys! come in and warm yourselves. You'll find
all your old friends in the schoolroom."
Mr. Bultitude submitted to be kissed with some reluctance, inwardly
hoping that Dr. Grimstone might never hear of it.
Mrs. Grimstone, it may be said here, was a stout, fair woman, not in the
least intellectual or imposing, but with a warm heart, and a way of
talking to and about boys that secured her the confidence of mothers
more effectually, perhaps, than the most polished conversation and
irreproachable deportment could have done.
She did not reserve her motherliness for the reception room either, as
some schoolmasters' wives have a tendency to do, and the smallest boy
felt less homesick when he saw her.
She opened a green baize outer door, and the door beyond it, and led
them into a long high room, with desks and forms placed against the
walls, and a writing table, and line of brown-stained tables down the
middle. Opposite the windows there was a curious structure of shelves
partitioned into lockers, and filled with rows of shabby schoolbooks.
The room had been originally intended for a drawing-room, as was evident
from the inevitable white and gold wall-paper and the tarnished gilt
beading round the doors and window shutters; the mantelpiece, too, was
of white marble, and the gaselier fitted with dingy crystal lustres.
But sad-coloured maps hung on the ink-splashed walls, and a clock with a
blank idiotic face (it is not every clock that possesses a decently
intelligent expression) ticked over the gilt pier-glass. The boards were
uncarpeted, and stained with patches of ink of all sizes and ages; while
the atmosphere, in spite of the blazing fire, had a scholastic blending
of soap and water, ink and slate-pencil in its composition, which
produced a chill and depressing effect.
On the forms opposite the fire some ten or twelve boys were sitting, a
few comparing notes as to their holiday experiences with some approach
to vivacity. The rest, with hands in pockets and feet stretched towards
the blaze, seemed lost in melancholy abstraction.
"There!" said Mrs. Grimstone cheerfully, "you'll have plenty to talk to
one another about. I'll send Tom in to see you presently!" And she left
them with a reassuring nod, though the prospect of Tom's company did not
perhaps elate them as much as it was intended to do.
Mr. Bultitude felt much as if he had suddenly been dropped down a
bear-pit, and, avoiding welcome and observation as well as he could, got
away into a corner, from which he observed his new companions with
uneasy apprehension.
"I say," said one boy, resuming the interrupted conversation, "did you
go to Drury Lane? Wasn't it stunning! That goose, you know, and the lion
in the forest, and all the wooden animals lumbering in out of the toy
Noah's Ark!"
"Why couldn't you come to our party on Twelfth-night?" asked another.
"We had great larks. I wish you'd been there!"
"I had to go to young Skidmore's instead," said a pale, spiteful-looking
boy, with fair hair carefully parted in the middle. "It was like his
cheek to ask me, but I thought I'd go, you know, just to see what it was
like."
"What was it like?" asked one or two near him languidly.
"Oh, awfully slow! They've a poky little house in Brompton somewhere,
and there was no dancing, only boshy games and a conjurer, without any
presents. And, oh! I say, at supper there was a big cake on the table,
and no one was allowed to cut it, because it was hired. They're so poor,
you know. Skidmore's pater is only a clerk, and you should see his
sisters!"
"Why, are they pretty?"
"Pretty! they're just like young Skidmore--only uglier; and just fancy,
his mother asked me 'if I was Skidmore's favourite companion, and if he
helped me in my studies?'"
The unfortunate Skidmore, when he returned, soon found reason to regret
his rash hospitality, for he never heard the last of the cake (which
had, as it happened, been paid for in the usual manner) during the rest
of the term.
There was a slight laugh at the enormity of Mrs. Skidmore's presumption,
and then a long pause, after which some one asked suddenly, "Does any
one know whether Chawner really has left this time?"
"I hope so," said a big, heavy boy, and his hope seemed echoed with a
general fervour. "He's been going to leave every term for the last year,
but I believe he really has done it this time. He wrote and told me he
wasn't coming back."
"Thank goodness!" said several, with an evident relief, and some one was
just observing that they had had enough of the sneaking business, when a
fly was heard to drive up, and the bell rang, whereupon everyone
abandoned his easy attitude, and seemed to brace himself up for a trying
encounter.
"Look out--here's Grimstone!" they whispered under their breaths, as
voices and footsteps were heard in the hall outside.
Presently the door of the schoolroom opened, and another boy entered the
room. Dr. Grimstone, it appeared, had not been the occupant of the fly,
after all. The new-comer was a tall, narrow-shouldered, stooping fellow,
with a sallow, unwholesome complexion, thin lips, and small sunken
brown eyes. His cheeks were creased with a dimpling subsmile, half
uneasy, half malicious, and his tread was mincing and catlike.
"Well, you fellows?" he said.
All rose at once, and shook hands effusively. "Why, Chawner!" they
cried, "how are you, old fellow? We thought you weren't coming back!"
There was a heartiness in their manner somewhat at variance with their
recent expressions of opinion; but they had doubtless excellent reasons
for any inconsistency.
"Well," said Chawner, in a low, soft voice, which had a suggestion of
feminine spitefulness, "I was going to leave, but I thought you'd be
getting into mischief here without me to watch over you. Appleton, and
Lench, and Coker want looking after badly, I know. So, you see, I've
come back after all."
He laughed with a little malevolent cackle as he spoke, and the three
boys named laughed too, though with no great heartiness, and shifting
the while uneasily on their seats.
After this sally the conversation languished until Tom Grimstone's
appearance. He strolled in with a semi-professional air, and shook hands
with affability.
Tom was a short, flabby, sandy-haired youth, not particularly beloved of
his comrades, and his first remark was, "I say, you chaps, have you done
your holiday task? Pa says he shall keep everyone in who hasn't. I've
done mine;" which, as a contribution to the general liveliness, was a
distinct failure.
Needless to say, the work imposed as a holiday occupation had been first
deferred, then forgotten, then remembered too late, and recklessly
defied with the confidence begotten in a home atmosphere.
Amidst a general silence Chawner happened to see Mr. Bultitude in his
corner, and crossed over to him. "Why, there's Dicky Bultitude there all
the time, and he never came to shake hands! Aren't you going to speak to
me?"
Paul growled something indistinctly, feeling strangely uncomfortable
and confused.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Chawner. "Does anyone know? Has he
lost his tongue?"
"He hadn't lost it coming down in the train," said Coker: "I wish he
had. I tell you what, you fellows--He--here's Grim at last! I'll tell
you all about it up in the bedroom."
And Dr. Grimstone really did arrive at this point, much to Paul's
relief, and looked in to give a grip of the hand and a few words to
those of the boys he had not seen.
Biddlecomb, Tipping, and the rest, came in with him, and the schoolroom
soon filled with others arriving by later trains, amongst the later
comers being the two house-masters, Mr. Blinkhorn and Mr. Tinkler; and
there followed a season of bustle and conversation, which lasted until
the Doctor touched a small hand-bell, and ordered them to sit down round
the tables while supper was brought in.
Mr. Bultitude was not sorry to hear the word "supper." He was faint and
dispirited, and although he had dined not very long since, thought that
perhaps a little cold beef and beer, or some warmed-up trifle, might
give him courage to tell his misfortunes before bedtime.
Of one thing he felt certain. Nothing should induce him to trust his
person in a bedroom with any of those violent and vindictive boys;
whether he succeeded in declaring himself that night or not, he would at
least insist on a separate bedroom. Meantime he looked forward to supper
as likely to restore geniality and confidence.
But the supper announced so imposingly proved to consist of nothing more
than two plates piled with small pieces of thinly-buttered bread, which
a page handed round together with tumblers of water; and Paul, in his
disappointment, refused this refreshment with more firmness than
politeness, as Dr. Grimstone observed.
"You got into trouble last term, Bultitude," he said sternly, "on
account of this same fastidious daintiness. Your excellent father has
informed me of your waste and gluttony at his own bountifully spread
table. Don't let me have occasion to reprove you for this again."
Mr. Bultitude, feeling the necessity of propitiating him, hastened to
take the two largest squares of bread and butter on the plate. They were
moist and thick, and he had considerable difficulty in disposing of
them, besides the gratification of hearing himself described as a "pig"
by his neighbours, who reproved him with a refreshing candour.
"I must get away from here," he thought, ruefully. "Dick seems very
unpopular. I wish I didn't feel so low-spirited and unwell. Why can't I
carry it off easily as--as a kind of joke? How hard these forms are, and
how those infernal boys did jog my back!"
Bedtime came at length. The boys filed, one by one, out of the room, and
the Doctor stood by the door to shake hands with them as they passed.
Mr. Bultitude lingered until the others had gone, for he had made up his
mind to seize this opportunity to open the Doctor's eyes to the mistake
he was making. But he felt unaccountably nervous; the diplomatic and
well-chosen introduction he had carefully prepared had left him at the
critical moment; all power of thought was gone with it, and he went
tremblingly up to the schoolmaster, feeling hopelessly at the mercy of
anything that chose to come out of his mouth.
"Dr. Grimstone," he began; "before retiring I--I must insist--I mean I
must request---- What I wish to say is----"
"I see," said the Doctor, catching him up sharply. "You wish to
apologise for your extraordinary behaviour in the railway carriage?
Well, though you made some amends afterwards, an apology is very right
and proper. Say no more about it."
