One afternoon as he was planning an essay in the Addisonian vein and style, it suddenly occurred to him that there was a fund of material for such treatment in the actual world about him. He chose little Beverly, a fledgeling master, cock-sure and sophomoric, as the subject for his first serious essay in the comic, and achieved, in his own opinion, such a success that he read his paper that evening to Tony.
“By Jove, Jim, that’s a joy!” was his room-mate’s gratifying criticism. “That’s a blame sight better than the sawdust that Jack is trying to stuff down our throats in English.”
“Well, I have me doubts as to that,” Jimmie responded, “but I appreciate the compliment even if it makes the critic out to be an ignoramus.”
“Words of one syllable, my dear,” protested Tony, “when you try to get ideas into my cranium. Critic or not, that’s darn good writing. Give us another.”
Jimmie smiled, closed his mathematics books with the air of one who makes a sacrifice in a noble cause, and for half an hour bent again to laborious composition. The result was a clever little skit on Ducky Thornton entitled “The Human Sofa Cushion.” The wit was broader, and it struck Tony as quite irresistibly funny.
“By Jove, kiddo, we’ll start a Spectator of our own, eh? Hit off the masters and some of our loving schoolmates, and let ‘em circulate. It’ll be heaps of fun.”
Lawrence laughed at the vision of the possibilities that came to him. “I think it will,” he said. “We’ll write ‘em out in your clear hand, and pass ‘em on to the crowd.”
And so The Spectacle came into existence. Jimmie did most of the composition, and Tony invariably copied it out, for Jimmie’s handwriting left much to be desired, as is the case we have been told with other authors. Now and then there was an original contribution from Tony, and occasionally one from Charlie Gordon, Teddy Lansing or Tack Turner, all more crude and broad, but few absolutely devoid of real humor. In the course of a few months they had composed quite a gallery of pen-portraits, wherein were caricatured, seldom unkindly, the faults and foibles of most of the faculty and many of the boys. The Spectacle had a popular if restricted circulation.
It fell to Tony at length to do the paper on Mr. Roylston. None of the articles were labeled by correct names, but there was scarcely ever any doubt in the mind of the reader who had served as the model of the portrait. The paper on Mr. Roylston, paraphrasing his nickname, was entitled “Soft-toed Samuel.” Tony had caricatured broadly, but before being written out in his neat fine hand, the style had been softened, smoothed and improved, occasional lapses in orthography had been corrected, and the defects of punctuation supplied,—in fact the crude strokes of the amateur had been retouched by the hand of an artist. The artist was Jimmie.
It was a great success with the habitués of Number Five study. Tony was so pleased with it himself, that he took it in late of an evening to Finch’s room with the idea of cheering up his charge who had seemed even unwontedly seedy that day.