“Sixth Form Debating Society.
“The usual meeting of the Sixth Form Debating Society was held last week, the Doctor in the chair. A sprinkling of lads from the Fifth, in their Sunday coats and collars, was present, by kind permission. The subject for discussion was, ‘That the present Sixth is degenerate.’ In the absence of any member of the Sixth to open the discussion, Master Bramble, captain of the Tadpoles, kindly undertook the task. He had no hesitation in asserting that the Sixth were degenerate. They had fallen off in cricket since he could remember, and in intellect, he was sorry to say, the falling off was still worse. If they would take his advice, they would avoid the playground during the present season, and by all means withdraw their candidate for the Nightingale Scholarship, as he was certain to be beaten by boys in a lower form. As to behaviour, he could point to virtuous behaviour among the Tadpoles, quite equal to that of the monitors. He didn’t wish to ask questions, but would like to know what they all found so attractive in Maltby. Then, too, they all oiled their hair. No previous Sixth had ever been guilty of this effeminacy, or of wearing lavender kid gloves on Sundays. He repeated, ‘What were we coming to?’”
“Mr R-g-h opened in the negative. He denied all the charges made by the young gentleman who had last spoken. He undertook to get up an eleven to beat any eleven the Tadpoles could put into the field; and as to intellect, why, didn’t the Tadpoles, some of them, get their sums done by the Sixth? Besides, even if their intellect was weak, couldn’t they use cribs? He didn’t use them himself, but he knew one or two who did. He didn’t understand the objection to the hair-oil; he used it to make the hair sit down on his head. (Raleigh, it should be said, had a most irrepressible bunch of curls on his head.) He wore kid gloves on Sunday because he had had a pair given him by his great-aunt Jane Ann. He maintained the Sixth was not degenerate.
“Mr L-m-n followed on the same side. He thought it the greatest liberty of any one to discuss the Sixth. He was a Sixth Form fellow, and a monitor, and if he wasn’t looked up to he ought to be, and he intended to be. He was in the cricket eleven, and he was intellectual—very, very much so. He was going in for the Nightingale Scholarship, and had no doubt in his own mind as to the result. He hardly understood his friend’s reference to Maltby. Why shouldn’t he go there and take his fag too if he chose? He didn’t see what right the Fifth had to fags at all. He had a fag, but then he was in the Sixth. His fag admired him, and he never told him not to. The Sixth could not be degenerate so long as he was in it.”
“Other speakers followed, including Mr W-r-n, who maintained that Michael Angelo was a greater musician than Queen Anne. He was here called to order, and reminded that Michael Angelo had nothing to do with the degeneracy of the Sixth. He begged leave to explain—
“At this point our reporter fell asleep.”
The laughter which greeted the reading of this extract was by no means shared by the Sixth Form boys present, who, had the next selection been in a similar strain, would have quitted the scene and taken their chance of satisfying their curiosity as to the rest of the contents of the paper at a more convenient season.
But the next lucubration was the unfortunate Stephen’s examination paper, with the answers thereto embellished, and in many cases bodily supplied, by the fertile Anthony. The luckless Stephen, who was wedged up in the front row of readers, could have sunk into the earth on meeting once more that hateful paper face to face, and feeling himself an object of ridicule to the whole school. For the wonderful answers which now appeared were hardly any of them his own composition, and he did not even get credit for the few correct things he had said. Shouts of laughter greeted the reading, during which he dared not lift his eyes from the ground. But the answer to Question 6, “What is a minus?” was more than human flesh and blood could endure.
“What is a Minus?”
“‘Minus’ is derived from two English words, ‘my,’ meaning my, and ‘nus,’ which is the London way of pronouncing ‘nurse.’ My nurse is a dear creature; I love her still, especially now she doesn’t wash my face. I hated having my face washed. My nurse’s name is Mrs Blake, but I always call her my own Noodle-oodle-oo. I do love her so! How I would like to hug her! She sewed the strings of my little flannel vest on in front just before I came here because she knew I couldn’t tie them behind by myself—”