Wrench is Confidential.
The Doctor was very fond of lecturing the boys on the beneficial qualities of water.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I pass no stern edicts or objections to the use of beer, and for those who like to drink it there is the ale of my table, which is of a nature that will do harm to no one”—which was perfectly true—“but I maintain that water—good, pure, clear, bright, sparkling spring water—is the natural drink of man. And being the natural drink of man, ergo—or, as our great national poet Shakespeare puts the word in the mouth of one of his clowns, argal—it is the natural drink of boys.”
As he spoke, the Doctor poured out from a ground-glass decanter-like bottle a tumblerful of clear cold water, which he treated as if it were beer, making it bubble and foam for a moment before it subsided in the glass.
The Doctor said good, pure, sparkling water, and the supply of the school possessed these qualities, for it came from a deep draw-well that went right down, cased in brick, for about forty feet, while for sixty feet more it was cut through the solid stone.
The Doctor was very particular about this well, which was furnished with a mechanical arrangement of winch and barrel, which sent down one big, heavy bucket as the winder worked and brought up another full; and it was Wrench’s special task to draw the drinking-water from this well for the whole of the school, that used for domestic purposes coming from two different sources—one an ordinary well, and the other a gigantic soft-water tank.
One morning early, after Singh and Glyn descended from their dormitory, and were strolling down towards the Doctor’s neatly-kept garden by a way which led them past the well-house, they stopped to listen to a clear musical pipe that was accompanied by the creaking of a wheel and the splash of water.
The pipe proved to be only Wrench the footman’s whistle, and its effect was that of a well-played piccolo flute, as it kept on giving the boys the benefit of a popular air with variations, which stopped suddenly as the big full bucket reached the surface and was drawn sideways on to a ledge by the man, while a hollow musical dripping and tinkling went on as a portion of the superfluous water fell splashing back into the depths.
As Wrench uttered a grunt and proceeded to fill the water-can he had brought and a couple of jugs, he turned slightly and saw that the shadow cast into the cool, moist-smelling interior was that of the two boys.
“Morning, gentlemen,” he said. “What do you think of this for weather?”