The Human Boy and the War

by Eden Phillpotts

Then we all waited breathlessly for the result in the money column. There was some delay, because everybody, of course, wrote home on the subject and mentioned it in the next Sunday's letters; and we pointed out to the kids that a good and useful thing to write home about, and something at least to fill two pages, would be the Hutchings testimonial. Whether they made the appeal or not, of course, none could tell, but if they did, the response was fearfully feeble. When questioned, they said that their people at home had done such a frightful lot for the War already that further cash for Hutchings was out of the question; while other parents wrote back, not that they had done much for the War, but that the War had done much for them in a very unfavourable manner. The result was apparently the same in each case, and the Lower School, all except Peterson in the Third, responded very badly to the appeal. He produced ten bob, much to our amazement, and there was one other ten bob, secured by Abbott through his mother, because his father was at the Front and still unwounded. As for the Sixth, who headed the list, we all gave three bob to a man, except Barrington, who gave five. The Fifth came out at about one and tenpence a head, which was fair, without being particularly dazzling; but the Fourth fell away a good deal. And after that there was a hideous array of blanks.

Mitchell said it was probably owing to the utter failure of the dividends of the parents of the Lower School; and as we could not apparently make bricks without straw, we considered how to tackle the Lower School. There is no doubt the failure was genuine, for many of them had even their pocket-money reduced; so Pegram--who had only subscribed a shilling himself, by the way--proposed that the kids should be invited to give property instead of cash.

He said:

"If they all yield up something they value, we can collect the goods in a mass and have a sale, and the proceeds of the sale can go to the Hutchings Testimonial."

The committee approved of this, excepting Thwaites, who thought nothing of it; but when asked to give his objections, he merely said:

"Wait and see."

Which we did do, and found that Thwaites was wonderfully right, and had looked on ahead much farther than us. The kids agreed willingly to subscribe in goods, and were only too delighted to do so; but when it came to the point, the goods of the kids proved utterly worthless in the open market. It was a revelation, in a sort of a way, to see the things the kids valued and honestly thought were worth money. In fact, Preston said it was pathetic, and Pegram said we had a good foundation for a rubbish heap, but nothing more. They brought string and screws and nails, also the glass marbles from a certain make of ginger-beer bottle, and knives fearfully out of order, and corkscrews, and padlocks without keys, and a few threadbare story books, and three copies of Hymns Ancient and Modern, and two old horseshoes, and catapults and bullets and shot and charms. They also brought three steel watch-chains and one leather one; and Percy Minimus offered a watch-chain made from his mother's hair, so he said; but nobody bid for it, naturally, for who on earth wants a watch-chain made out of somebody else's mother's hair? There was also a bottle imp, fourteen indiarubber balls and seven golf balls--all worn out--two kids' cricket bats unspliced, three pairs of tan gloves--new but small--and one pair of wool ones, eight neckties, not new, and a silk handkerchief, given to Tudor in case he had a cold in his head, but not required up till now, and therefore new. Among other items was half a packet of Sanatogen, also from Tudor, a box of chocolate cigarettes, several conjuring tricks, mostly out of order, and three guinea-pigs alive. Of other live things were included a white rat, with pink eyes and a hairless, pinkish tail, and a dormouse, which Mathers said was hibernating, though Mitchell thought was dead. It proved alive, on applying warmth, and fetched fivepence. Lastly, there was a chrysalis, into which a remarkable caterpillar, found by Hastings on the twenty-first of last September, had turned; and as nobody knew the species of moth to be presently produced by it, Hastings thought it worth money, and put a reserve of two-pence on it. But the chrysalis was long overdue, and so it did not reach the reserve; and so Hastings, who was still hopeful, bought it back for that sum. As a matter of fact, it never turned into anything, and was found to be quite hollow when examined.

There was a good deal of other trash hardly worth mentioning, and many lots at the sale did not produce any offer at all, let alone competition; and the owners of these lots thankfully got them back again, though, of course, sorry that they commanded no market value. And some kids were much surprised to find their rubbish had no value at all in the eyes of the larger world, so to speak.

One way and another, the sale realized eight shillings and fourpence, chiefly owing to the generosity of Rice, who gave the absurd sum of two shillings for the guinea-pigs, which were not even the chrysanthemum variety of pig, with wild and tousled hair, but just sleek, ordinary pigs, and known to be far past their prime. One, in fact, had a bald head.

The Hutchings Testimonial now stood at four pounds fourteen shillings and sevenpence; and thanks to a windfall in the shape of five shillings from Cornwallis, who had a birthday and got a pound for it, we were now practically up to a fiver. In fact, I myself flung in the fivepence. But we were far from satisfied, for, as Mitchell with his mathematical mind pointed out, five pounds spread over one hundred and thirty-two boys amounts to the rather contemptible smallness of ninepence and one-eleventh a boy. We raised the question of inviting the masters to come in, from Dr. Dunston downwards, and some fondly thought that Dunston would very likely give another five pounds to double ours; but Barrington said he had reason to fear this would not happen, because, from rumours dropped between Brown and Fortescue, which he had accidentally overheard while working in Fortescue's study, he believed that a good many parents were putting the moratorium in force on the Doctor; and Fortescue seemed to think that it was quite within human possibility that the Doctor might put the moratorium in force on him and Brown, with very grave results to their financial position. But Brown said the moratorium was over long ago, and could not be revived against them.