Chapter Nine.
Acquaintances, High and Low.
I was at first too much concerned in my important culinary occupations to bestow much attention on the company. It was only when the eggs were boiled and the teapot filled that I had leisure to make a few observations.
The host, Pridgin, my new master, was not a very formidable sort of person at first blush. True he was in the Eleven and a fine all-round athlete. True he was fairly well up in the Sixth, and one of the boys Low Heath was proud of. These things did not strike one in beholding him. What did strike one was his air of lazy humour, which seemed to regard life as a huge joke, if only one could summon up the energy to enjoy it. Pridgin did indeed enjoy his share of it, but one could not help feeling that, were he to choose, that share would be a great deal larger than it really was.
It was plain to see he was fond of Tempest; a weakness which reconciled me to him from the first. Tempest, however, seemed, if anything, to prefer the third member of the party present, who was in every way a contrast to his genial host.
Wales struck one as a far more imposing person than Pridgin, but not quite as attractive. He was dressed in what seemed to me the top of the fashion, and had the appearance of a youth who made a point of having everything of the best. He had the reputation, as I discovered afterwards, of possessing the most expensive bats and racquets, the best-bound books, the best-fitting clothes, of any one in Low Heath. It was also rumoured that he spent more than any boy in the town shops, and gave the most extravagant entertainments in his study. Fellows were a little shy of him for this very reason. He forced the pace in the matter of money, and there were only a few fellows who could stand it.
Tempest was not one of these, and yet he seemed very thick with Wales. It was certainly not for the sake of his money, for Tempest was one of those fellows who never care for a fellow for the same reason that any one else would. He had begun by being amused with Wales’s dandyism and extravagance, and had ended in encouraging him in them.
“I expect,” said Wales, as the three heroes sat discussing their tea, “we’re in for a pretty lively term, if it’s true what I hear, that Redwood is to be captain.”
“Why shouldn’t he be?” asked Pridgin; “he’s a hot man in the fields, as well as in classics.”
“My dear fellow, he’s a town-boy.”
“What of that?”
“What of that? First of all, the town-boys are most of them snobs. Sons of hard-up people who come to live at Low Heath so as to get them into the school cheap. Then they can’t possibly keep up with what goes on in school when they are away every evening.”
“There’s more in the second objection than the first,” said Tempest. “I don’t see why a fellow should be out of it because he’s poor. If so, I can cut my lucky here. But it does seem a swindle to stick a town-boy over all of us.”
“I don’t see it,” said Pridgin. “He’s one of us. The only difference is, he goes home to sleep instead of tucking up in a cubicle here. No, what seems to me the cool thing is this talk of a town-boys’ club, that brags it’s going to lick the school clubs into fits. I hope it’s not true, for if it is, we shall have to sit up, and I loathe sitting up.”
His guests laughed. It was notorious that Pridgin when he did bring himself to “sit up” was a person worth reckoning with.
“For the matter of that,” said Wales, “Redwood’s not likely to trouble himself much. He’ll take all the glory and do none of the work. The captain of Low Heath ought to have his hand in everything, and not let everything slide.”
“You’ll find Redwood can be awkward enough when he chooses. You can never tell how far he’ll let things go on. But when his back once gets up he’ll stiffen pretty hard.”
“All I can say is,” said Tempest, “if I’m to be cock of this house this term—and I’ve no right to be—”
“Yes, you have, old chap,” said Pridgin.
“You know you purposely ran for second place last term, so as to get out of the fag of cocking the house,” retorted his friend. “Anyhow, if I am to be cock, I mean to stand up for our rights, and see we’re not done out of them by town-boys, of all people.”
“Hear, hear,” said Pridgin; “stick up for your rights. I don’t exactly know what rights we’re got more than any other Low Heathens, but stick up for them certainly. Nothing like having a grievance, if you can only find one.”
“What do you say to Jarman for one?” said Wales.
The faces of all three clouded at the mention of this name.
“Ah, I’d forgotten about that. Is it true he’s to be a sort of general discipline master, and have the right of pulling up any fellow, senior or junior, without even saying a word to his house prefects?”
“He won’t do it here, if I can help,” said Tempest, with a frown.
