HOW THEY "'ELPED THE PORE FELLER"
As a rule, the laboratory was empty on half-holidays, and Gus used to work through his tables in solitude, when he tried a little "bottle-washing" as a change from the refereeing, but one afternoon he found no less a person than W.E. Grim, the prize fag of Biffen's, doing something very seriously with a green powder.
"Hullo, young 'un! What are you footling round here for?"
"Lancaster has given me this salt to analyze, Todd. I think there's copper in it."
"What have you been up to, that Lancaster has run you in? Half-holiday, too!"
"He hasn't run me in," said Grim, sulkily. "As a special favour he's let me come in here to work a little myself. I did a ripping chemistry paper last week, and—"
"Oh, I see. Are you going to give Biffen's another leg up, too?"
"Just as soon as you give Taylor's one," said Grim, who, in common with all the juniors, did not fear the easy-going Todd.
"No cheek!" said Gus. "If I mixed up coal-dust and brick-dust, how'd you separate 'em?"
"Ask my grandmother for a telescope, and look out the mix through the butt end."
"Quite so," said Todd, chuckling. "I suppose you've given me a specimen of Biffen's latest brand of wit. Well, don't make too big a row in hunting for your copper, and then I'll not chuck you out."
Grim murmured something disparaging Todd's authority for chucking out, but Gus languidly sidled off to his own particular bench, where, out of sight of Grim, he prepared to do an afternoon's quiet work.
Meanwhile Grim's particular cronies, Wilson, Rogers, Sharpe, Poulett, and young Bourne, arrayed in all the glory of mud-stained footer-togs, after vainly waiting outside Biffen's, were seeking high and low for the copper-hunting chemist, who, for many reasons, had kept his afternoon's plan very dark. He knew only too well that his beloved chums would not hear of an afternoon's work, and would head him off either to footer or a run round the Bender. Therefore, immediately after dinner, he had made an unostentatious exit, and reached the laboratory in safety.
"Where is Grimmy?" said Sharpe.
"Dunno," said Wilson.
"Did he know of our six-a-side against Merishall's lot?"
"Rather! Said he hoped we'd win."
"We! Why, is he backing out, then?"
"Well, we've waited for him half an hour, and there's no sign of him yet—look's like it."
"What is up with him, I wonder?" said Poulett.
"Seemed rather mysterious this morning—rather stand-offish to my idea. Perhaps, though, he's only guzzling buns or swilling coffee somewhere. Let's see."
The quintette thereupon spread themselves out, but every shop was drawn blank.
"Rum!" said Rogers. "Where can the ass be?"
"If we knew, Solomon, would we try to find out?" said Sharpe.
"I say, you fellows—I've got an idea about Grimmy. Didn't Lancaster give him a leg-up for his chemistry the other day? Permission to footle in the lab. on half-holidays, and all the rest of it? Grim was no end cocky over that."
"Grimmy waste a 'halfer' bottle-washing! Rot! That isn't his form, Wilson."
"If," said Poulett, impressively, "he has sunk so low, we must give him an 'elpin' 'and, pore feller!"
"Rather. If Lancaster has put the cover over old Grimmy we must get him out somehow. Let's adjourn to see."
The honourable five forthwith moved over to the laboratory, and Grim received his beloved cronies with hot blushes and a rather nervous manner.
"I say, you chaps, what do you want?"
"What did we want?" said Bourne, as though he'd forgotten it. "What was it, Rogers?"
"A fellow, formerly Grimmy, not a nasty bottle-washer," said Rogers, more in sorrow than in anger.
"But yesterday and Grimmy was an average back, and now he's holding up some filthy brew to the sunlight to see how muddy it is. Oh, my great aunt!" chimed in Wilson.
"How are the mighty fallen!" gasped Sharpe.
"Look here, you fellows—" began Grim, with still more vivid blushes mantling his noble face.
"'Ear, 'ear! speech! speech! withdraw! apologize!"
"I'm not ashamed of being here and doing a little chemistry for my own amusement, so there; and you fellows had better cut before Lancaster comes and runs you all in."
"That is all right, Grimmy. Lancaster's sporting a silk tile, so he's off to town. To think of your cutting our six-a-side to puff down a dirty blow-pipe! Come out, you idiot, and get into your footer togs!" said Sharpe.
"I'm not coming, I tell you."
"Insanity in the family, evidently," observed Poulett, judicially.
"Aren't you coming, really?"
