The roll-call was held in the big schoolroom, a huge and somewhat bare building, full of rough ink-stained desks and benches, with a raised platform at the further end. On this, when the roll-call was over, stood the whole Sixth, with their prisoners, Snap and Towzer. Frank was there (the captain of the Eleven), and beside him even a greater than he, the School captain, Wyndham—first in the schools, first in the football-field, and first in everything, except perhaps cricket, at which his old chum Frank Winthrop was possibly a little better than he. I think that, much as we admired Winthrop, Wyndham was first of our school heroes. He could do so many things, and did them all well.
After everyone had answered his name a great hush of expectation fell upon us all. Then Wyndham came to the front and spoke. We had none of us heard many speeches in those days; would that at least in that respect life in the world were more like old school times! Perhaps it was because it was the first speech that we had ever heard that it roused us so. Perhaps it was a very poor affair really. But I know that we thought none of those old Athenians would have 'been in it' with Wyndham, and I personally can remember all he said even now. There were no masters present, of course, so that he spoke sometimes even in school slang, a boy talking to boys, and plunged right into the middle of what he had to say at once.
'You know,' he said, 'the scrape into which Hales and Winthrop minor have got themselves, and you probably know what the punishment is for an offence like theirs. What the punishment ought to be, I mean. Your Head-master is going to leave it to you to say what their punishment shall be; it is for you to say whether they shall go or stay.
'Oh yes, I know,' Wyndham continued as he was half of us with our hands raised, or our mouths open, 'you are ready to pronounce sentence now. But it won't do. You must hear me out first. I am here by Mr. Foulkes's permission to plead for Hales and Winthrop, and I had to beg hard for that permission, for the breach of school rules was as bad as it could be. Not, mind you, that our Head cared twopence about the mop; he laughed, when he told me of that, as much as you fellows could have done; but he won't have smoking at any price, and he is justly annoyed, because, in spite of the serious scrape they were in, two of the boys reported to him for the disturbance in F. dormitory last night were Hales and Winthrop. You know the Head remembers quite as well as we do how splendidly Hales pulled the Loamshire match out of the fire' (cheers), 'and he wants to keep him at Fernhall; but you know discipline is more essential in a school than a good bowler in an eleven.
'Now, then, as to this smoking. I am not going to talk any soft rubbish to you fellows. We have all smoked. I have certainly, and I told the Head that if Hales went I ought to go. It was a great deal worse in us than in you fellows. We ought to have set an example and did not. As to the sin of smoking I haven't a word to say. My father smokes, and he is the best man I know. There is no mention of tobacco in the Bible, so the use of it can't have been forbidden there. It isn't bad form, whatever some folks say, for the first gentleman in Europe sets us the example; but (and here is the point) it is a vice in a Fernhall boy because it is a breach of discipline. Now, that ought to be enough for boys half of whom want commissions in the army, the very breath of whose life is discipline; but, as we are discussing this thing amongst ourselves quietly, I'll tell you why I think the Head considers smoking a bad thing for us. We are all youngsters and have our work to do. To do it well, we want clear heads and sound minds. Tobacco is a sedative, and sends the brain to sleep—soothes it, say the smokers. Quite so, by rendering it torpid. Men don't paint or write with their pipes in their mouths. They may dream with them there before beginning the day's work, or doze with them there when the work is done, but down they go when the chapter has to be written or the portrait painted. As to the effect of tobacco on your bodies, you know as well as I do whether the men who win the big races are heavy smokers. Why! I would as soon eat a couple of apples before running the mile as smoke a pipe. Besides all this, we can't afford to smoke good tobacco, and bad tobacco is poison. We don't want loafers, and smoking means loafing. You don't play football or cricket with a pipe in your mouth, do you? No! and I want more players and fewer smokers. Old Fernhall has never yet taken a back seat in school athletics' (here the cheering silenced the speaker). 'Very well, then don't let her now; but, mind you, "jumpy" nerves won't win the Ashburton shield, or short winds break the mile record.
'I want the school to give up smoking. I've been here now longer than any of you, and I love the old school more than any of you can love her. She has made me, God bless her, and I want to do her one good turn before I leave' (here Wyndham's voice got quite husky, but I suppose it was only a touch of hay-fever). 'I believe most of you fellows would like to do me a good turn' (shouts of applause). 'I'm sure that there is no Fernhall boy to whom I would not do one' (here the very oak benches seemed in danger of being broken. The enthusiasm was getting dangerous). 'If that is so,' he continued, 'give up smoking until you leave Fernhall. The Head is sick of trying to stop smoking by punishment. He says that the whip is not the thing to manage a good horse with, and he believes heart and soul in his boys. He does not want to see the school fail in its sports. He doesn't want to sack Towzer and Snap' (dear old chap, he even knew our nicknames), 'but as head of this school, as colonel of our regiment, he must and will have discipline. So he puts it to you in this way, and he puts you on your honour as gentlemen to keep to his terms if you accept them.
'If you choose voluntarily to pledge yourselves to give up smoking as a body, he on his part will ignore the events of last night altogether' (wild excitement in the pit). 'Now, Fernhall, will you show you're worthy of such a brick as our Head? Will you do me one good turn before I leave? Will you keep Towzer and Snap, or your pipes?'
'Towzer and Snap! Towzer and Snap!' came the answer from four hundred boys' voices, in a regular storm of eager reply.
'Very well, hands up for the boys,' said the Captain, and a forest of hard young fists went up into the air.
'Hands up for the pipes,' cried Wyndham with a grin. Not a hand stirred.