"It's not that," said Paul hopelessly; "I wanted to explain----"
"Your conduct with regard to the bread and butter? If it was simply
want of appetite, of course there is no more to be said. But I have an
abhorrence of----"
"Quite right," said Paul, recovering himself; "I hate waste myself, but
there is something I must tell you before----"
"If it concerns that disgraceful conduct of Coker's," said the Doctor,
"you may speak on. I shall have to consider his case to-morrow. Has any
similar case of disobedience come to your knowledge? If so, I expect you
to disclose it to me. You have found some other boy with sweetmeats in
his possession?"
"Good Heavens, sir!" said Mr. Bultitude, losing his temper; "I haven't
been searching the whole school for sweetmeats! I have other things to
occupy my mind, sir. And, once for all, I demand to be heard! Dr.
Grimstone, there are, ahem, domestic secrets that can only be alluded to
in the strictest privacy. I see that one of your assistants is writing
at his table there. Cannot we go where there will be less risk of
interruption? You have a study, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir," said the Doctor with terrible grimness, "I have a study--and
I have a cane. I can convince you of both facts, if you wish it. If you
insult me again by this brazen buffoonery, I will! Be off to your
dormitory, sir, before you provoke me to punish you. Not another word!
Go!"
And, incredible as it may appear to all who have never been in his
position, Mr. Bultitude went. It was almost an abdication, it was
treachery to his true self; he knew the vital importance of firmness at
this crisis. But nevertheless his courage gave way all at once, and he
crawled up the bare, uncarpeted stairs without any further protest!
"Good night, Master Bultitude," said a housemaid, meeting him on the
staircase: "you know your bedroom. No. 6, with Master Coker, and Master
Biddlecomb, and the others."
Paul dragged himself up to the highest landing-stage, and, with a sick
foreboding, opened the door on which the figure 6 was painted.
It was a large bare plainly papered room, with several curtainless
windows, the blinds of which were drawn, a long deal stand of wash-hand
basins, and eight little white beds against the walls.
A fire was lighted in consideration of its being the first night, and
several boys were talking excitedly round it. "Here he is! He's stayed
behind to tell more tales!" they cried, as Paul entered nervously. "Now
then, Bultitude, what have you got to say for yourself?"
Mr. Bultitude felt powerless among all these young wolves. He had no
knowledge of boys, nor any notion of acquiring an influence over them,
having hitherto regarded them as necessary nuisances, to be rather
repressed than studied. He could only stare hopelessly at them in
fascinated silence.
"You see he hasn't a word to say for himself!" said Tipping. "Look here,
what shall we do to him? Shall we try tossing in a blanket? I've never
tried tossing a fellow in one myself, but as long as you don't jerk him
too high, or out on the floor, you can't hurt him dangerously."
"No, I say, don't toss him in a blanket," pleaded Biddlecomb, and Paul
felt gratefully towards him at the words; "anyone coming up would see
what was going on. I vote we flick at him with towels."
"Now just you understand this clearly," said Paul, thinking, not without
reason, that this course of treatment was likely to prove painful; "I
refuse to allow myself to be flicked at with towels. No one has ever
offered me such an indignity in my life! Oh, do you think I've not
enough on my mind as it is without the barbarities of a set of young
brutes like you!"
As this appeal was not of a very conciliatory nature they at once
proceeded to form a circle round him and, judging their distance with
great accuracy, jerked towels at his person with such diabolical
dexterity that the wet corners cut him at all points like so many fine
thongs, and he span round like a top, dancing, and, I regret to add,
swearing violently, at the pain.
When he was worked up almost to frenzy pitch Biddlecomb's sweet low
voice cried, "_Cave_, you fellows! I hear Grim. Let him undress now, and
we can lam it into him afterwards with slippers!"
At this they all cast off such of their clothes as they still wore, and
slipped modestly and peacefully into bed, just as Dr. Grimstone's large
form appeared at the doorway. Mr. Bultitude made as much haste as he
could, but did not escape a reprimand from the Doctor as he turned the
gas out; and as soon as he had made the round of the bedrooms and his
heavy tread had died away down the staircase, the light-hearted
occupants of No. 6 "lammed" it into the unhappy Paul until they were
tired of the exercise and left him to creep sore and trembling with rage
and fright into his cold hard bed.
Then, after a little desultory conversation, one by one sank from
incoherence into silence, and rose from silence to snores, while Paul
alone lay sleepless, listening to the creeping tinkle of the dying fire,
drearily wondering at the marvellous change that had come over his life
and fortunes in the last few hours, and feverishly composing impassioned
appeals which were to touch the Doctor's heart and convince his reason.
5. _Disgrace_
"Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning's face."
Sleep came at last, and brought too brief forgetfulness. It was not till
the dull grey light of morning was glimmering through the blinds that
Mr. Bultitude awoke to his troubles.
The room was bitterly cold, and he remained shivering in bed for some
time, trying to realise and prepare for his altered condition.
He was the only one awake. Now and then from one of the beds around a
boy would be heard talking in his sleep, or laughing with holiday
glee--at the drolleries possibly of some pantomime performed for his
amusement in the Theatre Royal, Dreamland--a theatre mercifully open to
all boys free of charge, long after the holidays have come to an end,
the only drawbacks being a certain want of definiteness in the plot and
scenery, and a liability to premature termination of the vaguely
splendid performance.
Once Kiffin, the new boy, awoke with a start and a heavy sigh, but he
cried himself to sleep again almost immediately.
Mr. Bultitude could bear being inactive no longer. He thought, if he got
up, he might perhaps see his misfortunes shrink to a more bearable, less
hopeless scale, and besides, he judged it prudent, for many reasons, to
finish his toilet before the sleepers began theirs.
Very stealthily, dreading to rouse anyone and attract attention in the
form of slippers, he broke the clinking crust of ice in one of the
basins and, shuddering from the shock, bathed face and hands in the
biting water. He parted his hair, which from natural causes he had been
unable to accomplish for some years, and now found an awkwardness in
accomplishing neatly, and then stole down the dark creaking staircase
just as the butler in the hall began to swing the big railway bell which
was to din stern reality into the sleepy ears above.
In the schoolroom a yawning maid had just lighted the fire, from which
turbid yellow clouds of sulphurous smoke were pouring into the room,
making it necessary to open the windows and lower a temperature that was
far from high originally.
Paul stood shaking by the mantelpiece in a very bad temper for some
minutes. If the Doctor had come in then, he might have been spurred by
indignation to utter his woes, and even claim and obtain his freedom.
But that was not to be.
The door did open presently, however, and a little girl appeared; a very
charming little maiden indeed, in a neat dark costume relieved by a
fresh white pinafore. She had deep grey eyes and glossy brown hair
falling over her forehead and down her back in soft straight masses, her
face was oval rather than round, and slightly serious, though her smile
was pretty and gay.
She ran towards Mr. Bultitude with a glad little cry, stretching out her
hands.
"Dick! dear Dick!" she said, "I am so glad! I thought you'd be down
early; as you used to be. I wanted to sit up last night so very much,
but mamma wouldn't let me."
Some might have been very glad to be welcomed in this way, even
vicariously. As for boys, it must have been a very bad school indeed
which Dulcie Grimstone could not have robbed of much of its terrors.
Mr. Bultitude, however, as has been explained, did not appreciate
children--being a family man himself. When one sees their petty
squabbles and jealousies, hears their cruel din, and pays for their
monkeyish mischief, perhaps the daintiest children seem but an earthly
order of cherubim. He was only annoyed and embarrassed by the
interruption, though he endured it.
"Ah," he said with condescension, "and so you're Dr. Grimstone's little
girl, are you? How d'ye do, my dear?"
Dulcie stopped and looked at him, with drawn eyebrows and her soft mouth
quivering. "What makes you talk like that?" she asked.
"How ought I to talk?" said Paul.
"You didn't talk like that before," said Dulcie plaintively. "I--I
thought perhaps you'd be glad to see me. You were once. And--and--when
you went away last you asked me to--to--kiss you, and I did, and I wish
I hadn't. And you gave me a ginger lozenge with your name written on it
in lead pencil, and I gave you a cough-lozenge with mine; and you said
it was to show that you were my sweetheart and I was yours. But I
suppose you've eaten the one I gave you?"
"This is dreadful!" thought Mr. Bultitude. "What shall I do now? The
child evidently takes me for that little scoundrel Dick." "Tut-tut," he
said aloud, "little girls like you are too young for such nonsense. You
ought to think about--about your dolls, and--ah, your needlework--not
sweethearts!"
"You say that now!" cried Dulcie indignantly. "You know I'm not a little
girl, and I've left off playing with dolls--almost. Oh, Dick, don't be
unkind! You haven't changed your mind, have you?"
"No," said Paul dismally, "I've changed my body. But there--you wouldn't
understand. Run away and play somewhere, like a good little girl!"
"I know what it is!" said Dulcie. "You've been out to parties, or
somewhere, and seen some horrid girl ... you like ... better than me!"
"This is absurd, you know," said Mr. Bultitude. "You can't think how
absurd it is! Now, you'll be a very foolish little girl if you cry.
You're making a mistake. I'm not the Dick you used to know!"
"I know you're not!" sobbed Dulcie. "But oh, Dick, you will be. Promise
me you will be!" And, to Paul's horror and alarm, she put her arms round
his neck, and cried piteously on his shoulder.
"Good gracious!" he cried, "let me go. Don't do that, for Heaven's sake!
I can hear some one coming. If it's your father, it will ruin me!"
But it was too late. Over her head he saw Tipping enter the room, and
stand glaring at them menacingly. Dulcie saw him too, and sprang away to
the window, where she tried to dry her eyes unperceived, and then ran
past him with a hurried good morning, and escaped, leaving Paul alone
with the formidable Tipping.
