The Human Boy Again

by Eden Phillpotts

But Smythe wouldn't give it up. He had most carefully hidden it, and absolutely refused to give it to anybody! The next day Freckles, and Steggles, and I had Smythe before us in the gym., and asked for an explanation. We told him all about the test, and applauded him for his bravery, but explained that the tail he had cut off belonged to Dr. Dunstan's tiger-skin, and that its loss would make an awful row in the school, and very likely end in his being expelled. Then he said that Dr. Dunstan couldn't expel him, because he wouldn't know he had had anything to do with the tail. Which was true; besides, the Doctor being so blind, it might be a long time before he discovered the tail was gone. Then Smythe argued jolly well for a kid. He said that, for all he knew, the beast that we had made was a live, and furious, and dangerous beast; therefore his bravery in cutting the tail off single-handed with the bowie-knife was just as great as if it had been alive. Freckles admitted this. He said that the bravery of Smythe was undoubtedly immense, and that, so far as that went, he richly deserved to keep the tail. He even said that if he could have spared it he would have given Smythe the famous bowie-knife; but of course he could not do this, for it was his most important arm in all his own adventures when he practised to become a bushranger. Then Steggles asked Smythe what he had done with the tail; and Smythe made us promise faithfully not to tell, and we did so. Then he said that he was wearing it next his skin—round his stomach, in fact—and always should do so for the rest of his life, if it worked well.

He said, "It's awfully uncomfortable, and scratches something frightful, but that's a mere nothing to the advantages. I didn't, of course, kill the tiger, but in a way I might have; and, anyhow, I thought it was alive; and I'm going to give it a fair trial."

I asked him what he expected the tiger's tail would do for him, and he said, "Make me fierce. By rights the fierceness of the tiger ought to go straight into me, and I ought to fear nothing, in the same way that the tiger when it was alive feared nothing. But as I didn't actually kill the tiger, of course it may not work as I hope."

He assured us solemnly that he believed the beast was alive when he dashed at it and cut its tail off; and he also assured us that he had never seen the Doctor's tiger's skin, and did not so much as know that he had a tiger's skin. And we believed him, and let him keep the tail.

Steggles, however, warned young Smythe of one thing. He said, "Be jolly careful that Fowle doesn't see it when you're getting up or going to bed, or very likely he'll sneak. He hates you already for scoring off him, so mind you hide it from him."

Smythe naturally thanked Steggles a good deal for this kind advice, and said that he would be cautious, and that he already hated Fowle a good deal, and that if he really did become fierce pretty soon, Fowle would be the first to know it.

So there the thing was left, and when the Doctor found that his tiger's tail was gone—which he did do, owing to one of his daughters pointing it out—nobody knew anything at all about it.

The Doctor made far more fuss than we expected, and was bitterly hurt over the loss, and seemed to be inclined to expel everybody, because nobody would confess. But, of course, from the business point of view he couldn't do that, because, as Gideon said, his occupation would have been over, and it might have taken many years for him to collect together one hundred and three boys again. Gideon also said that the competition was fearful among school-masters, and expelling was quite a thing of the past, owing to the difficulty of getting new ones.

Then came the tremendous end of the whole business, and such fierceness as young Smythe had managed to get, after wearing the tiger's tail for three days, was as nothing to the fierceness of the Doctor when he found it out.

It burst upon us on a half-holiday, and the half-holiday, as such, was ruined by it. After saying 'Grace' at dinner, Dr. Dunstan told the school to be in chapel—every boy—at half-past two. Leave was stopped, and only the football team, which played a match that afternoon, was allowed to go. Everybody had theories during dinner, but nobody was right, or anything like right. We noticed that the Doctor seemed thundery, and that he looked sometimes very fixedly at the bottom of the table, where Mr. Mannering, the underest master of the lot, though a 'blue,' presided over the dinner of the lower school.