Pip

Chapter V Linklater

I

Linklater came to school after Pip,—one year, to be precise,—but by the time that both had attained to the dignity of seniors they were firm friends. They were a curiously assorted couple. Pip at the age of eighteen was as inscrutable and reserved as ever, though his popularity with the school was unbounded, and his influence, when he chose to exert it, enormous. He had already been a member of the Eleven for three years, and should by rights this year have been captain. But alas! though Pip had been duly washed by the high tides of promiscuous September promotions out of the all-glorious Lower Shell into the Upper Shell, and from the Upper Shell by the next inundation into the Fifth, he had not as yet qualified for a Monitorship.

Linklater was a handsome, breezy, rather boisterous youth, quick of tongue and limber of limb. He possessed his fair share of brains, but not the corresponding inclination to use them; and he was a natural athlete of the most attractive type,—a graceful mover, a pretty bat, and a beautiful racquets player. But somehow he was not universally popular. Everybody was his friend, it is true, but that was chiefly because nobody cares to be the avowed antagonist of a man who possesses a sharp tongue and no scruples about using it, especially when these gifts are backed by such undoubted assets as membership of the Fifteen and Eleven. There was something not quite right about Linklater. Perhaps he was too grownup in his manners. He was popular, too, with masters, which is not invariably a good sign in a boy.

Still, he was not quite so grownup at eighteen as when he first came to Grandwich; and thereby hangs a tale.

At every public school there are certain things—each school has its own list—which are “not done.” Not done, that is, until one has achieved fame,—until one is a “blood,” or a “dook,” or a “bug” (or whatever they call it at your school, sir); until a boy has fought his way into that aristocracy—the most exclusive aristocracy in the world—in which brains, as such, count for nothing, birth has no part, and wealth is simply disregarded; where genuine ability occasionally gains a precarious footing, and then only by disguising itself as something else; but to which muscle, swiftness of foot, and general ability to manipulate a ball with greater dexterity than one’s neighbour is received unquestioningly, joyfully, proudly. Dear old gentlemen, who are brought down to distribute the prizes after lunch on Speech Day, invariably point to Simpkins major, who has obtained a prize for Greek Iambics and another for Latin Prose, as the summit of the scholastic universe; and they beseech Simpkins’s “fellow-scholars” not to be down-hearted because they are not like Simpkins. “We do not all get—er—ten talents, boys,” observes the old gentleman soothingly, with a half-deferential bob towards the Head, as if to apologise for quoting Scripture before a clerical authority. He next proceeds to hold out strong hopes to his audience that if they work hard they may possibly—who knows?—come some day to resemble Simpkins major. At this all the parents, forgetful of their own youth, applaud, and the “fellow-scholars,” about fifty per cent of whom do not know Simpkins by sight, while the remainder seldom meet him in a passage without kicking him, grin sheepishly, and take it out of Simpkins afterwards. The real heroes of the school, if only the dear old gentleman would realise, or remember, the fact, are those rather dull-looking youths, with incipient moustaches and large chests, who sit cracking nuts in the back row.

But this is by the way. Let us return to the things which are “not done” by the proletariat. The following are a few extracts from the unwritten but rigid code of Grandwich:—

1. You must wear your tie in a sailor’s knot—not in a bow.

2. A new boy must not speak to any one unless spoken to first.

3. You must not shave until you are in the Fifteen or Eleven; after that you must shave every Saturday night, whether you need it or not.

There was a merciful proviso attached to the last remarkable enactment—namely, that all whose growth of hair had outrun their social status might shave to an extent sufficient to make them presentable, provided that the operation did not take place in public. Consequently many undistinguished but hairy persons were compelled to shave in bed at night after the gas was out. I have often wondered what their mothers would have thought if they had known. Fortunately there is much in our lives that our mothers never hear of. If they did, public schools (among many other things) would cease to exist.

Now, Linklater, who, as has been already mentioned, was a precocious youth,—a typical cock-of-the-walk from a preparatory school,—spent his first few weeks at Grandwich in running foul of all the most cherished traditions of that historic foundation. He arrived in a neat bowtie, and proceeded to wear the same, despite the pointed criticisms of a multitude of counsellors, for the space of a week; at the end of which period it was taken from his neck by a self-appointed committee of the Lower Fourth. Finding that his eccentricities were earning him a certain amount of unpopularity, Linklater decided, like the born opportunist that he was, to allay popular feeling by a timely distribution of largesse. He accordingly paid a visit to the school tuck-shop, where he expended two shillings and sixpence on assorted confectionery. On his way back he encountered no less a person than Rumsey, the captain of the Eleven, and, feeling that he might as well conciliate all classes while he was about it, cried, “Catch, there!” and launched the largest sweet he could find in the bag in the direction of Rumsey. The feelings of that potentate on receiving a marron glacé in the middle of his waistcoat from a diminutive fag deprived him for the moment of all power to move or speak, so that the unconscious Linklater, passing on unscathed, lived to tell the tale, and subsequently to hear it told and retold by hysterical raconteurs to delighted audiences for months afterwards.

