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

steam engine, but he speedily realised, what he had suspected before, that the instructions were the work of a dangerous madman. What was the good of going on living when gibbering lunatics were allowed to write for weekly papers?

About this time his gloom was deepened by the discovery that a tin labelled mixed biscuits, which he had noticed in Brodie’s locker, was empty.

He thought he would go for a stroll. It would be beastly, of course, but not so beastly as sitting in the junior day-room.

It is just here that the tragedy begins to deepen.

Passing out of Seymour’s gate he met Brooke, of Appleby’s. Brooke wore an earnest, thoughtful expression.

“Hullo, Brooke,” said Chapple, “where are you off to?”

It seemed that Brooke was off to the carpenter’s shop. Hence the earnest, thoughtful expression. His mind was wrestling with certain pieces of wood which he proposed to fashion into photograph frames. There was always a steady demand in the school for photograph frames, and the gifted were in the habit of turning here and there an honest penny by means of them.

The artist soul is not always unfavourable to a gallery. Brooke said he didn’t mind if Chapple came along, only he wasn’t to go rotting about or anything. So Chapple went along.

Arrived at the carpenter’s shop, Brooke was soon absorbed in his labours. Chapple watched him for a time with the interest of a brother-worker, for had he not tried to construct handy model steam engines in his day? Indeed, yes. After a while, however, the role of spectator began to pall. He wanted to do something. Wandering round the room he found a chisel, and upon the instant, in direct contravention of the treaty respecting rotting, he sat down and started carving his name on a smooth deal board which looked as if nobody wanted it. The pair worked on in silence, broken only by an occasional hard breath as the toil grew exciting. Chapple’s tongue was out and performing mystic evolutions as he carved the letters. He felt inspired.

He was beginning the A when he was brought to earth again by the voice of Brooke.

“You are an idiot,” said Brooke, complainingly. “That’s my board, and now you’ve spoilt it.”

Spoilt it! Chapple liked that! Spoilt it, if you please, when he had done a beautiful piece of carving on it!

“Well, it can’t be helped now,” said Brooke, philosophically. “I suppose it’s not your fault you’re such an ass. Anyhow, come on now. It’s struck eight.”

“It’s what?” gasped Chapple.

“Struck eight. But it doesn’t matter. Appleby never minds one being a bit late for breakfast.”

“Oh,” said Chapple. “Oh, doesn’t he!”

Go into Seymour’s at eight sharp any morning and look down the table, and you will see the face of G. M. Chapple⁠—obscured every now and then, perhaps, by a coffee cup or a slice of bread and marmalade. He has not been late for three weeks. The spare room is now occupied by Postlethwaite, of the Upper Fourth, whose place in Milton’s dormitory has been taken by Chapple. Milton is the head of the house, and stands alone among the house prefects for the strenuousness of his methods in dealing with his dormitory. Nothing in this world is certain, but it is highly improbable that Chapple will be late again. There are swagger-sticks.

The Guardian

In his Sunday suit (with ten shillings in specie in the right-hand trouser pocket) and a brand-new bowler hat, the youngest of the Shearnes, Thomas Beauchamp Algernon, was being launched by the combined strength of the family on his public-school career. It was a solemn moment. The landscape was dotted with relatives⁠—here a small sister, awed by the occasion into refraining from insult; there an aunt, vaguely admonitory. “Well, Tom,” said Mr. Shearne, “you’ll soon be off now. You’re sure to like Eckleton. Remember to cultivate your bowling. Everyone can bat nowadays. And play forward, not outside. The outsides get most of the fun, certainly, but then if you’re a forward, you’ve got eight chances of getting into a team.”

“All right, father.”

“Oh, and work hard.” This by way of an afterthought.

“All right, father.”

“And, Tom,” said Mrs. Shearne, “you are sure to be comfortable at school, because I asked Mrs. Davy to write to her sister, Mrs. Spencer, who has a son at Eckleton, and tell her to tell him to look after you when you get there. He is in Mr. Dencroft’s house, which is next door to Mr. Blackburn’s, so you will be quite close to one another. Mind you write directly you get there.”

“All right, mother.”

“And look here, Tom.” His eldest brother stepped to the front and spoke earnestly. “Look here, don’t you forget what I’ve been telling you?”

“All right.”

“You’ll be right enough if you don’t go sticking on side. Don’t forget that, however much of a blood you may have been at that rotten little private school of yours, you’re not one at Eckleton.”

“All right.”

“You look clean, which is the great thing. There’s nothing much wrong with you except cheek. You’ve got enough of that to float a ship. Keep it under.”

“All right. Keep your hair on.”

“There you go,” said the expert, with gloomy triumph. “If you say that sort of thing at Eckleton, you’ll get jolly well sat on, by Jove!”

“Bai Jove, old chap!” murmured the younger brother, “we’re devils in the Forty-twoth!”

The other, whose chief sorrow in life was that he could not get the smaller members of the family to look with proper awe on the fact that he had just passed into Sandhurst, gazed wistfully at the speaker, but, realising that there was a locked door between them, tried no active measures.

“Well, anyhow,” he said, “you’ll soon get it knocked out of you, that’s one comfort. Look here, if you do get scrapping with anybody, don’t forget all I’ve taught you. And I should go on boxing there if I were you, so as to go down to Aldershot some day. You ought to make a fairly decent featherweight if you practise.”

“All