“Well, have some more tea,” said Pridgin, “before you begin operations. Here, kid, make a fresh brew, sharp, and then cut.”
What I had heard had been quite enough to satisfy me that things were not running altogether smoothly at Low Heath, and that Tempest was not beginning his new duties as head of his house in the best of tempers. I confess I felt a little uneasy. For I knew my old chief’s impulsive, generous nature well enough to be sure that he might easily get himself into trouble for the sake of other people. His friends were evidently glad enough to let him fight their battles, but were not likely, at least so it seemed to me, to take much trouble to help him through with them.
I was wandering rather disconsolately down the passage when it occurred to me I did not know what I was expected to do or where I was expected to go.
I therefore ventured to accost a senior who was lounging about at the head of the stairs.
“If you please,” said I, “I’m a new boy—can you tell me where to go?”
The senior, a bland, good-looking sort of youth, surveyed me carefully and replied—
“To bed, I should say.”
“All right, thanks,” said I; “which way is that?”
He laughed pleasantly.
“What’s your name?”
“Thomas Jones.”
“You needn’t mind about the Thomas up here. Where have you come from?”
“Do you mean, where do I live, or where have I been just now?” I inquired, anxious to avoid any misunderstanding.
“Look here,” said he, “hadn’t you better take a seat, if you want to tell me all your family history? I’m sure it’s very interesting, but it’s rather late in the day to begin now. Where have you come from, not originally, but just now?”
I flushed up very much at this polite rebuke. Whatever made every one so anxious to assume that I was an ass?
“Pridgin’s,” said I. “I’m his fag, and he’s having a tea party.”
“Oh,” said the youth; “who’s there?”
“Only Tempest and Wales,” I replied, feeling more at my ease.
“No one else?”
“No,” I answered. Then, guessing he might have the same antipathies as Tempest, I volunteered—
“Crofter’s not asked.”
My companion opened his eyes. “Indeed—why?”
“I don’t know. Only I know Tempest wouldn’t have gone if he had been. Please which way do I go?”
“What objection has Tempest to Crofter?”
“I don’t know—I suppose he’s a beast. Tempest hates beasts.”
The boy laughed.
“He must be very fond of you,” said he.
“Yes,” said I, “we’re old chums; we were at Dangerfield together, and both got ex—”
There I was, after Tempest’s warning about keeping my exhibition dark.
“Both got what? Expelled?” inquired the senior, with interest.
“Well—yes,” said I, thinking that the best way of getting out of it. “It was this way—”
“Really, Jones, it’s getting late,” said the senior; “I’ve no doubt it’s an interesting story. There, go and inquire in the fourth room on the left. They’ll show you the way to bed.”
And he departed.
I was very sorry he had not given me time to explain the little matter at Dangerfield. It would be a pity for any one to get a wrong impression about it. Still, what a lucky escape I had had from blabbing about my exhibition! The fellow, too, seemed a nice sort of chap, and disposed to be friendly, so there was no harm done after all.
I could tell, long before I reached it, that the room which had been indicated to me as the place where I might get the information for which I thirsted was, to say the least, inhabited—for the noise which penetrated through the keyhole and the cracks of the door was appalling. Either, thought I, a free fight is going on within, or there is a steam engine at work, or the builders are shooting bricks through the window. I was mistaken. It was only five boys of about my age talking.
The silence which greeted my appearance was rather more formidable than the noise which had preceded it. In the midst of it, however, I observed the form of Master Trimble, also that of my travelling companion of the morning, and concluded therefore that I had come to the right place for information.
“Full up! cut!” was the cordial greeting of the company generally.
“Hullo, it’s Sarah!” cried my travelling companion. “What a lark! Collar him, you chaps. That’s the idiot I was telling about. He came down in the train with his ma—”
“She wasn’t,” said I; “she was no relation.”
A loud laugh greeted this disclaimer.
“Well, his nurse, or aunt, or washerwoman, or something.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“Shut up, and don’t tell crams.”
“It’s you who are telling crams,” said I, for the blood of the Joneses was getting up.
“Look here; do you mean to call me a crammer?” demanded the speaker, looking very imposing.
