‘It’s like this, boys,’ said Nobby Clarke. ‘Beefy is an ass, in the mental sense of the term. And he knows it. He’s hanging on to this Games Committee job for all he’s worth. His whole reasoning is this: “The company commander is an old Blue. If I [Beefy] can’t pull through with my headpiece, I’ll pull through with my zest for games.” And he’ll do it, for the old commandant believes in sportsmen. Beefy will make a jolly good sub., but a rotten general. He will carry out any order, and his rude health might even get him the V.C., but he couldn’t give an intelligent order to save his life. He’s a prize-fighter, not an officer. After the war you’ll see him as a chucker-out at a pub., or throwing cannon-balls about the music-hall stage.’
‘That’s your rotten Nonconformist creed,’ shouted Beefy. ‘You got that in one of those suburban schools where they breed lawyers, Radicals, and Socialists. You can’t see any good in the public school system. I’m not a saint, I know; but I do things in the light, and am not afraid to talk about them. You’re a measly Covenanter. You couldn’t do ten miles at a trot to save your old face. But you can argue the point, and pose as a moralist. I know your type. If games have made me a healthy animal, I rejoice. I can take my punishment. Nobby, you’re a ruddy fool.’
‘Question!’ ejaculated Tosher.
‘Oh! Here’s this “gaw-damned” materialist again,’ remarked Ginger maliciously.
‘These two beauties [Ginger and Beefy] are wash-outs. One’s from Oxford; the other’s from Cambridge. Oxford has made Ginger into a cock-eyed wowser, and Cambridge has turned Beefy into a base-ball looney. Ginger couldn’t sell ham, and Beefy can’t write a decent letter. One’s all Homer; the other’s all beef. Out there [Canada] these fellows don’t cut ice. They can’t work, and they won’t work. You can see them with their tongues hanging out in Calgary saloons, or cow-punching on Armour’s beef-canning stations. They ain’t soft, but they ain’t wise. They’re all right in dress-suits doing the fox-trot, but in dungarees—why, they just make me smile. And this prime cup of oxo [Beefy] has got a lien on sport, but I’d get a bush-whacking kid to lick him soft at wrestling, and knock him sick at running. You’re all jaw and no push in this gaw-damned island.’
‘Now, I wonder if you’re right,’ said Billy, closing his notebook with a snap and jumping up.
‘I guess so.’
‘Give him fits, old Pieface,’ shouted Ginger.
‘What are your qualifications to act as judge?’
‘I’m nootral, and they make us wise out West.’