“I move an amendment,” said I.
“Shut up, or you’ll be kicked out again,” said the secretary.
“Shut up yourself, or you’ll be kicked in,” retorted I, feeling I must carry everything with a high hand if I was to carry them at all. “No. Look here, you chaps, I’m not so green as I look.”
“Then you must look fearfully green,” muttered Coxhead.
I took no heed of the interruption, which was not relevant, and proceeded,—
“It was all very well last term, but it won’t wash this. What I say is, that if the cock of the school is the head boy in the school, and the cock of the house is the head boy in the house, the president of the Philosophers has got to be the chap highest up in the Philosophers, and that’s not me. Now old Warminster is. He’s a jolly clever chap, and got the form prize on his head, and he’s a rattling good speaker, and a middling sprinter, and writes a fairly good hand! He’s the sort of chap we want. We want some one who can keep the secretary, and treasurer, and auditor, and registrar, and all that lot, in their place, and doesn’t mind telling them they’re idiots when they are. I never could do it. It’s rough on the club not to have a chap like Warminster,” continued I, waxing warm, and undaunted by the murmurs of my audience. “He can make you all sit up. He’s not the sort of chap to let the Philosophers go rotting about, talking what they know nothing about and all that. He’ll see that the louts are kept out of it, and only fellows who’ve got a record of something are let in. Bless you, I used to let in any sort of bounder that asked! Look round you and see. That’s the sort of lot I let in. It won’t wash, though. Fancy having a lot of outsiders who can’t translate a Latin motto, and make ‘corpore’ a feminine genitive! Now old Warminster’s a nailer at Latin, and can put one or two of us to bed at Euclid. He’ll keep us out of blunders of that sort, that make all the school grin at us. I therefore propose, fifth, fourth, third, and second, that Tip. Warminster is the president of the Philosophers, and that the secretary, treasurer, auditor, registrar, and all that lot, get a month’s notice to jack it up unless they’re on the front desk. There you are! Of course they won’t like it—can’t help that. No back-deskers for us. Front desk or nothing!”
This oration, the longest I ever delivered so far, and in all probability the longest I ever shall deliver, was listened to with a curious mixture of discomfort and attention. At first it was nearly howled down, but it took as it went on. Warminster, for whom I really did not feel quite so much admiration as my words seemed to imply, but who yet was the hard-working man of our lot—Warminster was wonderfully pleased with it. The others, one by one, dropped their noisy protests, and looked out of the window. Trimble attempted a little bravado, by sticking his tongue in his cheek; but my peroration was listened to with marked attention.
“Cuts down the club a bit,” said Coxhead, who occupied a desk in class on the third row, “if it’s only to be top-deskers.”
“Cuts old Sal out, to begin with,” said Langrish, who was just on the bench of honour.
“It’ll cut you out next week, old hoss,” said I.