Chapter IV: Part 4

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

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

Then the Doctor said--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And he said not. He said--

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

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

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

*THE 'BOLSOVER' PRIZE*

*No. VI*

*THE 'BOLSOVER' PRIZE*

*I*

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

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

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

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

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

But Gideon knew Macmullen better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*II*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomkins was a good deal interested in this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*III*

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

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

And he said--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here Steggles whispered to me--

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

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

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

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

Then Dr. Dunstan began--

"'WILD FLOWERS.

"'By Nicol Macmullen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then the Doctor went for Smythe.

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

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

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

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

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

The Doctor looked awful sternly at Smythe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And he said--

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

So I swore. Then Walters said--

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

And of course I didn't.

*THE CASE FOR FOWLE*

*No. VII*

*THE CASE FOR FOWLE*

*I*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I said--

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

Then Browne was greatly enraged and said--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He said--

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

He then mentioned seven fights which he had written down.

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

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

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

He interrupted me.

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

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

And I said--

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

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

*II*

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

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