“If you say it again I will,” said I. “I tell you that woman had no more to do with me than you; there!”
It was a critical situation, and the key to it was in my accuser’s hands. If he insisted that the lady in question had anything to do with me, I was committed to call him a crammer. And if I called him a crammer, he was equally committed by all tradition to punch my head. And in the humour I was then in, he was not likely to do that without getting one back for himself.
“I know who it was,” suddenly cried Trimble; “of course! Tempest told me last term there was a young ass coming up who’d been at a girls’ school, and had got an exhibition or something. Of course this was his old school dame. Good old Sarah!”
At this terrific exposure the spirit leaked out of me. My tell-tale blushes confirmed what was true in the story, and my silence lent countenance to what was untrue. The delight of my tormentors was beyond words. They danced the “mulberry bush” round me, overwhelmed me with endearing expressions, offered me fans and smelling salts and cushions and hairpins, simulated hysterics and spasms, trod on my skirts, and conversed to me in shrill treble till I was sick of the business. Only one course was open to me. It was an unpleasant one, but on it depended, I felt, my future welfare at Low Heath.
I seized the nearest, who happened to be Master Trimble, and pulling him gently but firmly by the nose, demanded if girls generally treated him that way? He kicked vigorously, and ordered me to release the imprisoned member. I declined to do so until I had kicked back, and finally deposited him on the floor, amidst the laughter of his perfidious comrades, who told him it served him right, and that “Sarah” was evidently one too many for him.
This little protest stood me in good stead. It put an end to all direct aspersions on my sex, although it was a long while before I was destined to hear the last of delicate insinuations on the topic. And it advanced me very considerably in favour with the four whose noses I had not been fortunate enough to engage.
“Look here; stop fooling, you chaps,” said one of them, when in due time Master Trimble was permitted to regain his feet. “This new kid had better make up our sixth man here. No other faggery would be likely to take him, so we may as well.”
I concluded from this remark that the juniors of Mr Sharpe’s house were permitted to herd together in half dozens; and on the whole I was disposed rather to bear the ills I had than fly to others I knew not of.
“I don’t mind,” said I, “if you let me be.”
“Who wants to touch you with a pair of tongs? You may as well pull in with us, and help us kick the others. It’ll be a change after the girls’ school.”
“I wasn’t at a girls’ school,” said I, “I told you. All I did was to coach with one of the teachers.”
“About the same thing, I fancy,” said Trimble, blowing his outraged nose somewhat defiantly, “Sarah!”
“If you call me Sarah again,” said I hotly, “I’ll pull your nose again.”
“All right: Miss Jones, then.”
“No, not Miss; just Jones.”
“All serene, just Jones, then shut up; stick on your lavender gloves, and keep your hair on.”
There was a general laugh at this which vastly solaced the aggrieved Trimble, and encouraged him to refer jocularly to my late hat and boots, topics which I had not the spirit to resent.
As soon as these personal matters were disposed of, I was tacitly admitted as a member of the honourable faggery, and invited to express my opinion on a matter which had been engaging the attention of the fraternity before I arrived.
“We were thinking,” said my late travelling companion, whom his friends addressed as Langrish, “that it would be a score to get up a Philosophical Society in the school. What do you say?”
“What to do?” I ventured to ask.
“Oh, discussions, and picnics, and larks. What do you suppose we should do? There’s a senior club of the kind already. They go in for dry rot—science and history, and that sort of thing. Awful slow, and nobody knows what he’s talking about. I flatter myself we should.”
“We ought to draw up some rules, oughtn’t we?” said Trimble.
“Rather—forge ahead.”
Whereupon we crowded solemnly round the small table and put our heads together.
One of the party, by the way, answering to the name of Purkis, appeared to be the leading spirit, and made the most valuable suggestions.
“Rule 1,” dictated he, “That this club be called the Low Heathen Conversation Club.”
“Hold on,” said Trimble; “you’ve got club coming twice in the same sentence. Bad grammar.”
“Besides, I thought there was to be something about philosophy,” suggested Langrish.
“And keeping out the day cads,” said Warminster, another of the party.
