The first fortnight of the term was uneventful, and marked only by sustained attacks on the integrity of the Treasurer, by bribery and threats in order to induce him to break rule five. These having failed there was nothing to do but wait. On the first morning of the third week—it was a Saturday—Accrington and Squiff met at 9.15 at the bottom of the Treasurer’s staircase, and a race ensued for Fatty’s bedroom. The official however declared with unnecessary heat that business hours did not begin till 10.30, and so they were obliged to retire till then. At a quarter past ten, Squiff, who is an adept at manœuvring, returned and began a conversation with Fatty who was at breakfast, which lasted till the clock struck half-past and Accrington’s step sounded on the staircase, and then he jumped up and remarked quietly ‘I want two tenners out of the Fund.’ Accrington, who arrived almost breathless, only required a modest fiver. Fatty took a seat at table with a large account-book and a stylo. He took Accrington’s case first as being the simpler, and was quite ready to advance the money, but some difficulty occurred in interpreting the rules.
‘How does one pledge one’s word within the meaning of the Act?’ enquired the Treasurer plaintively.
‘I should make him swear horribly,’ remarked Squiff; ‘I don’t think he’s the sort of person I should trust with the funds of any Club.’
The roll which Accrington threw at him did not hit him, but finished the career of a small china dog which had belonged to Fatty’s grandmother, and smashed two liqueur-glasses into fragments. When peace had been restored, Accrington produced a summons from Tuneham and Keighley—the piano-people in the High—for ‘the hire of piano for two years, tuning, replacing broken keys, do. wires, do. candlesticks, do. pedals, £5/2/: paid by cash, 2/-. Total owing. £5.’ This convinced Fatty, who handed over a cheque for five pounds without demur, and Accrington left rejoicing.
Squiff’s case was harder:
‘At the end of last term,’ he explained to Fatty, who had assumed a judicial aspect, ‘I had to raise money on my motor in order to have four nights in town and do the Rugger Match properly. It is still in Goldstein’s clutches: yesterday I got a telegram to say that my Uncle Terence—Sir Terence MacGurkin, my mater’s brother—who gave me the car, is coming down here, and wants me to take him for some nice spins. If he finds I’ve pawned it, there’ll be the devil to pay, and the uncle certainly won’t pay him, nor me. I shall have to run up to town to-day, get the mo-mo, pay Goldstein, and drive it down here, ready for Uncle Terence to-morrow; and,’ he concluded rapidly, ‘if the urgency isn’t apparent even to you’—‘Don’t be rude,’ interpolated Fatty—‘then nothing will ever penetrate your brain.’
‘I think,’ Fatty had begun, when hurried steps sounded on the stairs and von Graussman appeared clad in a most curious costume, and with unbrushed hair. To him Squiff immediately said, ‘I don’t think, old chap, that you ought to present yourself in a costume like that before the Treasurer of the Cecil’s Mutual Help Society, you look as if you hadn’t been to bed all night, and then had got up too early, if such a thing is possible.’
‘It vos alright perhaps that I must be given nineteen pounds by Mr. Fatty from the moneys of the lately formed-and-much-to-be-commended-by-needy-gentlemens-’Elp-Clubs,’ he remarked in one breath.
‘Once more!’ shrieked Squiff ecstatically.
‘I vos not repeading,’ replied von Graussman with dignity, ‘in der worts of Bilate vot I vos say I had shpoken.’