“Heard the latest about that new bloke?” inquired Master Mumford of Pip one evening, under cover of the continuous hum of conversation which always characterised “prep” in the Hivite house.

“What new bloke?”

“Linklater. Seen him?”

Yes, Pip had seen him at nets that day, and had noticed that he was a jolly neat bat.

“Notice his boots?” pursued Mumford.

“Can’t say I did.”

“Well, they were white!”

Master Mumford fairly overflowed with happy laughter at the richness of the jest. The wearing of white buckskin boots was one of the privileges of the First Eleven, and Linklater had run counter to custom and habit again.

“Oh,” said Pip, “I suppose he didn’t know.”

This childishly lenient view of the case did not appeal to Mumford, who, with all the small-minded man’s respect for the letter of the law, was thirsting to punish the evildoer.

“Beastly side!” he ejaculated, “that’s all. We are going to fill them with soap and water after prep, and put a notice beside them telling him not to stick on so much of it. I’m writing it now. How many e’s are there in beastly?”

“Dunno,” replied Pip shortly.

“Will you come and help?”

“No. He looks rather a decent chap. He’s only been here a week; he may not know about white boots.”

“Ought to, then,” snapped the bloodthirsty Mumford. “Other people find things out all right.”

“Not all,” grunted Pip. “How about stamps?”

Master Mumford turned his back with some deliberation, and addressed himself severely to the labours of composition. Once, during his first week at Grandwich, he had called at the Head Master’s, and having, after a wordy encounter with an unexpected butler in the hall, succeeded in pushing his way into the study, had endeavoured, in faithful pursuance of the custom in vogue at his private school, to purchase a penny stamp for his Sunday letter from the stupefied autocrat within.

Linklater’s white boots were duly filled with soap and water, but Pip was not present at the ceremony. He sought out the victim next evening and invited him to supper—sardines, and condensed milk spread on biscuits—in his study after prayers. An invitation from Pip was something sought after among the Juniors in “Uncle Bill’s” house, for Pip, though only fifteen, was regarded as a certainty for his Eleven colours this year, after his electrifying performance on last year’s house-match.

Linklater gratefully accepted the invitation, and the two became friends from that day. They possessed opposite qualities. Pip admired Linklater’s vivacity and bonhomie, while Linklater was attracted by Pip’s solid muscle and undemonstrative ability to “do things.” But cricket was their common bond. Linklater was almost as promising a bat as Pip was a bowler, and the two rose to eminence side by side. But despite their early proficiency, it was fated that neither should be Captain of the Eleven,—Pip for reasons already stated, and Linklater for another, which came about in this way.

Nearly every schoolboy has a bête noire among the masters, and every master has at least one bête noire among the boys. Fortunately it very seldom happens that the antipathy is mutual. If it is, look out for trouble, especially when the boy has a dour temper and the master is fault-finding and finicky. Such an one was Mr. Bradshaw, late Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, and a born fool.

Hostilities began early. On Linklater’s first appearance in the Lower Sixth, Mr. Bradshaw remarked unfavourably on the shape of his collar, and elicited loud and sycophantic laughter—which is always music in the ears of men of his type—by several facetious comments on the colour of his tie. Linklater chafed and glowered, and muttered “Swine!” under his breath,—symptoms of discomfiture which only roused Mr. Bradshaw to further humorous efforts. Thereafter the two waged perpetual warfare. Linklater took his opponent’s measure with great accuracy, and then advanced to battle. He discovered that Mr. Bradshaw was deaf in his left ear. He therefore made a point, whenever possible, of sitting on that side and making obscene noises. Mr. Bradshaw was extremely bald, and ashamed of the fact. Linklater had noted in his study of the Scriptures that the prophet Elisha had suffered from the same infirmity: consequently Mr. Bradshaw found his blackboard adorned every morning for a month with the single word ELISHA in staring capitals. When Mr. Bradshaw was irritable Linklater was serenely cheerful; when Mr. Bradshaw was blandly sarcastic Linklater was densely stupid; and after ostentatious efforts to understand his preceptor’s innuendoes, would shake his head pityingly, with a patient sigh at such ill-timed levity.

So the battle went on. Every schoolboy knows what it must have been like. Matters were bound to come to a crisis. One morning, during a Cicero lesson, the form came upon a Greek expression amid the Latin text, and Mr. Bradshaw, who rather fancied himself at this sort of thing, added a touch of distinction to his translation by rendering the word in French. The form received this flight of scholarship without enthusiasm, merely wondering in their hearts how any man could be such an unmitigated ass as to be desirous of elucidating for them a language of which they knew but little by translating it into another of which they knew still less.

“Yes, élan is exactly the right translation,” quoth Mr. Bradshaw, well pleased. “There is always a way out of every difficulty if we only look for it. Get on!”

“Please, sir, what does élan mean, exactly?” inquired Linklater, not because he wished to know, but in the hope that “Braddy” would waste several precious minutes in explaining.

The master rose to the bait.

“Mean? Bless my soul, what a question! Not know? Here, tell him, somebody—Martin, Levesley, Smith, Forbes, next, next, next!”

