Tales of St. Austin's by P. G. Wodehouse (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

'James! How extraordinary!'

'Um, yes. I am reluctant to suspect—er—collusion, but really here there can be no doubt. No doubt at all. No.'

'Unless,' began Mrs Perceval, tentatively. 'No doubt at all, my dear,' snapped Reverend Jimmy. He did not wish to recall the other possibility, that his dignified leg was being pulled.

'Now, for what purpose did I summon you three boys?' asked Mr Perceval, of Smith, Montgomery, and Morrison, in his room after morning school that day. He generally began a painful interview with this question. The method had distinct advantages. If the criminal were of a nervous disposition, he would give himself away upon the instant. In any case, it was likely to startle him. 'For what purpose?' repeated the Headmaster, fixing Smith with a glittering eye.

'I will tell you,' continued Mr Perceval. 'It was because I desired information, which none but you can supply. How comes it that each of your compositions for the Poetry Prize commences with the same four lines?' The three poets looked at one another in speechless astonishment.

'Here,' he resumed, 'are the three papers. Compare them. Now,'—after the inspection was over—' what explanation have you to offer? Smith, are these your lines?'

'I—er—ah—wrote them, sir.'

'Don't prevaricate, Smith. Are you the author of those lines?'

'No, sir.'

'Ah! Very good. Are you, Montgomery?'

'No, sir.'

'Very good. Then you, Morrison, are exonerated from all blame. You have been exceedingly badly treated. The first-fruit of your brain has been—ah—plucked by others, who toiled not neither did they spin. You can go, Morrison.'

'But, sir—'

'Well, Morrison?'

'I didn't write them, sir.'

'I—ah—don't quite understand you, Morrison. You say that you are indebted to another for these lines?'

'Yes, sir.'

'To Smith?'

'No, sir.'

'To Montgomery?'

'No, sir.'

'Then, Morrison, may I ask to whom you are indebted?'

'I found them in the field on a piece of paper, sir.' He claimed the discovery himself, because he thought that Evans might possibly prefer to remain outside this tangle.

'So did I, sir.' This from Montgomery. Mr Perceval looked bewildered, as indeed he was.

'And did you, Smith, also find this poem on a piece of paper in the field?' There was a metallic ring of sarcasm in his voice.

'No, sir.'

'Ah! Then to what circumstance were you indebted for the lines?'

'I got Reynolds to do them for me, sir.'

Montgomery spoke. 'It was near the infirmary that I found the paper, and Reynolds is in there.'

'So did I, sir,' said Morrison, incoherently.

'Then am I to understand, Smith, that to gain the prize you resorted to such underhand means as this?'

'No, sir, we agreed that there was no danger of my getting the prize. If I had got it, I should have told you everything. Reynolds will tell you that, sir.'

'Then what object had you in pursuing this deception?'

'Well, sir, the rules say everyone must send in something, and I can't write poetry at all, and Reynolds likes it, so I asked him to do it.'

And Smith waited for the storm to burst. But it did not burst. Far down in Mr Perceval's system lurked a quiet sense of humour. The situation penetrated to it. Then he remembered the examiner's letter, and it dawned upon him that there are few crueller things than to make a prosaic person write poetry.

'You may go,' he said, and the three went.

And at the next Board Meeting it was decided, mainly owing to the influence of an exceedingly eloquent speech from the Headmaster, to alter the rules for the Sixth Form Poetry Prize, so that from thence onward no one need compete unless he felt himself filled with the immortal fire.