III
However, this is a digression. Let us return for the last time to Arthur Robinson's three divisions of youthful humanity. Class A he found extraordinarily dull. They required little instruction and no supervision; in fact, they were self-educators of the most automatic type. Class B were a perpetual weariness to the flesh. They gave no trouble, but their apathy was appalling. However, a certain amount of entertainment could be extracted from studying their
methods of evading work or supplying themselves with refreshment. There was the ingenious device of Master Jobling, for instance. Mr. Robinson noted that this youth was in the habit, during lecture-time, of sitting with his elbows resting on his desk and his chin buried in his hands, his mouth, or a corner thereof, being covered by his fingers. His attitude was one of rapt attention, and his eyes were fixed unwinkingly upon the lecturer. Such virtue, coming from Master Jobling, roused unworthy suspicions in the breast of Arthur Robinson. He observed that although the youth's attitude was one of rigid immobility, his facial muscles were agitated from time to time by a slight convulsive movement. Accordingly, one day, he stepped swiftly across the room, and taking Master Jobling by the hair, demanded an explanation. It was forthcoming immediately, in the form of a long thin indiarubber tube, of the baby's-bottle variety; one end of which was held between Master Jobling's teeth, while the other communicated, via his right sleeve, with a bottle of ginger-beer secreted somewhere in the recesses of his person. From this reservoir he had been refreshing himself from time to time by a process of suction.
Mr. Robinson, who believed in making the punishment fit the crime, purchased a baby's "soother" from the chemist's, and condemned Jobling to put it to its rightful use during every school-hour for the rest of the week. He was only allowed to remove it from his lips in order to answer a question.
Class C, the professional malefactors, Mr. Robinson found extremely attractive. They appeared to possess all the character and quite half the brains of the form. But this is a permanent characteristic of the malefactor, and is most discouraging to the virtuous.
Once, early in his career, Robinson was badly caught. On entering his form-room one winter evening, when darkness had fallen and the gas was ablaze, his eye fell upon the great plate-glass window which filled the south wall of the room. Form-room windows are not usually supplied with blinds, and this window stood black and opaque against the darkness of night. Right in the centre of the glass was a great white star, which radiated out in all directions in a series of splintered cracks.
Mr. Robinson knew well what had happened. Some one had hurled a stone inkpot against the window. Only last week he had had occasion
to discourage target-practice of this kind by exemplary measures. He addressed the crowded form angrily.
"Who broke that window?"
"It is not broken, sir," volunteered a polite voice.
Arthur Robinson was a young man who did not suffer impudence readily.
"This is not precisely the moment," he rapped out, "for nice distinctions. The window is cracked, starred, splintered—anything you like. I want the name of the boy who damaged it. At once, please!"
Silence. Yet it was not the sullen, obstinate silence which prevails when boys are endeavouring to screen one another. One would almost have called it silent satisfaction. But Arthur Robinson was too angry and not sufficiently experienced to note the distinction. Naming each boy by name, he demanded of him whether or no he had broken the window. Each boy politely denied the impeachment. One or two were courteous to the point of patronage.
Suddenly, from the back bench, came a faint chuckle. Arthur Robinson, conscious of a sickly feeling down his spine, rose to his feet and approached the splintered window. The form watched him with breathless joy. Hot faced, he rubbed one of the rays of the star with his fingers. It promptly disappeared.
The window was undamaged. The star was artistically executed in white chalk.
Malefactors have their weak spots, too.
One afternoon Mr. Robinson held an "extra." That is to say, he brought in a body of sinful youths, composed of the riff-raff of his form, for a period of detention, and set them a stiff imposition to write out. About half-way through the weary hour he produced from his locked desk an old cigarette-box containing sundry coins. Laying these out before him, he proceeded to count them. The perfunctory scratching of pens ceased, and the assembled company, most of whom had been unwilling contributors to the fund under review, gazed with lack-lustre eyes at their late property.
"Fourteen-and-nine," announced Mr. Robinson cheerfully. "That is the sum which I have collected from you this term in return for the loan of such useful articles as pens and blotting-paper. I know my charges are high; but then I am a monopolist to people who are foolish enough to come in here without their proper equipment. Again, though threepence
may seem a fancy price for a small piece of blotting-paper, it is better to pay threepence for a piece of blotting-paper than use your handkerchief, which is worth a shilling. However, the total is fourteen-and-nine. What shall we do with it? Christmas is only a fortnight off, and I propose, with your approval, to send this contribution of yours to a society which provides Christmas dinners for people who are less lavishly provided for in that respect than ourselves. If it interests you at all, I will get the Society's full title and address and read them to you."
Arthur Robinson was out of the room for perhaps three minutes. When he returned he was immediately conscious, from the guilty stillness which reigned, and the self-conscious air of detachment with which everybody was writing, that something was amiss. He glanced sharply at the little pile of money on his desk.
It had grown from fourteen-and-ninepence to twenty-seven-and-sixpence.
Life is full of compensations—even for schoolmasters.