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

to him late in the evening. He had been reading a novel which, whatever its other merits may have been, was not interesting, and it had sent him to sleep. He awoke to hear a well-known voice observe with some unction: “Ah! M’yes. Leeches and hot fomentations.” This effectually banished sleep. If there were two things in the world that he loathed, they were leeches and hot fomentations, and the School doctor apparently regarded them as a panacea for every kind of bodily ailment, from a fractured skull to a cold in the head. It was this gentleman who had just spoken, but Grey’s alarm vanished as he perceived that the words had no personal application to himself. The object of the remark was a fellow-sufferer in the next bed but one. Now Grey was certain that when he had fallen asleep there had been nobody in that bed. When, therefore, the medical expert had departed on his fell errand, the quest of leeches and hot fomentations, he sat up and gave tongue.

“Who’s that in that bed?” he asked.

“Hullo, Grey,” replied a voice. “Didn’t know you were awake. I’ve come to keep you company.”

“That you, Barrett? What’s up with you?”

“Collarbone. Dislocated it or something. Reade’s over in that corner. He has bust his ankle. Oh, yes, we’ve been having a nice, cheery afternoon,” concluded Barrett bitterly.

“Great Scott! How did it happen?”

“Payne.”

“Where? In your collarbone?”

“Yes. That wasn’t what I meant, though. What I was explaining was that Payne got hold of me in the middle of the field, and threw me into touch. After which he fell on me. That was enough for my simple needs. I’m not grasping.”

“How about Reade?”

“The entire Second scrum collapsed on top of Reade. When we dug him out his ankle was crocked. Mainspring gone, probably. Then they gathered up the pieces and took them gently away. I don’t know how it all ended.”

Just then Walkinshaw burst into the room. He had a large bruise over one eye, his arm was in a sling, and he limped. But he was in excellent spirits.

“I knew I was right, by Jove,” he observed to Grey. “I knew he could buck up if he liked.”

“I know it now,” said Barrett.

“Who’s this you’re talking about?” said Grey.

“Payne. I’ve never seen anything like the game he played today. He was everywhere. And, by Jove, his tackling!”

“Don’t,” said Barrett, wearily.

“It’s the best match I ever played in,” said Walkinshaw, bubbling over with enthusiasm. “Do you know, the Second had all the best of the game.”

“What was the score?”

“Draw. One try all.”

“And now I suppose you’re satisfied?” enquired Barrett. The great scheme for the regeneration of Payne had been confided to him by its proud patentee.

“Almost,” said Walkinshaw. “We’ll continue the treatment for one more game, and then we’ll have him simply fizzing for the Windybury match. That’s next Saturday. By the way, I’m afraid you’ll hardly be fit again in time for that, Barrett, will you?”

“I may possibly,” said Barrett, coldly, “be getting about again in time for the Windybury match of the year after next. This year I’m afraid I shall not have the pleasure. And I should strongly advise you, if you don’t want to have to put a team of cripples into the field, to discontinue the treatment, as you call it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Walkinshaw.

On the following Wednesday evening, at five o’clock, something was carried in on a stretcher, and deposited in the bed which lay between Grey and Barrett. Close scrutiny revealed the fact that it was what had once been Charles Augustus Walkinshaw. He was slightly broken up.

“Payne?” enquired Grey in chilly tones.

Walkinshaw admitted the impeachment.

Grey took a pencil and a piece of paper from the table at his side. “If you want to know what I’m doing,” he said, “I’m writing out the team for the Windybury match, and I’m going to make Payne captain, as the senior Second Fifteen man. And if we win I’m jolly well going to give him his cap after the match. If we don’t win, it’ll be the fault of a raving lunatic of the name of Walkinshaw, with his beastly Colney Hatch schemes for reforming slack forwards. You utter rotter!”

Fortunately for the future peace of mind of C. A. Walkinshaw, the latter contingency did not occur. The School, in spite of its absentees, contrived to pull the match off by a try to nil. Payne, as was only right and proper, scored the try, making his way through the ranks of the visiting team with the quiet persistence of a steamroller. After the game he came to tea, by request, at the infirmary, and was straightaway invested by Grey with his First Fifteen colours. On his arrival he surveyed the invalids with interest.

“Rough game, footer,” he observed at length.

“Don’t mention it,” said Barrett politely. “Leeches,” he added dreamily. “Leeches and hot fomentations. Boiling fomentations. Will somebody kindly murder Walkinshaw!”

“Why?” asked Payne, innocently.

Author!

J. S. M. Babington, of Dacre’s House, was on the horns of a dilemma. Circumstances over which he had had no control had brought him, like another Hercules, to the crossroads, and had put before him the choice between pleasure and duty, or, rather, between pleasure and what those in authority called duty. Being human, he would have had little difficulty in making his decision, had not the path of pleasure been so hedged about by danger as to make him doubt whether after all the thing could be carried through.

The facts in the case were these. It was the custom of the mathematical set to which J. S. M. Babington belonged, 4B to wit, to relieve the tedium of the daily lesson with a species of round game which was played as follows. As soon as the master had taken his seat, one of the players would execute a manoeuvre calculated to draw attention on himself, such as dropping a book or upsetting the blackboard. Called up