There was an awkward silence at first, which Tipping broke by saying,
"What have you been saying to make her cry, eh?"
"What's that to you, sir?" said Paul, trying to keep his voice firm.
"Why, it's just this to me," said Tipping, "that I've been spoons on
Dulcie myself ever since I came, and she never would have a word to say
to me. I never could think why, and now it turns out to be you! What do
you mean by cutting me out like this? I heard her call you 'dear Dick.'"
"Don't be an ass, sir!" said Paul angrily.
"Now, none of your cheek, you know!" said Tipping, edging up against him
with a dangerous inclination first to jostle aggressively, and then maul
his unconscious rival. "You just mind what I say. I'm not going to have
Dulcie bothered by a young beggar in the second form; she deserves
something better than that, anyway, and I tell you that if I once catch
you talking to her in the way you did just now, or if I hear of her
favouring you more than any other fellows, I'll give you the very
juiciest licking you ever had in your life. So look out!"
At this point the other boys began to straggle down and cluster round
the fire, and Paul withdrew from the aggrieved Tipping, and looked
drearily out of the window on the hard road and bare black trees
outside.
"I _must_ tell the Doctor how I'm situated!" he thought; "and yet
directly I open my mouth, he threatens to flog me. If I stay here, that
little girl will be always trying to speak to me, and I shall be
thrashed by the red-haired boy. If I could only manage to speak out
after breakfast!"
It was not without satisfaction that he remembered that he paid extra
for "meat for breakfast" in his son's school-bills, for he was beginning
to look forward to meal-time with the natural desire of a young and
healthy frame for nourishment.
At eight o'clock the Doctor came in and announced breakfast, leading
the way himself to what was known in the school as the "Dining Hall." It
scarcely deserved so high-sounding a name perhaps, being a long low room
on the basement floor, with a big fireplace, fitted with taps, and
baking ovens, which provoked the suspicion that it had begun existence
as a back kitchen.
The Doctor took his seat alone at a cross table forming the top of one
of the two rows of tables, set with white cups and saucers, and plates
well heaped with the square pieces of bread and butter, while Mrs.
Grimstone with Dulcie and Tom, sat at the foot of the same row, behind
two ugly urns of dull block-tin.
But when Mr. Bultitude, more hungry than he had felt for years, found
his place at one of the tables, he was disgusted to find upon his
plate--not, as he had confidently expected, a couple of plump poached
eggs, with their appetising contrast of ruddy gold and silvery white,
not a crisp and crackling sausage or a mottled omelette, not even the
homely but luscious rasher, but a brace of chill forbidding sardines,
lying grim and headless in bilious green oil!
It was a fish he positively loathed, nor could it be reasonably expected
that the confidence necessary for a declaration was to be forgotten by
so sepulchral a form of nutriment.
He roused himself, however, to swallow them, together with some of the
thin and tin-flavoured coffee. But the meal as a whole was so different
from the plentiful well-cooked breakfasts he had sat down before for
years as a matter of course, that it made him feel extremely unwell.
No talking was allowed during the meal. The Doctor now and then looked
up from his dish of kidneys on toast (at which envious glances were
occasionally cast) to address a casual remark to his wife across the
long row of plates and cups, but, as a rule, the dull champing sound of
boys solemnly and steadily munching was all that broke the silence.
Towards the end, when the plates had been generally cleared, and the
boys sat staring with the stolidity of repletion at one another across
the tables, the junior house-master, Mr. Tinkler, made his appearance.
He had lately left a small and little-known college at Cambridge, where
he had contrived, contrary to expectation, to evade the uncoveted wooden
spoon by just two places, which enabled the Doctor to announce himself
as being "assisted by a graduate of the University of Cambridge who has
taken honours in the Mathematical Tripos."
For the rest, he was a small insignificant-looking person, who evidently
disliked the notice his late appearance drew upon himself.
"Mr. Tinkler," said the Doctor in his most awful voice, "if it were my
custom to rebuke my assistants before the school (which it is not), I
should feel forced to remind you that this tardiness in rising is a bad
beginning of the day's work, and sets a bad example to those under your
authority."
Mr. Tinkler made no articulate reply, but sat down with a crushed
expression, and set himself to devour bread and butter with an energy
which he hoped would divert attention from his blushes; and almost
immediately the Doctor looked at his watch and said, "Now, boys, you
have half-an-hour for 'chevy'--make the most of it. When you come in I
shall have something to say to you all. Don't rise, Mr. Tinkler, unless
you have quite finished."
Mr. Tinkler preferred leaving his breakfast to continuing it under the
trying ordeal of his principal's inspection. So, hastily murmuring that
he had "made an excellent breakfast"--which he had not--he followed the
others, who clattered upstairs to put on their boots and go out into the
playground.
It was noticeable that they did so without much of the enthusiasm which
might be looked for from boys dismissed to their sports. But the fact
was that this particular sport, "chevy," commonly known as "prisoners'
base," was by no means a popular amusement, being of a somewhat
monotonous nature, and calling for no special skill on the part of the
performers. Besides this, moreover, it had the additional disadvantage
(which would have been fatal to a far more fascinating diversion) of
being in a great measure compulsory.
Football and cricket were of course reserved for half-holidays, and
played in a neighbouring field rented by the Doctor, and in the
playground he restricted them to "chevy," which he considered, rightly
enough, both gave them abundant exercise and kept them out of mischief.
Accordingly, if any adventurous spirit started a rival game, it was
usually abandoned sooner or later in deference to suggestions from
headquarters which were not intended to be disregarded.
This, though undoubtedly well meant, did not serve to stimulate their
affection for the game, an excellent one in moderation, but one which,
if played "by special desire" two or three hours a day for weeks in
succession is apt to lose its freshness and pall upon the youthful mind.
It was a bright morning. There had been a hard frost during the night,
and the ground was hard, sparkling with rime and ringing to the foot.
The air was keen and invigorating, and the bare black branches of the
trees were outlined clear and sharp against the pale pure blue of the
morning sky.
Just the weather for a long day's skating over the dark green glassy
ice, or a bracing tramp on country roads into cheery red-roofed market
towns. But now it had lost all power to charm. It was almost depressing
by the contrast between the boundless liberty suggested, and the dull
reality of a round of uninteresting work which was all it heralded.
So they lounged listlessly about, gravitating finally towards the end of
the playground, where a deep furrow marked the line of the base. There
was no attempt to play. They stood gossiping in knots, grumbling and
stamping their feet to keep warm. By-and-by the day-boarders began to
drop in one by one, several of them, from a want of tact in adapting
themselves to the general tone, earning decided unpopularity at once by
a cheerful briskness and an undisguised satisfaction at having something
definite to do once more.
If Mr. Tinkler, who had joined one of the groups, had not particularly
distinguished himself at breakfast, he made ample amends now, and by the
grandeur and manliness of his conversation succeeded in producing a
decided impression upon some of the smaller boys.
"The bore of a place like this, you know," he was saying with
magnificent disdain, "is that a fellow can't have his pipe of a morning.
I've been used to it, and so, of course, I miss it. If I chose to insist
on it Grimstone couldn't say anything; but with a lot of young fellows
like you, you see, it wouldn't look well!"
It could hardly have looked worse than little Mr. Tinkler himself would
have done, if he had ventured upon more than the mildest of cigarettes,
for he was a poor but pertinacious smoker, and his love for the weed was
chastened by wholesome fear. There, however, he was in no danger of
betraying this, and indeed it would have been injudicious to admit it.
"Talking of smoking," he went on, with a soft chuckle, as at
recollections of unspeakable devilry, "did I ever tell you chaps of a
tremendous scrape I very nearly got into up at the 'Varsity? Well, you
must know there's a foolish rule there against smoking in the streets.
Not that that made any difference to some of us! Well, one night about
nine, I was strolling down Petty Cury with two other men, smoking
(Bosher of "Pothouse," and Peebles of "Cats," both pretty well known up
there for general rowdiness, you know--great pals of mine!) and, just as
we turned the corner, who should we see coming straight down on us but a
Proctor with his bull-dogs (not dogs, you know, but the strongest 'gyps'
in college). Bosher said, 'Let's cut it!' and he and Peebles bolted.
(They were neither of them funks, of course, but they lost their heads.)
I went calmly on, smoking my cigar as if nothing was the matter. That
put the Proctor in a bait, I can tell you! He came fuming up to me.
'What do you mean, sir,' says he, quite pale with anger (he was a great
bull-headed fellow, one of the strongest dons of his year, that's why
they made him a Proctor)--'what do you mean by breaking the University
Statutes in this way?' 'It _is_ a fine evening,' said I (I was
determined to keep cool). 'Do you mean to insult me?' said he. 'No, old
boy,' said I, 'I don't; have a cigar?' He couldn't stand that, so he
called up his bull-dogs. 'I give him in charge!' he screamed out. 'I'll
have him sent down!' 'I'll send you down first,' said I, and I just gave
him a push--I never meant to hurt the fellow--and over he went. I rolled
over a bull-dog to keep him company, and, as the other fellow didn't
want any more and stood aside to let me pass, I finished my stroll and
my cigar."
"Was the Proctor hurt, sir?" inquired a small boy with great respect.
"More frightened than hurt, I always said," said Mr. Tinkler lightly,
"but somehow he never would proctorise any more--it spoilt his nerve. He
was a good deal chaffed about it, but of course no one ever knew I'd had
anything to do with it!"
