Arracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”
He was dumbstruck.
I was two years a lower boy, and reached the lower division of fifth form by September 1889. Hugo arrived at Eton, and we shared a room together. We messed together with Dunglass, who had an order at Little Brown’s of a shilling a day. Every day on the sideboard of the passage a large plate used to await us in a brown paper parcel containing eggs and bacon or sausages or fish. My tutor changed his house, and we exchanged the convenient house opposite the school-yard for a house that was once Marindin’s, on the Etonwick road. It was far to go, and one had to get up early if one wished for coffee and a bun at Little Brown’s before early school.
Dunglass and I used to read a good many books. Rider Haggard and Edna Lyall were our favourite authors; Stevenson got a second or third place; but Jane Eyre and Ben Hur were approved of, and Monte Cristo got the first prize of all. After Rider Haggard and Edna Lyall, I had a passion for Marion Crawford’s books and read every one I could get hold of. I have still got a list of the books I read in the year 1889, marked according to merit. It is as follows:
The reason the last two have no comments was probably because the red ink in which the comments were made had run out. I remember being particularly thrilled by Jane Eyre, and so was Dunglass, who read it at the same time.
The 4th of June was an excitement for boys who were just beginning their Eton career, but older boys were most blasé about it and preferred short leave. We made great preparations for my first 4th of June; grease spots were ironed out of the tablecloth, everything that looked untidy was put away; the window-box, which did duty for a garden, was prepared and decked. I struck out a bold note in my window-box by having a fountain in it, made by Mr. Duffield of High Street, according to my instructions. There was a square tin basin and a fountain in the middle of it, which was fed from a tank which was hung high up by the side of the window. The fountain worked successfully, but made a great mess, and the boys’ maid had no patience with it. When my tutor came round in the evening, the night before the 4th of June, he said the room looked like a whited sepulchre. I had visitors on the 4th of June. Chérie came, and I forget which other members of the family.
Once every half the Headmaster used to ask Hugo and myself to breakfast. This we enjoyed; it was an excellent breakfast, with lots of sausages. The Headmaster used to look at the Times, comment on the House of Commons, quote Horace, and ask after John and Cecil. Other masters asked one to breakfast as well, and I think few things gave the boys so much pleasure. They used to discuss every detail of the breakfast with the other boys afterwards, and retail everything the master had said. I enjoyed my breakfasts with Mr. Impey most; he used to tell me about books, and we used to discuss Rider Haggard and Stevenson. I greatly preferred Rider Haggard, and I had just read King Solomon’s Mines, and had one night sat up late reading She.
Long leave and short leave were two great excitements. When I went for short leave I used to go by the earliest possible train and arrive at my sister Margaret’s house long before breakfast. When long leave came about, we always went to a play on Saturday night, and I remember seeing Captain Swift at the Haymarket, and Coquelin in L’Étourdi. For my long leave of the summer of 1889, I had been looking forward for days to going to see Sarah Bernhardt in La Tosca, but when I came up to London, I found to my horror that Chérie and my mother had both been told it was too horrible a play to go and see. My eloquent advocacy overcame Chérie’s scruples. “Vraiment,” she said, “tu serais un superbe avocat.” And she, Margaret, and I went off to the Lyceum and thoroughly enjoyed Sarah’s harrowing and electric performance. While we were having dinner, before starting, someone who was there said that two men who had been to see the play had come out in the middle. Chérie, who by that time had decided we were to go, said they must have been des poules mouillées.
I think it was in 1890 that Queen Victoria opened the New Schools at Eton and made a speech. And one summer while I was at Eton, the German Emperor inspected the Eton Volunteers. While he was doing this on horseback, a boy called Cunliffe let off his rifle and the German Emperor’s horse bolted into the playing fields.