Various futile translations were offered, and Mr. Bradshaw stormed again.

“Do you fellows do anything in the French hour except eat bananas?” he inquired. (Deferential sniggers.) “What are French lessons but an excuse for idleness? Really, I must ask the Head—”

They let him run on, while the golden moments slipped by. As soon as he showed signs of flagging, Linklater, seeing that it still wanted eight minutes to the hour, repeated—

“But what does it mean, sir?”

“Mean, you insufferable dolt! It means—it means—er, ‘energy,’ ‘verve,’ ‘dash’—yes, that’s it! ’dash’!”

Linklater held up a respectful hand.

“I said ‘dash!’ sir, the moment the question passed me,” he remarked meekly.

The form roared, and unanimously decided afterwards that “Link was one up on Braddy.” Mr. Bradshaw, after the manner of his kind, reported Linklater to the Head for “gross impertinence.” The Head, who had not reached his present high position for nothing, took a lenient view of the case, merely requesting Linklater to refrain in future from humour during school hours. But for all that Linklater determined to be “even with Braddy” for reporting him: and so successful was he in his enterprise that he effectually destroyed his own last chance of leading a Grandwich Eleven to Lord’s.

The schoolboy is an observant animal. Mr. Bradshaw, like most men who carry method and precision to extremes, was a mass of little affectations and mannerisms, one of the most curious of which was his habit of passing his right hand in one comprehensive sweep along his bald head and down over his face. The boys knew this trick by heart: Braddy was much addicted to it at moments of mental exaltation,—say, when standing over a victim and thinking out the details of some exceptionally galling punishment. Milford tertius, the licensed jester of the Lower Fourth, had indeed been caned by the Head for a lifelike imitation of the same, rendered to a delighted pewful of worshippers during a particularly dull sermon in chapel.

The schoolboy, as we have said, is an observant animal. Very well, then.

One morning Mr. Bradshaw, as he entered his classroom, majestic in cap and gown, closing the door carefully and lovingly behind him, with all the cheerful deliberation of a Chief Tormentor who proposes to spend a merry morning in the torture-chamber, suddenly beheld Linklater stand up in his place and heave a “Liddell & Scott” (medium size) across the room at an unsuspecting youth in spectacles, who was busily engaged in putting the finishing touches to a copy of Greek Iambics.

The book, having reached its destination, rebounded in obedience to one of the primary laws of mechanics, and fell with a heavy thud upon the floor. The form, after the first startled flutter, settled down with a happy sigh to witness the rare spectacle of a volcano in full eruption.

Mr. Bradshaw’s eye sparkled. Assuredly the enemy was delivered into his hand this time. Mounting his rostrum, he stood gazing, almost affectionately, upon the perpetrator of the outrage, mentally passing in review all the possibilities of punishment, from expulsion downwards, and busily caressing his countenance the while.

Presently some one in the form tittered. Then another, and another, and another. Then the whole room broke into a roar. Mr. Bradshaw, in high good-humour, allowed them to continue for some time: he wanted to rub it into Linklater. At last he cleared his throat.

“Your friends may well smile, sir,” he began majestically. (Cheers and laughter.) “So serene are you in your conceit and self-assurance that you proceed to break rules, to behave like a board-school boy, without even taking the trouble to observe if one in Authority”—he smacked his lips—“be present or no. What is the result? Pride has a fall, my young friend. You make a spectacle of yourself—”

Here the speaker was interrupted by a perfect tornado of merriment. A master can always raise a snigger at the expense of a boy, but such whole-hearted appreciation as this had not fallen to Mr. Bradshaw’s lot before.

“—a ludicrous exhibition,” he continued, after the noise had subsided.

Cheers and laughter, as before.

“If you could only see yourself now, my boy, only behold the spectacle you present—”

This time his audience became so hysterical that Braddy was conscious of an uneasy suspicion that something must be wrong. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pad of foolscap before him, upon which he had been emphasising his remarks by vigorous slappings. The paper was covered with numerous impressions of his hand, neatly outlined in some jet-black substance. After a hasty inspection of the hand itself the awful truth began to dawn upon him, and the now frenzied Lower Sixth were regaled with the spectacle of a man attempting to scrutinise his own countenance by squinting along his nose.

It must have been about this time, according to the best authorities, that the Head came in. That benevolent despot, passing the door on his way to his study, had been attracted by the sounds of mirth within; and under the impression that owing to some misunderstanding Mr. Bradshaw was not taking his form that hour, he entered the room to maintain discipline until the errant master could be found. After his usual punctilious knock—he was a head master of the velvet glove type—he opened the door, and stood an interested and astonished spectator of the scene within.

What he saw was this—

On the benches rolled thirty boys, helpless, speechless, tearful with laughter; and upon the rostrum, with a parti-coloured bald head and a coal-black face, there mowed and gibbered a creature, which rolled frenzied eyes and gnashed unnaturally whitened teeth in impotent frenzy upon the convulsed throng before him.

Linklater had covered the door-handle with lampblack, and Mr. Bradshaw’s favourite mannerism had done the rest.