With such tales of Homeric exploit did Mr. Tinkler inculcate a spirit of
discipline and respect for authority. But although he had indeed once
encountered a Proctor, and at night, he did himself great injustice by
this version of the proceedings, which were, as a matter of fact, of a
most peaceable and law-abiding character, and though followed by a
pecuniary transaction the next day in which six-and-eightpence changed
pockets, the Proctors continued their duties much as before, while Mr.
Tinkler's feelings towards them, which had ever been reverential in the
extreme, were, if anything, intensified by the experience.
Upon this incident, however, he had gradually embroidered the above
exciting episode, until he grew to believe at intervals that he really
had been a devil of a fellow in his time, which, to do him justice, was
far from the case.
He might have gone on still further to calumniate himself, and excite
general envy and admiration thereby, if at that moment Dr. Grimstone had
not happened to appear at the head of the cast-iron staircase that led
down into the playground; whereupon Mr. Tinkler affected to be intensely
interested in the game, which, as a kind of involuntary compliment to
the principal, about this time was galvanised into a sort of vigour.
But the Doctor, after frowning gloomily down upon them for a minute or
so, suddenly called "All in!"
He had several ways of saying this. Sometimes he would do so in a
half-regretful tone, as one himself obeying the call of duty; sometimes
he would appear for some minutes, a benignant spectator, upon the
balcony, and summon them to work at length with a lenient pity--for he
was by no means a hard-hearted man; but at other times he would step
sharply and suddenly out and shout the word of command with a grim and
ominous expression. On these last occasions the school generally
prepared itself for a rather formidable quarter of an hour.
This was the case now and, as a further portent, Mr. Blinkhorn was
observed to come down and, after a few words with Mr. Tinkler, withdrew
with him through the school gate.
"He's sent them out for a walk," said Siggers, who was skilled in omens.
"It's a row!"
Rows at Crichton House, although periodical, and therefore things to be
forearmed against in some degree, were serious matters. Dr. Grimstone
was a quick-tempered man, with a copious flow of words and a taste for
indulging it. He was also strongly prejudiced against many breaches of
discipline which others might have considered trifling, and whenever he
had discovered any such breach he could not rest until by all the means
in his power he had ascertained exactly how many were implicated in the
offence, and to what extent.
His usual method of doing this was to summon the school formally
together and deliver an elaborate harangue, during which he worked
himself by degrees into such a state of indignation that his hearers
were most of them terrified out of their senses, and very often
conscience-stricken offenders would give themselves up as hopelessly
detected and reveal transgressions altogether unsuspected by him--much
as a net brings up fish of all degrees of merit, or as heavy firing will
raise drowned corpses to the surface.
Paul naturally knew nothing of this peculiarity; he had kept himself as
usual apart from the others, and was now trying to compel himself to
brave the terrors of an avowal at the first opportunity. He followed the
others up the steps with an uneasy wonder whether, after all, he would
not find himself ignominiously set down to learn lessons.
The boys filed into the schoolroom in solemn silence, and took their
seats at the desks and along the brown tables. The Doctor was there
before them, standing up with one elbow resting upon a reading-stand,
and with a suggestion of coming thunder in his look and attitude that,
combined with the oppressive silence, made some of the boys feel
positively ill.
Presently he began. He said that, since they had come together again, he
had made a discovery concerning one among them which, astounding as it
was to him, and painful as he felt it to be compelled to make it known,
concerned them all to be aware of.
Mr. Bultitude could scarcely believe his ears. His secret was
discovered, then; the injury done him by Dick about to be repaired, and
open restitution and apology offered him! It was not perhaps precisely
delicate on the Doctor's part to make so public an affair of it, but so
long as it ended well, he could afford to overlook that.
So he settled himself comfortably on a form with his back against a
desk and his legs crossed, his expression indicating plainly that he
knew what was coming and, on the whole, approved of it.
"Ever since I have devoted myself to the cause of tuition," continued
the Doctor, "I have made it my object to provide boys under my roof with
fare so abundant and so palatable that they should have no excuse for
obtaining extraneous luxuries. I have presided myself at their meals, I
have superintended their very sports with a fatherly eye----"
Here he paused, and fixed one or two of those nearest him with the
fatherly eye in such a manner that they writhed with confusion.
"He's wandering from the point," thought Paul, a little puzzled.
"I have done all this on one understanding--that the robustness of your
constitutions, acquired by the plain, simple, but abundant regimen of my
table, shall not be tampered with by the indulgence in any of the
pampering products of confectionery. They are absolutely and
unconditionally prohibited--as every boy who hears me now knows
perfectly well!
"And yet" (here he began gradually to relax his self-restraint and lash
himself into a frenzy of indignation), "what do I find? There are some
natures so essentially base, so incapable of being affected by kindness,
so dead to honour and generosity, that they will not scruple to conspire
or set themselves individually to escape and baffle the wise precautions
undertaken for their benefit. I will not name the dastards at
present--they themselves can look into their hearts and see their guilt
reflected there----"
At this every boy, beginning to see the tendency of his denunciations,
tried hard to assume an air of conscious innocence and grieved interest,
the majority achieving conspicuous failure.
"I do not like to think," said Dr. Grimstone, "that the evil has a
wider existence than I yet know of. It may be so; nothing will surprise
me now. There may be some before me trembling with the consciousness of
secret guilt. If so, let those boys make the only reparation in their
power, and give themselves up in an honourable and straightforward
manner!"
To this invitation, which indeed resembled that of the duck-destroying
Mrs. Bond, no one made any response. They had grown too wary, and now
preferred to play a waiting game.
"Then let the being--for I will not call him boy--who is known to me,
step forth and confess his fault publicly, and sue for pardon!"
thundered the Doctor, now warmed to his theme.
But the being declined from a feeling of modesty, and a faint hope that
somebody else might, after all, be the person aimed at.
"Then I name him!" stormed Dr. Grimstone; "Cornelius Coggs--stand up!"
Coggs half rose in a limp manner, whimpering feebly, "Me, sir? Oh,
please sir--no, not me, sir!"
"Yes, you, sir, and let your companions regard you with the contempt and
abhorrence you so richly merit!" Here, needless to say, the whole school
glared at poor Coggs with as much virtuous indignation as they could
summon up at such short notice; for contempt is very infectious when
communicated from high quarters.
"So, Coggs," said the Doctor, with a slow and withering scorn, "so you
thought to defy me; to smuggle compressed illness and concentrated
unhealthiness into this school with impunity? You flattered yourself
that after I had once confiscated your contraband poisons, you would
hear no more of it! You deceived yourself, sir! I tell you, once for
all, that I will not allow you to contaminate your innocent schoolmates
with your gifts of surreptitious sweetmeats; they shall not be perverted
with your pernicious peppermints, sir; you shall not deprave them by
jujubes, or enervate them with Turkish Delight! I will not expose
myself or them to the inroads of disease invited here by a hypocritical
inmate of my walls. The traitor shall have his reward!"
All of which simply meant that the Doctor, having once had a small boy
taken seriously ill from the effects of overeating himself, was
naturally anxious to avoid such an inconvenience for the future. "Thanks
to the fearless honesty of a youth," continued the Doctor, "who, in an
eccentric manner, certainly, but with, I do not doubt, the best of
motives, opened my eyes to the fell evil, I am enabled to cope with it
at its birth. Richard Bultitude, I take this occasion of publicly
thanking and commending you; your conduct was noble!"
Mr. Bultitude was too angry and disappointed to speak. He had thought
his path was going to be made smooth, and now all this ridiculous fuss
was being made about a few peppermint lozenges. He wished he had never
mentioned them. It was not the last time he breathed that wish. "As for
you, Coggs," said the Doctor, suddenly producing a lithe brown cane, "I
shall make a public example of you."
Coggs stared idiotically and protested, but after a short and painful
scene, was sent off up to his bedroom, yelping like a kicked puppy.
"One word more," said the Doctor, now almost calm again. "I know that
you all think with me in your horror of the treachery I have just
exposed. I know that you would scorn to participate in it." (A thrill
and murmur, expressive of intense horror and scorn, went round the
benches.) "You are anxious to prove that you do so beyond a doubt."
(Again a murmur of assent.) "I give you all that opportunity. I have
implicit trust and confidence in you--let every boarder go down into the
box-room and fetch up his playbox, just as it is, and open it here
before me."
There was a general fall of jaws at this very unexpected conclusion; but
contriving to overcome their dismay, they went outside and down through
the playground into the box-room, Paul amongst the rest, and amidst
universal confusion, everyone opened his box, and, with a consideration
especially laudable in heedless boyhood, thoughtfully and carefully
removed from it all such dainties as might be calculated to shock or
pain their preceptor.
Mr. Bultitude found a key which was labelled "playbox," and began to
open a box which bore Dick's initials cut upon the lid; without any
apprehensions, however, for he had given too strict orders to his
daughter, to fear that any luxuries would be concealed there.
But no sooner had he raised the lid than he staggered back with disgust.
It was crammed with cakes, butterscotch, hardbake, pots of jam, and even
a bottle of ginger wine--enough to compromise a chameleon!
He set himself to pitch them all out as soon as possible with feverish
haste, but Tipping was too quick for him. "Hallo!" he cried: "oh, I say,
you fellows, come here! Just look at this! Here's this impudent young
beggar, who sneaked of poor old Coggs for sucking jujubes, and very
nearly got us all into a jolly good row, with his own box full all the
time; butterscotch, if you please, and jam, and ginger wine! You'll just
put 'em all back again, will you, you young humbug!"
"Do you use those words to me, sir?" said Paul angrily, for he did not
like to be called a humbug.
"Yes, sir, please, sir," jeered Tipping; "I did venture to take such a
liberty, sir."