"No, I'm not; do get out and leave me alone!"
"Never!" said Poulett. "We'll stay with him and see him through the fit, eh?"
"Rather! We'll never desert you, Grimmy!"
"We'll let the six-a-side slide for this afternoon, and we'll help Grimmy with his salt," suggested the egg-poacher, brilliantly; and any amount of hidden meaning was in the word "help."
"We will! we will!" cried the rest, spotting Poulett's idea instanter, with enthusiastic joy; and despite Grim's frenzied declamation and eloquence they all "helped."
For two hours—as lively a couple of hours as ever were passed within the laboratory—Gus lay low behind the far bench and enjoyed the afternoon's performance far more than Grim. The green powder underwent some weird experiments, each of the quintette availing himself of Grim's knowledge and test-tubes and acid-bottles with the utmost freedom. The analysis of Lancaster's mixture gave various results, but when Rogers "found" rhubarb and black-lead this was held the correct find, and after this verdict the generous five put up the test-tubes in the rack. They all said Rogers had settled the matter, and anyway they had had a jolly time.
"Understand," observed Poulett, as he washed away some acid stains from his bare knees, "that Grimmy is not ashamed of his black-lead and rhubarb hunt."
"Why those vivid blushes, then?"
"We never bargained that old Grim would copy that Fifth Form ass, Todd, and chum up with Lancaster, did we?"
"What did you say about Todd?" inquired Grim, suavely.
"Said he was an ass."
"A what?"
"An ass, a jackass, a howling jackass!" cried Poulett, crescendo.
"How?"
"Remember Corker pitching into him? Said he wasn't fit for a decent nursery, and Toddy had his mouth open all the time."
The Green Powder Underwent Some Weird Experiments.
"Bully Cotton has given Toddy up. Toddy was too big an ass even for Cotton," remarked Wilson.
"He looks fairly intelligent," observed Grim, in a gentle whisper.
"So did you, almost, till you started fooling like this."
Grim artistically kept the conversation on Todd, and Gus learned how like an ass each individual of the quintette thought him. He smiled gently at Grim's astuteness in paying him out so neatly for his previous friendly remarks about chucking out. When the first stroke of the roll-call bell reached the laboratory he emerged solemnly and with state from his retreat, and stalked quietly through the knot of his outspoken critics, who were instantly besieged by a variety of emotions. He closed the laboratory door after him, and, when he saw the key outside, the temptation to repay the left-handed compliments of Poulett and Co. in their own coin was too strong. Gus gently turned the key, and was halfway down the corridor before the band arrived at the locked door.
"Let us out!" shrieked Rogers. "We'll apologize all of us—won't we, Poulett?"
"Yes!" yelled Poulett. "Anything! Oh, Todd, do let us out!"
But Todd went on his way, serenely ignoring the frantic appeals behind him, and turned out into the street with a sweet smile on his face.
"That beast, Todd, has gone, and Merishall will ladle us out three hundred of Virgil for missing call-over," moaned Bourne.
"It's four hundred, if Merishall takes it," said Rogers, with dire conviction.
"Not for me," said Grim, beaming cheerfully around; "I'm all right. I'll tell Merishall that the door was locked; but as for you five idiots, who oughtn't to be here at all—well! What the dickens did you want to call old Toddy all those fancy names for, you silly cuckoos?"
"Oh, look here, Grim, you artful bounder," shouted Poulett, bitterly, "you've got us into this mess. Why didn't you say Todd was behind those back benches?"
"Yes, why?" shouted the rest of the raging fags. "We'll scrag you for this, darling. Cuckoos are we? Scrag him—put him in the scrum."
W.E. Grim had a very bad five minutes, but when he crawled out of the scrum, hot, damaged, and dusty, he said viciously—
"I hope Merishall gives you a thou., you beastly cads. You've mucked up my afternoon, and I'm hanged if I don't tell Lancaster."
Ten minutes after roll-call the janitor let them out, and shortly afterwards a wretched procession of five emerged from Merishall's room with two hundred lines from Virgil hanging over each head for a missed call-over without excuse. Grim worked an artistic revenge on his scrummagers by calling personally the next half-holiday to inquire if they would prefer to analyze a green salt or to play a six-a-side against Merishall's lot. In every instance a Virgil hurtled towards his head. Having done his duty to his friends, he left them to pious Æneas and the slope of Avernus, whilst he got another salt from the science-master, and, with Gus, possessed the laboratory in peace.