After this bubbling up of pure verse there followed a few remarks about Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, which had the effect of highly incensing those young gentlemen. The paragraph was entitled—
“Market Intelligence.
“Half a dozen mixed Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles were offered for sale by auction on the centre landing yesterday. There was only a small attendance. The auctioneer said he couldn’t honestly recommend the lot, but they must be got rid of at any cost. He had scrubbed their faces and combed their hair for the occasion, but couldn’t guarantee that state of things to last. But they might turn out to be of use as substitutes in case worms should become scarce; and, any way, by boiling down their fingers and collars, many gallons of valuable ink could be obtained. The first bid was a farthing, which seemed to be far beyond the expectation of the salesman, who at once knocked the lot down. The sale was such a success that it is proposed to knock down several more lots in a like manner.”
The rage of the Fourth Junior on reading this paragraph was something awful to witness. Bramble, feeling he must kick somebody on the legs, kicked Stephen, who, forgetting that he was on police duty, seized Bramble by the hair of his head and rushed off with him to the “meeting,” closely followed by Paul and the whole swarm. That meeting lasted from three to five. What awful threats were uttered, and what awful vows taken, no one knew. At five o’clock Stephen’s fight with Bramble came off as usual, and all that evening Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles did nothing but make paper darts. It was certain a crisis had come in their history. The “dogs of war” were let loose! They would be revenged on somebody! So they at once began to be revenged on one another, till it should be possible to unite their forces against the common foe.
But the remainder of the crowd stayed on to read one more extract from the Dominican. Under the title of “Reviews of Books,” Anthony had reviewed in style the last number of the Sixth Form Magazine as follows:—
“This book appears to be the praiseworthy attempt of some ambitious little boys to enter the field of letters. We are always pleased to encourage juvenile talent, but we would suggest that our young friends might have done better had they kept to their picture-books a little longer before launching out into literature on their own account. In the words of the poet we might say—
“Babies, wait a little longer,
Till the little wings are stronger,
Then you’ll fly away.”
“Nevertherless, we would refer to one or two of these interesting attempts. Take, for example, the essay on the ‘Character of Julius Caesar,’ by one who signs himself Raleigh. This is very well written. Pains have been taken about the formation of the letters, and some of the capitals are specially worthy of praise. For one so young, we rarely saw the capital D so well done. Dr Smith, were he alive, would be pleased to see his remarks on Caesar so well and accurately copied out. Master Wren gives us some verse—a translation out of Horace. We wonder if Mr Wren is any relation to the late Jenny Wren who married Mr Cock Robin. We should imagine from these verses that Mr Wren must be well acquainted with Robbin. Take one more, Master Loman’s ‘A Funny Story.’ We are sorry to find Master Loman tells stories. Boys shouldn’t tell stories; it’s not right. But Master Loman unfortunately does tell stories, and this is one. He calls it ‘A Funny Story.’ That is a story to begin with, for it is not funny. We don’t know what Master Loman thinks funny; perhaps he calls being run out at cricket funny, or hitting another boy in the mouth when he’s looking another way. In any case, we can’t make out why he calls this story funny. The only funny thing about it is its title, and his spelling ‘attach’ ‘attatch.’ The last is really funny. It shows how partial Mr Loman is to tea. If this funny story is the result of his partiality to tea, we are afraid it was very weak stuff.”
Loman, who had already been made dreadfully uncomfortable by Simon’s poem, made no secret of his rage over this number of the Dominican. He was one of those vain fellows who cannot see a jest where it is levelled at themselves. The rest of the Sixth had the sense, whatever they felt, to laugh at Anthony’s hard hits. But not so Loman; he lost his temper completely. He ordered the Dominican to be taken down; he threatened to report the whole Fifth to the Doctor. He would not allow the junior boys to stand and read it. In short, he made a regular ass of himself.
Undoubtedly Anthony had put a great deal of venom into his pen. Still, by taking all the poison and none of the humour to himself Loman made a great mistake, and displayed a most unfortunate amount of weakness.