"Then it was like your infernal impudence," growled Paul. "You be kind
enough to leave my affairs alone. Upon my word, what boys are coming to
nowadays!"
"Are you going to put that tuck back?" said Tipping impatiently.
"No, sir, I'm not. Don't interfere with what you're not expected to
understand!"
"Well, if you won't," said Tipping easily, "I suppose we must.
Biddlecomb, kindly knock him down, and sit on his head while I fill his
playbox for him."
This was neatly and quickly done. Biddlecomb tripped Mr. Bultitude up,
and sat firmly on him, while Tipping carefully replaced the good things
in Dick's box, after which he locked it, and courteously returned the
key. "As the box is heavy," he said, with a wicked wink, "I'll carry it
up for you myself," which he did, Paul following, more dead than alive,
and too shaken even to expostulate.
"Bultitude's box was rather too heavy for him, sir," he explained as he
came in; and Dr. Grimstone, who had quite recovered his equanimity,
smiled indulgently, and remarked that he "liked to see the strong
assisting the weak."
All the boxes had by this time been brought up, and were ranged upon the
tables, while the Doctor went round, making an almost formal inspection,
like a Custom House officer searching compatriots, and becoming milder
and milder as box after box opened to reveal a fair and innocent
interior.
Paul's turn was coming very near, and his heart seemed to shrivel like a
burst bladder. He fumbled with his key, and tried hard to lose it. It
was terrible to have oneself to apply the match which is to blow one to
the winds. If--if--the idea was almost too horrible--but if he, a
blameless and respectable city merchant, were actually to find himself
served like the miserable Coggs!
At last the Doctor actually stood by him. "Well, my boy," he said, not
unkindly, "I'm not afraid of anything wrong here, at any rate."
Mr. Bultitude, who had the best reasons for not sharing his confidence,
made some inarticulate sounds, and pretended to have a difficulty in
turning the key.
"Eh? Come, open the box," said the Doctor with an altered manner. "What
are you fumbling at it for in this--this highly suspicious manner? I'll
open it myself."
He took the key and opened the lid, when the cakes and wine stood
revealed in all their damning profusion. The Doctor stepped back
dramatically. "Hardbake!" he gasped; "wine, pots of strawberry jam! Oh,
Bultitude, this is a revelation indeed! So I have nourished one more
viper in my bosom, have I? A crawling reptile which curries favour by
denouncing the very crime it conceals in its playbox! Bultitude, I was
not prepared for such duplicity as this!"
"I--I swear I never put them in!" protested the unhappy Paul. "I--I
never touch such things: they would bring on my gout in half-an-hour.
It's ridiculous to punish me. I never knew they were there!"
"Then why were you so anxious to avoid opening the box?" rejoined the
Doctor. "No, sir, you're too ingenious; your guilt is clear. Go to your
dormitory, and wait there till I come to you!"
Paul went upstairs, feeling utterly abandoned and helpless. Though a
word as to his real character might have saved him, he could not have
said it, and, worse still, knew now that he could not.
"I shall be caned," he told himself, and the thought nearly drove him
mad. "I know I shall be caned! What on earth shall I do?"
He opened the door of his bedroom. Coggs was rocking and moaning on his
bed in one corner of the room, but looked up with red furious eyes as
Paul came in.
"What do you want up here?" he said savagely. "Go away, can't you!"
"I wish I _could_ go away," said Paul dolefully; "but I'm--hum--I'm sent
up here too," he explained, with some natural embarrassment.
"What!" cried Coggs, slipping off his bed and staring wildly: "you don't
mean to say you're going to catch it too?"
"I've--ah--every reason to fear," said Mr. Bultitude stiffly, "that I am
indeed going to 'catch it,' as you call it."
"Hooray!" shouted Coggs hysterically: "I don't care now. And I'll have
some revenge on my own account as well. I don't mind an extra licking,
and you're in for one as it is. Will you stand up to me or not?"
"I don't understand you," said Paul. "Don't come so near. Keep off, you
young demon, will you!" he cried presently, as Coggs, exasperated by all
his wrongs, was rushing at him with an evidently hostile intent. "There,
don't be annoyed, my good boy," he pleaded, catching up a chair as a
bulwark. "It was a misunderstanding. I wish you no harm. There, my dear
young friend! Don't!"
The "dear young friend" was grappling with him and attempting to wrest
the chair away by brute force. "When I get at you," he said, his hot
breath hissing through the chair rungs, "I'll jolly well teach you to
sneak of me!"
"Murder!" Paul gasped, feeling his hold on the chair relaxing. "Unless
help comes this young fiend will have my blood!"
They were revolving slowly round the chair, watching each other's eyes
like gladiators, when Paul noticed a sudden blankness and fixity in his
antagonist's expression, and, looking round, saw Dr. Grimstone's awful
form framed in the doorway, and gave himself up for lost.
6. _Learning and Accomplishments_
"I subscribe to Lucian: 'tis an elegant thing which cheareth up the
mind, exerciseth the body, delights the spectators, which teacheth
many comely gestures, equally affecting the ears, eyes and soul
itself."--BURTON, _on Dancing_.
"What is this?" asked Dr. Grimstone in his most blood-curdling tone,
after a most impressive pause at the dormitory door.
Mr. Bultitude held his tongue, but kept fast hold of his chair, which he
held before him as a defence against either party, while Coggs remained
motionless in the centre of the room, with crooked knees and hands
dangling impotently.
"Will one of you be good enough to explain how you come to be found
struggling in this unseemly manner? I sent you up here to meditate on
your past behaviour."
"I should be most happy to meditate, sir," protested Paul, lowering his
chair on discovering that there was no immediate danger, "if that--that
bloodthirsty young ruffian there would allow me to do so. I am going
about in bodily fear of him, Dr. Grimstone. I want him bound over to
keep the peace. I decline to be left alone with him--he's not safe!"
"Is that so, Coggs? Are you mean and base enough to take this cowardly
revenge on a boy who has had the moral courage to expose your
deceit--for your ultimate good--a boy who is unable to defend himself
against you?"
"He can fight when he chooses, sir," said Coggs; "he blacked my eye last
term, sir!"
"I assure you," said Paul, with the convincing earnestness of truth,
"that I never blacked anybody's eye in the whole course of my life. I am
not--ah--a pugnacious man. My age, and--hum--my position, ought to
protect me from these scandals----"
"You've come back this year, sir," said Dr. Grimstone, "with a very odd
way of talking of yourself--an exceedingly odd way. Unless I see you
abandoning it, and behaving like a reasonable boy again, I shall be
forced to conclude you intend some disrespect and open defiance by it."
"If you would allow me an opportunity of explaining my position, sir,"
said Paul, "I would undertake to clear your mind directly of such a
monstrous idea. I am trying to assert my rights, Dr. Grimstone--my
rights as a citizen, as a householder! This is no place for me, and I
appeal to you to set me free. If you only knew one tenth----"
"Let us understand one another, Bultitude," interrupted the Doctor.
"You may think it an excellent joke to talk nonsense to me like this.
But let me tell you there is a point where a jest becomes an insult.
I've spared you hitherto out of consideration for the feelings of your
excellent father, who is so anxious that you should become an object of
pride and credit to him; but if you dare to treat me to any more of this
bombast about 'explaining your rights,' you will force me to exercise
one of mine--the right to inflict corporal punishment, sir--which you
have just seen in operation upon another."
"Oh!" said Mr. Bultitude faintly, feeling utterly crestfallen--and he
could say nothing more.
"As for those illicit luxuries in your playbox," continued the Doctor,
"the fact that you brought the box up as it was is in your favour; and I
am inclined on reflection to overlook the affair, if you can assure me
that you were no party to their being put there?"
"On the contrary," said Paul, "I gave the strictest orders that there
was to be no such useless extravagance. I objected to have the kitchen
and housekeeper's room ransacked to make a set of rascally boys ill for
a fortnight at my expense!"
The Doctor stared slightly at this creditable but unnatural view of the
subject. However, as he could not quarrel with the sentiment, he let the
manner of expressing it pass unrebuked for the present, and, after
sentencing Coggs to two days' detention and the copying of innumerable
French verbs, he sent the ill-matched pair down to the schoolroom to
join their respective classes.
Paul went resignedly downstairs and into the room, where he found Mr.
Blinkhorn at the head of one of the long tables, taking a class of about
a dozen boys.
"Take your Livy and Latin Primer, Bultitude," said Mr. Blinkhorn mildly,
"and sit down."
Mr. Blinkhorn was a tall angular man, with a long neck and slightly
drooping head. He had thin wiry brown hair, and a plain face, with
shortsighted kind brown eyes. In character he was mild and reserved,
too conscientious to allow himself the luxury of either favourites or
aversions among the boys, all of whom in his secret soul he probably
disliked about equally, though he neither said nor did anything to show
it.
Paul took a book--any book, for he did not know or care to know one from
another--and sat down at the end furthest from the master, inwardly
rebelling at having education thus forced upon him at his advanced
years, but seeing no escape.
"At dinner time," he resolved desperately, "I will insist on speaking
out, but just now it is simply prudent to humour them."
The rest of the class drew away from him with marked coldness and
occasionally saluted him (when Mr. Blinkhorn's attention was called
away) with terms and grimaces which Paul, although he failed thoroughly
to understand them, felt instinctively were not intended as compliments.
Mr. Blinkhorn's notions of discipline were qualified by a sportsmanlike
instinct which forbade him to harass a boy already in trouble, as he
understood young Bultitude had been, and so he forbore from pressing him
to take any share in the class work.