“Of course, if you make the rule long enough,” said Purkis, with lofty contempt, “you can get something in it about the man in the moon.”
“But,” said I, thinking to make a little joke, just to show I had no ill-feeling, “we don’t want him in the club, do we?”
“No,” said Langrish, who had evidently been on the look-out for his chance; “no more do we want pretty Sarah’s washerwoman; do we, you chaps?”
I subsided gracefully. The time was not yet ripe, evidently, for me to assert myself.
“I tell you what,” said Warminster; “what’s the use of every one making each rule? Let old Purkis make the first, and I’ll make the second, and Langrish the third, and so on. It will be ever so much quicker, and give each chap a fair innings.”
It seemed a good idea, and as it allowed Purkis’s rule to stand unchallenged, he acquiesced.
So in due time the following wonderful code of rules was drawn up and adopted—
1. That this club be called the Low Heath Conversation Club. (Purkis.)
2. That the object of the club be and are periodical picnics and meetings for the discussion of philosophy, etcetera. (Warminster.)
There was some debate as to whether the ninth word should be “is” or “are.” But “are,” as agreeing with the plural, was carried by a large majority.
3. That each member bring his own grub, alias provisions. (Trimble.)
4. That no day boy be eligible on to the club. (Langrish.)
5. That any member breaking the rules is hereby expelled. (Coxhead.)
6. That the subscription be two shillings a term, payable in advance. (Jones.)
Warminster was anxious for consistency’s sake to add the words “and are” after “be,” but was overruled.
After which we honourably drew lots for the various posts of emolument and honour in connection with the club.
To my surprise I was drawn for president. At first I was disposed to disclaim the honour on account of my youth and inexperience. But my fellow-Philosophers assured me that was no excuse, and that my name would undoubtedly “draw.” I did not exactly see how, but they were probably better judges than I; and perhaps as an exhib—
No, I was bound to keep that dark. At any rate, it would be a nice thing to be able to write home to my mother, that on the day of my arrival I had been appointed president of the Philosophical Conversation Club, with a right to add the initials P.L.H.C.C. after my name. It sounded well, and would give me a better footing in Low Heath than my tan boots.
Langrish was drawn for treasurer, and Purkis for secretary; while, to obviate any cause for jealousy, Trimble was selected as auditor, Warminster as librarian, and Coxhead as registrar.
A levy of subscriptions was made forthwith by the treasurer, and the secretary was ordered to expend part of the amount in a handbill setting forth the object and personnel of the society, for distribution through the school. The auditor undertook to check the printer’s bill, the librarian to keep a copy of the document among the archives of the club, and the registrar to prepare a book for entering the names of the new members. Altogether it was a most businesslike proceeding, and one which reflected, as it seemed to me, great credit on the young life of Low Heath.
After this, a peremptory summons from the bell dismissed us precipitately to bed. I had the indignity of being conducted to my cubicle by Mrs Smiley, who had the bad taste to adjure me in the hearing of my comrades to behave myself like a good boy and go to sleep directly the lights were out. This was not altogether easy, for my cubicle happened to be between those of Trimble and Langrish, and the partitions were not particularly high. I was, indeed, allowed to undress and say my prayers without interference, which was more than I had hoped for. But no sooner was I in bed, and lights out, than I was favoured with all sorts of missiles pitched over the partitions on either side with extraordinary accuracy. A book from Langrish hit me on the ear, and a wet sponge from Trimble moistened my cheek. And when I sought shelter under the sheets, the butt-end of a fishing-rod in the ribs drew me from my hiding-place, and a clever cast with a hooked pin by Langrish relieved me of my outer covering altogether. The footsteps of the monitor on duty deprived me of the privilege of making an audible protest. All I could do was to send Trimble’s sponge quietly over to Langrish, and Langrish’s book across to Trimble, and, as well as I was able, recover my abstracted sheet with the aid of the rod. It took a long time, and laid me open to dire penalties for disturbing the public peace. But it had to be done, and fortunately for me a row at the other end of the room called the monitor away in the nick of time.
When he returned, all was still, and I was dreaming that Mr Evans was selling a pair of second-hand six-buttoned lavender gloves to my mother in the hall of Mr Sharpe’s house.