O. S.
TOMMY BROWN, RECRUITING SERGEANT.
Tommy Brown had been moved up into Form II., lest he should take root in Form I. He had been recommended personally by the master of Form I. to Mr. Smith, the guardian deity of Form II., as "the absolute limit." After a year of Tommy, Mr. Smith had begun to mention him in his prayers, not so much for Tommy's good as for his own deliverance—mentally including him in the category of plague, pestilence, famine and sudden death.
Though the pervading note of Mr. Smith's report upon Tommy was gloom, deep gloom, he must have had some dim hopes of him, for, at the end of the Summer Term, he had placed his hand upon Tommy's head and said, "Never mind, my boy, we shall make a man of you some day."
A new term had begun; Tommy Brown had mobilised two days late, but he was in time for Mr. Smith's lecture on "The War, boys."
The orator spoke for an hour and a quarter, and at the end he wiped his brows with the blackboard duster under the impression that it was his handkerchief. Meanwhile Tommy had eaten three apples, caught four flies, written "Kiser" in chalk on the back of the boy in front of him, exchanged a catapult with Jones minor for a knife, cut his finger, and made faces at each of the four new boys. Mr. Smith caught him in one of these contortions, but he was speaking of Louvain at the moment and took it as a compliment.
Suddenly Tommy found himself confronted with a number of sheets of clean paper. "The essay is to be written on one side of the paper only," said Mr. Smith.
Tommy asked the boy next to him what they had to write about, and the reply, "The War, you fool," set him thinking.
A deathlike stillness fell upon the room; Tommy Brown looked round, frowned heavily, dipped his pen in the ink and then in his mouth, and thought hard.