Mr. Bultitude therefore was saved from any necessity of betraying his
total ignorance of his author, and sat gloomily on the hard form,
impatiently watching the minute-hand skulk round the mean dull face of
the clock above the chimney-piece, while around him one boy after
another droned out a listless translation of the work before him,
interrupted by mild corrections and comments from the master.
What a preposterous change from all his ordinary habits! At this very
time, only twenty-four hours since, he was stepping slowly and
majestically towards his accustomed omnibus, which was waiting with
deference for him to overtake it; he was taking his seat, saluted
respectfully by the conductor and cheerily by his fellow-passengers, as
a man of recognised mark and position.
Now that omnibus would halt at the corner of Westbourne Terrace in vain,
and go on its way Bankwards without him. He was many miles away--in the
very last place where anyone would be likely to look for him, occupying
the post of "whipping-boy" to his miserable son!
Was ever an inoffensive and respectable gentleman placed in a more false
and ridiculous position?
If he had only kept his drawer locked, and hidden the abominable Garuda
Stone away from Dick's prying eyes; if he had let the moralising alone;
if Boaler had not been so long fetching that cab, or if he had not
happened to faint at the critical moment--what an immense difference any
one of these apparent trifles would have made.
And now what was he to do to get out of this incongruous and distasteful
place? It was all very well to say that he had only to insist upon a
hearing from the Doctor, but what if, as he had very grave reason to
fear, the Doctor should absolutely refuse to listen, should even proceed
to carry out his horrible threat? Must he remain there till the holidays
came to release him? Suppose Dick--as he certainly would unless he was
quite a fool--declined to receive him during the holidays? It was
absolutely necessary to return home at once; every additional hour he
passed in imprisonment made it harder to regain his lost self.
Now and then he roused himself from all these gloomy thoughts to observe
his companions. The boys at the upper end, near Mr. Blinkhorn, were
fairly attentive, and he noticed one small smug-faced boy about half-way
up, who, while a class-mate was faltering and blundering over some
question, would cry "I know, sir. Let me tell him. Ask me, sir!" in a
restless agony of superior information.
Down by Paul, however, the discipline was relaxed enough, as perhaps
could only be expected on the first day of term. One wild-eyed
long-haired boy had brought out a small china figure with which, and the
assistance of his right hand draped in a pocket handkerchief, and
wielding a penholder, he was busy enacting a drama based on the lines of
Punch and Judy, to the breathless amusement of his neighbours.
Mr. Bultitude might have hoped to escape notice by a policy of judicious
self-effacement, but unhappily his long, blank, uninterested face was
held by his companions to bear an implied reproach; and being delicately
sensitive on this point, they kicked his legs viciously, which made him
extremely glad when dinnertime came, although he felt too faint and
bilious to be tempted by anything but the lightest and daintiest
luncheon.
But at dinner he found, with a shudder, that he was expected to swallow
a thick ragged section of boiled mutton which had been carved and helped
so long before he sat down to it, that the stagnant gravy was chilled
and congealed into patches of greasy white. He managed to swallow it
with many pauses of invincible disgust--only to find it replaced by a
solid slab of pale brown suet pudding, sparsely bedewed with unctuous
black treacle.
This, though a plentiful, and by no means unwholesome fare for growing
boys, was not what he had been accustomed to, and feeling far too heavy
and unwell after it to venture upon an encounter with the Doctor, he
wandered slow and melancholy round the bare gravelled playground during
the half-hour after dinner devoted to the inevitable "chevy," until the
Doctor appeared at the head of the staircase.
It is always sad for the historian to have to record a departure from
principle, and I have to confess with shame on Mr. Bultitude's account
that, feeling the Doctor's eye upon him, and striving to propitiate him,
he humiliated himself so far as to run about with an elaborate affection
of zest, and his exertions were rewarded by hearing himself cordially
encouraged to further efforts.
It cheered and emboldened him. "I've put him in a good temper," he told
himself; "if I can only keep him in one till the evening, I really think
I might be able to go up and tell him what a ridiculous mess I've got
into. Why should I care, after all? At least I've done nothing to be
ashamed of. It's an accident that might have happened to any man!"
It is a curious and unpleasant thing that, however reassuring and
convincing the arguments may be with which we succeed in bracing
ourselves to meet or disregard unpleasantness, the force of those
arguments seldom or never outlasts the frame of mind in which they are
composed, and when the unpleasantness is at hand, there we are, just as
unreasonably alarmed at it as ever.
Mr. Bultitude's confidence faded away almost as soon as he found himself
in the schoolroom again. He found himself assigned to a class at one end
of the room, where Mr. Tinkler presently introduced a new rule in
Algebra to them, in such a manner as to procure for it a lasting
unpopularity with all those who were not too much engaged in drawing
duels and railway trains upon their slates to attend.
Although Paul did not draw upon his slate, his utter ignorance of
Algebra prevented him from being much edified by the cabalistic signs on
the blackboard, which Mr. Tinkler seemed to chalk up dubiously, and rub
out again as soon as possible, with an air of being ashamed of them. So
he tried to nerve himself for the coming ordeal by furtively watching
and studying the Doctor, who was taking a Xenophon class at the upper
end of the room, and, being in fairly good humour, was combining
instruction with amusement in a manner peculiarly his own.
He stopped the construing occasionally to illustrate some word or
passage by an anecdote; he condescended to enliven the translation here
and there by a familiar and colloquial paraphrase; he magnanimously
refrained from pressing any obviously inconvenient questions; and his
manner generally was marked by a geniality which was additionally
piquant from its extreme uncertainty.
Mr. Bultitude could not help thinking it a rather ghastly form of
gaiety, but he hoped it might last.
Presently, however, some one brought him a blue envelope on a tray. He
read it, and a frown gathered on his face. The boy who was translating
at the time went on again in his former slipshod manner (which had
hitherto provoked only jovial criticism and correction) with complete
self-complacency, but found himself sternly brought to book, and
burdened by a heavy imposition, before he quite realised that his
blunders had ceased to amuse.
Then began a season of sore trial and tribulation for the class. The
Doctor suddenly withdrew the light of his countenance from them, and
sunshine was succeeded by blackest thunderclouds. The wind was no longer
tempered to the more closely shorn of the flock; the weakest vessels
were put on unexpectedly at crucial passages, and, coming hopelessly to
grief, were denounced as impostors and idlers, till half the class was
dissolved in tears.
A few of the better grounded stood the fire, like a remnant of the Old
Guard. With faces pale from alarm, and trembling voices, but perfect
accuracy, they answered all the Doctor's searching inquiries after the
paradigms of Greek verbs that seemed irregular to the verge of
impropriety.
Paul saw it all with renewed misgiving. "If I were there," he thought,
"I should have been run out and flogged long ago! How angry those stupid
young idiots are making him! How can I go up and speak to him when he's
like that? And yet I must. I'm sitting on dynamite as it is. The very
first time they want me to answer any questions from some of their
books, I shall be ruined! Why wasn't I better educated when I was a
boy, or why didn't I make a better use of my opportunities! It will be a
bitter thing if they thrash me for not knowing as much as Dick.
Grimstone's coming this way now; it's all over with me!"
The Greek class had managed to repel the enemy, with some loss to
themselves, and the Doctor now left his place for a moment, and came
down towards the bench on which Paul sat trembling.
The storm, however, had passed over for the present, and he only said
with restored calmness, "Who were the boys who learnt dancing last
term?"
One or two of them said they had done so, and Dr. Grimstone continued:
"Mr. Burdekin was unable to give you the last lesson of his course last
term, and has arranged to take you to-day, as he will be in the
neighbourhood. So be off at once to Mrs. Grimstone and change your
shoes. Bultitude, you learnt last term, too. Go with the others."
Mr. Bultitude was too overcome by this unexpected attack to contradict
it, though of course he was quite able to do so; but then, if he had, he
must have explained all, and he felt strongly that just then was neither
the time nor the place for particulars.
It would have been wiser perhaps, it would certainly have brought
matters to a crisis, if he could have forced himself to tell
everything--the whole truth in all its outrageous improbability--but he
could not.
Let those who feel inclined to blame him for lack of firmness consider
how difficult and delicate a business it must almost of necessity be for
anyone to declare openly, in the teeth of common sense and plain facts,
that there has been a mistake, and, in point of fact, he is not his own
son, but his own father.
"I suppose I must go," he thought. "I needn't dance. Haven't danced
since I was a young man. But I can't afford to offend him just now."
And so he followed the rest into a sort of cloak-room, where the tall
hats which the boys wore on Sundays were all kept on shelves in white
bandboxes; and there his hair was brushed, his feet were thrust into
very shiny patent leather shoes, and a pair of kid gloves was given out
to him to put on.
The dancing lesson was to be held in the "Dining Hall," from which the
savour of mutton had not altogether departed. When Paul came in he found
the floor cleared and the tables and forms piled up on one side of the
room.
Biddlecomb and Tipping and some of the smaller boys were there already,
their gloves and shiny shoes giving them a feeling of ceremony and
constraint which they tried to carry off by an uncouth parody of
politeness.
Siggers was telling stories of the dances he had been to in town, and
the fine girls whose step had exactly suited his own, and Tipping was
leaning gloomily against the wall listening to something Chawner was
whispering in his ear.
There was a rustle of dresses down the stairs outside, and two thin
little girls, looking excessively proper and prim, came in with an
elderly gentlewoman who was their governess and wore a _pince-nez_ to
impart the necessary suggestion of a superior intellect. They were the
Miss Mutlows, sisters of one of the day-boarders, and attended the
course by special favour as friends of Dulcie's, who followed them in
with a little gleam of shy anticipation in her eyes.
