School Stories - P. G. Wodehouse (best e book reader TXT) 📗

“What’ll you bet?” he said.

Now I was prepared to wager imaginary sums to any extent he might have cared to name, but as my actual worldly wealth at that moment consisted of one penny, and my expectations were limited to the shilling pocket-money which I should receive on the following Saturday⁠—half of which was already mortgaged⁠—it behoved me to avoid doing anything rash with my ready money. But, since a refusal would have meant the downfall of my arguments, I was obliged to name a figure. I named an even sixpence. After all, I felt, I must win. By what means, other than illness, could Bradshaw possibly avoid putting in an appearance at the Thucydides examination?

“All right,” said Bradshaw, “an even sixpence. You’ll lose.”

“Slumbering in barred.”

“Of course.”

“Real illness barred too,” I said. Bradshaw is a man of resource, and has been known to make himself genuinely ill in similar emergencies.

“Right you are. Slumbering in and real illness both barred. Anything else you’d like to bar?”

I thought.

“No. Unless⁠—” an idea struck me⁠—“You’re not going to run away?”

Bradshaw scorned to answer the question.

“Now you’d better buck up with your work,” he said, opening his book again. “You’ve got about as long odds as anyone ever got. But you’ll lose all the same.”

It scarcely seemed possible. And yet⁠—. Bradshaw was generally right. If he said he had a scheme for doing⁠—though it was generally for not doing⁠—something, it rarely failed to come off. I thought of my sixpence, my only sixpence, and felt a distinct pang of remorse. After all, only the other day the chaplain had said how wrong it was to bet. By Jove, so he had. Decent man the chaplain. Pity to do anything he would disapprove of. I was on the point of recalling my wager, when before my mind’s eye rose a vision of Bradshaw rampant and sneering, and myself writhing in my chair a crushed and scored-off wreck. I drew the line at that. I valued my self-respect at more than sixpence. If it had been a shilling now⁠—. So I set my teeth and turned once more to my Thucydides. Bradshaw, having picked up the thread of his story again, emitted hoarse chuckles like minute guns, until I very nearly rose and fell upon him. It is maddening to listen to a person laughing and not to know the joke.

“You will be allowed two hours for this paper,” said Mellish on the following afternoon, as he returned to his desk after distributing the Thucydides questions. “At five minutes to four I shall begin to collect your papers, but those who wish may go on till ten past. Write only on one side of the paper, and put your names in the top right-hand corner. Marks will be given for neatness. Any boy whom I see looking at his neighbour’s⁠—where’s Bradshaw?”

It was already five minutes past the hour. The latest of the late always had the decency to appear at least by three minutes past.

“Has anybody seen Bradshaw?” repeated Mellish. “You, what’s-your-name⁠—(I am what’s-your-name, very much at your service)⁠—you are in his House. Have you seen him?”

I could have pointed out with some pleasure at this juncture that if Cain expressed indignation at being asked where his brother was, I, by a simple sum in proportion, might with even greater justice feel annoyed at having to locate a person who was no relative of mine at all. Did Mr. Mellish expect me to keep an eye on every member of my House? Did Mr. Mellish⁠—in short, what did he mean by it?

This was what I thought. I said, “No, sir.”

“This is extraordinary,” said Mellish, “most extraordinary. Why, the boy was in school this morning.”

This was true. The boy had been in school that morning to some purpose, having beaten all records (his own records) in the gentle sport of Mellish-baiting. This evidently occurred to Mellish at the time, for he dropped the subject at once, and told us to begin our papers.

Now I have remarked already that I dare not say what I think of Thucydides, Book II. How then shall I frame my opinion of that examination paper? It was Thucydides, Book II, with the few easy parts left out. It was Thucydides, Book II, with special homemade difficulties added. It was⁠—well, in its way it was a masterpiece. Without going into details⁠—I dislike sensational and realistic writing⁠—I may say that I personally was not one of those who required an extra ten minutes to finish their papers. I finished mine at half-past two, and amused myself for the remaining hour and a half by writing neatly on several sheets of foolscap exactly what I thought of Mr. Mellish, and precisely what I hoped would happen to him some day. It was grateful and comforting.

At intervals I wondered what had become of Bradshaw. I was not surprised at his absence. At first I had feared that he would keep his word in that matter. As time went on I knew that he would. At more frequent intervals I wondered how I should enjoy being a bankrupt.

Four o’clock came round, and found me so engrossed in putting the finishing touches to my excursus of Mr. Mellish’s character, that I stayed on in the form-room till ten past. Two other members of the form stayed too, writing with the despairing energy of those who had five minutes to say what they would like to spread over five hours. At last Mellish collected the papers. He seemed a trifle surprised when I gave up my modest three sheets. Brown and Morrison, who had their eye on the form prize, each gave up reams. Brown told me subsequently that he had only had time to do sixteen sheets, and wanted to know whether I had adopted Rutherford’s emendation in preference to the old reading in Question II. My prolonged stay had made him regard me as a possible rival.

I dwell upon this part