The Miss Mutlows sat stiffly down on a form, one on each side of her
governess, and all three stared solemnly at the boys, who began to blush
vividly under the inspection, to unbutton and rebutton their gloves with
great care, and to shift from leg to leg in an embarrassed manner.
Dulcie soon singled out poor Mr. Bultitude, who, mindful of Tipping's
warning, was doing his very best to avoid her.
She ran straight to him, laid her hand on his arm and looked into his
face pleadingly. "Dick," she said, "you're not sulky still, are you?"
Mr. Bultitude had borne a good deal already, and, not being remarkably
sweet-natured, he shook the little hand away, half petulant and half
alarmed. "I do wish you wouldn't do this sort of thing in public. You'll
compromise me, you know!" he said nervously.
Dulcie opened her grey eyes wide, and then a flush came into her cheeks,
and she made a little disdainful upward movement of her chin.
"You didn't mind it once," she said. "I thought you might want to dance
with me. You liked to last term. But I'm sure I don't care if you choose
to be disagreeable. Go and dance with Mary Mutlow if you want to, though
you did say she danced like a pair of compasses, and I shall tell her
you said so, too. And you know you're not a good dancer yourself. _Are_
you going to dance with Mary?"
Paul stamped. "I tell you I never dance," he said. "I can't dance any
more than a lamp-post. You don't seem an ill-natured little girl, but
why on earth can't you let me alone?"
Dulcie's eyes flashed. "You're a nasty sulky boy," she said in an angry
undertone (all the conversation had, of course, been carried on in
whispers). "I'll never speak to you or look at you again. You're the
most horrid boy in the school--and the ugliest!"
And she turned proudly away, though anyone who looked might have seen
the fire in her eyes extinguished as she did so. Perhaps Tipping did see
it, for he scowled at them from his corner.
There was another sound outside, as of fiddlestrings being twanged by
the finger, and, as the boys hastily formed up in two lines down the
centre of the room and the Miss Mutlows and Dulcie prepared themselves
for the curtsey of state, there came in a little fat man, with
mutton-chop whiskers and a white face, upon which was written an
unalterable conviction that his manner and deportment were perfection
itself.
The two rows of boys bent themselves stiffly from the back, and Mr.
Burdekin returned the compliment by an inclusive and stately
inclination.
"Good afternoon, madam. Young ladies, I trust I find you well. (The
curtsey just a leetle lower, Miss Mutlow--the right foot less drawn
back. Beautiful! Feet closer at the recovery. Perfect!) Young gentlemen,
good evening. Take your usual places, please, all of you, for our
preliminary exercises. Now, the _chassee_ round the room. Will you lead
off, please, Dummer; the hands just lightly touching the shoulders, the
head thrown negligently back to balance the figure; the whole deportment
easy, but not careless. Now, please!"
And, talking all the time with a metrical fluency, he scraped a little
jig on the violin, while Dummer led off a procession which solemnly
capered round the room in sundry stages of conscious awkwardness. Mr.
Bultitude shuffled along somehow after the rest, with rebellion at his
heart and a deep sense of degradation. "If my clerks were to see me
now!" he thought.
After some minutes of this, Mr. Burdekin stopped them and directed sets
to be formed for "The Lancers."
"Bultitude," said Mr. Burdekin, "you will take Miss Mutlow, please."
"Thank you," said Paul, "but--ah--I don't dance."
"Nonsense, nonsense, sir, you are one of my most promising pupils. You
mustn't tell me that. Not another word! Come, select your partners."
Paul had no option. He was paired off with the tall and rather angular
young lady mentioned, while Dulcie looked on pouting, and snubbed
Tipping, who humbly asked for the pleasure of dancing with her, by
declaring that she meant to dance with Tom.
The dance began to a sort of rhythmical accompaniment by Mr. Burdekin,
who intoned "Tops advance, retire and cross. Balance at corners. (Very
nice, Miss Grimstone!) More '_abandon_,' Chawner! Lift the feet more
from the floor. Not so high as that! Oh, dear me! that last figure over
again. And slide the feet, oh, slide the feet! (Bultitude, you're
leaving out all the steps!")
Paul was dragged, unwilling but unresisting, through it all by his
partner, who jerked and pushed him into his place without a word, being
apparently under strict orders from the governess not on any account to
speak to the boys.
After the dance the couples promenaded in a stiff but stately manner
round the room to a dirge-like march scraped upon the violin, the boys
taking the parts of ladies jibbing away from their partners in a highly
unlady-like fashion, and the boy burdened with the companionship of the
younger Miss Mutlow walking along in a very agony of bashfulness.
"I suppose," thought Paul, as he led the way with Miss Mary Mutlow, "if
Dick were ever to hear of this, he'd think it _funny_. Oh, if I ever get
the upper hand of him again----. How much longer, I wonder, shall I have
to play the fool to this infernal fiddle!"
But, if this was bad, worse was to come.
There was another pause, in which Mr. Burdekin said blandly, "I wonder
now if we have forgotten our sailor's hornpipe. Perhaps Bultitude will
prove the contrary. If I remember right, he used to perform it with
singular correctness. And, let me tell you, there are a great number of
spurious hornpipe steps in circulation. Come, sir, oblige me by dancing
it alone!"
This was the final straw. It was not to be supposed for one moment that
Mr. Bultitude would lower his dignity in such a preposterous manner.
Besides, he did not know how to dance the hornpipe.
So he said, "I shall do nothing of the sort. I've had quite enough of
this--ah--tomfoolery!"
"That is a very impolite manner of declining, Bultitude; highly
discourteous and unpolished. I must insist now--really, as a personal
matter--upon your going through the sailor's hornpipe. Come, you won't
make a scene, I'm sure. You'll oblige me, as a gentleman?"
"I tell you I can't!" said Mr. Bultitude sullenly. "I never did such a
thing in my life; it would be enough to kill me at my age!"
"This is untrue, sir. Do you mean to say you will not dance the
hornpipe?"
"No," said Paul, "I'll be damned if I do!"
There was unfortunately no possible doubt about the nature of the word
used--he said it so very distinctly. The governess screamed and called
her charges to her. Dulcie hid her face, and some of the boys tittered.
Mr. Burdekin turned pink. "After that disgraceful language, sir, in the
presence of the fairer sex, I have no more to do with you. You will have
the goodness to stand in the centre of that form. Gentlemen, select your
partners for the Highland schottische!"
Mr. Bultitude, by no means sorry to be freed from the irksome necessity
of dancing with a heart ill-attuned for enjoyment, got up on the form
and stood looking, sullenly enough, upon the proceedings. The governess
glowered at him now and then as a monster of youthful depravity; the
Miss Mutlows glanced up at him as they tripped past, with curiosity not
unmixed with admiration, but Dulcie steadily avoided looking in his
direction.
Paul was just congratulating himself upon his escape when the door
opened wide, and the Doctor marched slowly and imposingly into the room.
He did this occasionally, partly to superintend matters, and partly as
an encouraging mark of approbation. He looked round the class at first
with benignant toleration, until his glance took in the bench upon which
Mr. Bultitude was set up. Then his eye slowly travelled up to the level
of Paul's head, his expression changing meanwhile to a petrifying glare.
It was not, as Paul instinctively felt, exactly the position in which a
gentleman who wished to stand well with those in authority over him
would prefer to be found. He felt his heart turn to water within him,
and stared limp and helpless at the Doctor.
There was an awful silence (Dr. Grimstone was addicted to awful
silences; and, indeed, if seldom strictly "golden," silence may often be
called "iron"), but at last he inquired, "And pray what may you be doing
up there, sir?"
"Upon my soul I can't say," said Mr. Bultitude feebly. "Ask that
gentleman there with the fiddle--he knows."
Mr. Burdekin was a good-natured, easy-tempered little man, and had
already forgotten the affront to his dignity. He was anxious not to get
the boy into more trouble.
"Bultitude was a little inattentive and, I may say, wanting in respect,
Dr. Grimstone," he said, putting it as mildly as he could with any
accuracy; "so I ventured to place him there as a punishment."
"Quite right, Mr. Burdekin," said the Doctor: "quite right. I am sorry
that any boy of mine should have caused you to do so. You are again
beginning your career of disorder and rebellion, are you, sir? Go up
into the schoolroom at once, and write a dozen copies before tea-time! A
very little more eccentricity and insubordination from you, Bultitude,
and you will reap a full reward--a full reward, sir!"
So Mr. Bultitude was driven out of the dancing class in dire
disgrace--which would not have distressed him particularly, being only
one more drop in his bitter cup--but that he recognised that now his
hopes of approaching the Doctor with his burden of woe were fallen like
a card castle. They were fiddled and danced away for at least
twenty-four hours--perhaps for ever!
Bitterly did he brood over this as he slowly and laboriously copied out
sundry vain repetitions of such axioms as, "Cultivate Habits of Courtesy
and Self-control," and "True Happiness is to be sought in Contentment."
He saw the prospect of a tolerably severe flogging growing more and more
distinct, and felt that he could not present himself to his family with
the consciousness of having suffered such an indelible disgrace. His
family! What would become of them in his absence? Would he ever see his
comfortable home in Bayswater again?
Tea-time came, and after it evening preparation, when Mr. Tinkler
presided in a feeble and ineffective manner, perpetually suspecting that
the faint sniggers he heard were indulged in at his own expense, and
calling perfectly innocent victims to account for them.
Paul sat next to Jolland and, in his desperate anxiety to avoid further
unpleasantness, found himself, as he could not for his life have written
a Latin or a German composition, reduced to copy down his neighbour's
exercises. This Jolland (who had looked forward to an arrangement of a
very opposite kind) nevertheless cheerfully allowed him to do, though he
expressed doubts as to the wisdom of a servile imitation--more, perhaps,
from prudence than conscientiousness.
Jolland, in the intervals of study, was deeply engaged in the production
of a small illustrated work of fiction, which he was pleased to call
_The Adventures of Ben Buterkin at Scool_. It was in a great measure an
autobiography, and the cuts depicting the hero's flagellations--which
were frequent in the course of the narrative--were executed with much
vigour and feeling.
He turned out a great number of these works in the course of the term,
as well as faces in pen and ink with moving tongues and rolling eyes,
and these he would present to a few favoured friends with a secretive
and self-depreciatory giggle.
Amidst scenes and companions like these, Paul sat out the evening hours
on his hard seat, which was just at the junction of two forms--an
exquisitely uncomfortable position, as all who have tried it will
acknowledge--until the time for going to bed came round again. He
dreaded the hours of darkness, but there was no help for it--to protest
would have been madness just then, and, once more, he was forced to pass
a night under the roof of Crichton House.
It was even worse than the first, though this was greatly owing to his
own obstinacy.
The boys, if less subdued, were in better temper than the evening
before, and found it troublesome to keep up a feud when the first flush
of resentment had died out. There was a general disposition to forget
his departure from the code of schoolboy honour, and give him an
opportunity of retrieving the past.
But he would not meet them half-way; his repeated repulses by the Doctor
and all the difficulties that beset his return to freedom had made him
very sulky and snappish. He had not patience or adaptability enough to
respond to their advances, and only shrank from their rough good
nature--which naturally checked the current of good feeling.
Then, when the lights were put out, some one demanded a story. Most of
the bedrooms possessed a professional story-teller, and in one there was
a young romancist who began a stirring history the very first night of
the term, which always ran on until the night before the holidays, and,
if his hearers were apt to yawn at the sixth week of it, he himself
enjoyed and believed in it keenly from beginning to end.
Dick Bultitude had been a valued _raconteur_, it appeared, and his
father found accordingly, to his disgust, that he was expected to amuse
them with a story. When he clearly understood the idea, he rejected it
with so savage a snarl, that he soon found it necessary to retire under
the bedclothes to escape the general indignation that followed.
Finding that he did not actively resent it (the real Dick would have had
the occupant of the nearest bed out by the ears in a minute!), they
profited by his prudence to come to his bedside, where they pillowed his
weary head (with their own pillows) till the slight offered them was
more than avenged.
After that, Mr. Bultitude, with the breath half beaten out of his body,
lay writhing and spluttering on his hard, rough bed till long after
silence had fallen over the adjoining beds, and the sleepy hum of talk
in the other bedrooms had died away.
Then he, too, drifted off into wild and troubled dreams, which, at their
maddest, were scattered into blankness by a sudden and violent shock,
which jerked him, clutching and grasping at nothing, on to the cold,
bare boards, where he rolled, shivering.
"An earthquake!" he thought, "an explosion ... gas--or dynamite! He must
go and call the children ... Boaler ... the plate!"
But the reality to which he woke was worse still. Tipping and Coker had
been patiently pinching themselves to keep awake until their enemy
should be soundly asleep, in order to enjoy the exquisite pleasure of
letting down the mattress; and, too dazed and frightened even to swear,
Paul gathered up his bedclothes and tried to draw them about him as well
as he might, and seek sleep, which had lost its security.
The Garuda Stone had done one grim and cruel piece of work at least in
its time.
7. _Cutting the Knot_
"A Crowd is not Company; And Faces are but a Gallery of Pictures;
And Talke but a _Tinckling Cymball_, where there is no _Love_."
--BACON.
Once more Mr. Bultitude rose betimes, dressed noiselessly, and stole
down to the cold schoolroom, where one gas-jet was burning palely--for
the morning was raw and foggy.
This time, however, he was not alone. Mr. Blinkhorn was sitting at his
little table in the corner, correcting exercises, with his chilly hands
cased in worsted mittens. He looked up as Paul came in, and nodded
kindly.
Paul went straight to the fire, and stood staring into it with
lack-lustre eye, too apathetic even to be hopeless, for the work of
enlightening the Doctor seemed more terrible and impossible than ever,
and he began to see that, if the only way of escape lay there, he had
better make up his mind with what philosophy he could to adapt himself
to his altered circumstances, and stay on for the rest of the term.
But the prospect was so doleful and so blank, that he drew a heavy sigh
as he thought of it. Mr. Blinkhorn heard it, and rose awkwardly from the
rickety little writing-table, knocking over a pile of marble-covered
copy-books as he did so.
Then he crossed over to Paul and laid a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Look here," he said: "why don't you confide in me? Do you think I'm
blind to what has happened to you? I can see the change in you--if
others cannot. Why not trust me?"
Mr. Bultitude looked up into his face, which had an honest interest and
kindliness in it, and his heart warmed with a faint hope. If this young
man had been shrewd enough to guess at his unhappy secret, might he not
be willing to intercede with the Doctor for him? He looked
good-natured--he would trust him.
"Do you mean to say really," he asked, with more cordiality than he had
spoken for a long time, "that you--see--the--a--the difference?"
"I saw it almost directly," said Mr. Blinkhorn, with mild triumph.
"That's the most extraordinary thing," said Paul, "and yet it ought to
be evident enough, to be sure. But no, you can't have guessed the real
state of things!"
"Listen, and stop me if I'm wrong. Within the last few days a great
change has been at work within you. You are not the idle, thoughtless,
mischievous boy who left here for his holidays----"
"No," said Paul, "I'll swear I'm not!"
"There is no occasion for such strong expressions. But, at all events,
you come back here an altogether different being. Am I right in saying
so?"
"Perfectly," said Paul, overjoyed at being so thoroughly understood,
"perfectly. You're a very intelligent young man, sir. Shake hands. Why,
I shouldn't be surprised, after that, if you knew how it all happened?"
"That too," said Mr. Blinkhorn smiling, "I can guess. It arose, I doubt
not, in a wish?"
"Yes," cried Paul, "you've hit it again. You're a conjurer, sir, by Gad
you are!"
"Don't say 'by Gad,' Bultitude; it's inconsistent. It began, I was
saying, in a wish, half unconscious perhaps, to be something other than
what you had been----"
"I was a fool," groaned Mr. Bultitude, "yes, that was the way it began!"
"Then insensibly the wish worked a gradual transformation in your nature
(you are old enough to follow me?)."
"Old enough for him to follow _me_!" thought Paul; but he was too
pleased to be annoyed. "Hardly gradual I should say," he said aloud.
"But go on, sir, pray go on. I see you know all about it."
"At first the other part of you struggled against the new feelings. You
strove to forget them--you even tried to resume your old habits, your
former way of life--but to no purpose; and when you came here, you found
no fellowship amongst your companions----"
"Quite out of the question!" said Paul.
"Their pleasures give you no delight----"
"Not a bit!"
"They, on their side, perhaps misunderstand your lack of interest in
their pursuits. They cannot see--how should they?--that you have altered
your mode of life, and when they catch the difference between you and
the Richard Bultitude they knew, why, they are apt to resent it."
"They are," agreed Mr. Bultitude: "they resent it in a confounded
disagreeable way, you know. Why, I assure you, that only last night I
was----"
"Hush," said Mr. Blinkhorn, holding up one hand, "complaints are
unmanly. But I see you wonder at my knowing all this?"
"Well," said Paul, "I am rather surprised."
"What would you say if I told you I had undergone it myself in my time?"
"You don't mean to tell me there are _two_ Garuda Stones in this
miserable world!" cried Paul, thoroughly astonished.
"I don't know what you mean now, but I can say with truth that I too
have had my experiences--my trials. Months ago, from certain signs, I
noticed, I foresaw that this was coming upon you."
"Then," said Mr. Bultitude, "I think, in common decency, you might have
warned me. A post-card would have done it. I should have been better
prepared to meet this, then!"
"It would have been worse than fruitless to attempt to hurry on the
crisis. It might have even prevented what I fondly hoped would come to
pass."
"Fondly hoped!" said Paul, "upon my word you speak plainly, sir."
"Yes," said Mr. Blinkhorn. "You see I knew the Dick Bultitude that was,
so well; he was frolicksome, impulsive, mischievous even, but under it
all there lay a nature of sterling worth."
"Sterling worth!" cried Paul. "A scoundrel, I tell you, a heartless,
selfish young scoundrel. Call things by their right names, if you
please."
"No, no," said Mr. Blinkhorn, "this extreme self-depreciation is morbid,
very morbid. There was no actual vice."
"No actual vice! Why, God bless my soul, do you call ingratitude--the
basest, most unfilial, most treacherous ingratitude--no vice, sir? You
may be a very excellent young man, but if you gloss over things in that
fashion, your moral sense must be perverted, sir--strangely perverted."
"There were faults on both sides, I fear," said Mr. Blinkhorn, growing
a little scandalised by the boy's odd warmth of expression. "I have
heard something of what you had to bear with. On the one hand, a father,
undemonstrative, stern, easily provoked; on the other, a son,
thoughtless, forgetful, and at times it may be even wilful. But you are
too sensitive; you think too much of what seems to me a not unnatural
(although of course improper) protest against coldness and injustice. I
should be the last to encourage a child against a parent, but, to
comfort your
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