The White Feather by P. G. Wodehouse (classic book list .txt) 📕

peeped through the door in the said wall, reported that what the Judies seemed to do mostly was to chase one another about the playground, shrieking at the top of their voices. But, they added, this was probably a mere ruse to divert suspicion.

They had almost certainly got the marbles in their pockets all the time.

The expedition stopped, and looked itself in the face.

"How about buzzing something at them?" said Jackson earnestly.

"You can get oranges over the road," said Tomlin in his helpful way.

Jackson vanished into the shop indicated, and reappeared a few moments later with a brown paper bag.

"It seems a beastly waste," suggested the economical Painter.

"That's all right," said Jackson, "they're all bad. The man thought I was rotting him when I asked if he'd got any bad oranges, but I got them at last. Give us a leg up, some one."

Willing hands urged him to the top of the wall. He drew out a green orange, and threw it.

There was a sudden silence on the other side of the wall. Then a howl of wrath went up to the heavens. Jackson rapidly emptied his bag.

"Got him!" he exclaimed, as the last orange sped on its way. "Look out, they're coming!"

The expedition had begun to move off with quiet dignity, when from the doorway in the wall there poured forth a stream of mortar-boarded warriors, shrieking defiance. The expedition advanced to meet them.

As usual, the Judies had the advantage in numbers, and, filled to the brim with righteous indignation, they were proceeding to make things uncommonly warm for the invaders—Painter had lost his cap, and Tomlin three waistcoat buttons—when the eye of Jackson, roving up and down the street, was caught by a Seymour's cap. He was about to shout for assistance when he perceived that the newcomer was Sheen, and refrained. It was no use, he felt, asking Sheen for help.

But just as Sheen arrived and the ranks of the expedition were beginning to give way before the strenuous onslaught of the Judies, the latter, almost with one accord, turned and bolted into their playground again. Looking round, Tomlin, that first of generals, saw the reason, and uttered a warning.

A mutual foe had appeared. From a passage on the left of the road there had debouched on to the field of action Albert himself and two of his band.

The expedition flew without false shame. It is to be doubted whether one of Albert's calibre would have troubled to attack such small game, but it was the firm opinion of the Wrykyn fags and the Judies that he and his men were to be avoided.

The newcomers did not pursue them. They contented themselves with shouting at them. One of the band threw a stone.

Then they caught sight of Sheen.

Albert said, "Oo er!" and advanced at the double. His companions followed him.

Sheen watched them come, and backed against the wall. His heart was thumping furiously. He was in for it now, he felt. He had come down to the town with this very situation in his mind. A wild idea of doing something to restore his self-respect and his credit in the eyes of the house had driven him to the High Street. But now that the crisis had actually arrived, he would have given much to have been in his study again.

Albert was quite close now. Sheen could see the marks which had resulted from his interview with Drummond. With all his force Sheen hit out, and experienced a curious thrill as his fist went home. It was a poor blow from a scientific point of view, but Sheen's fives had given him muscle, and it checked Albert. That youth, however, recovered rapidly, and the next few moments passed in a whirl for Sheen. He received a stinging blow on his left ear, and another which deprived him of his whole stock of breath, and then he was on the ground, conscious only of a wish to stay there for ever.

VII

MR JOE BEVAN

Almost involuntarily he staggered up to receive another blow which sent him down again.

"That'll do," said a voice.

Sheen got up, panting. Between him and his assailant stood a short, sturdy man in a tweed suit. He was waving Albert back, and Albert appeared to be dissatisfied. He was arguing hotly with the newcomer.

"Now, you go away," said that worthy, mildly, "just you go away."

Albert gave it as his opinion that the speaker would do well not to come interfering in what didn't concern him. What he wanted, asserted Albert, was a thick ear.

"Coming pushing yourself in," added Albert querulously.

"You go away," repeated the stranger. "You go away. I don't want to have trouble with you."

Albert's reply was to hit out with his left hand in the direction of the speaker's face. The stranger, without fuss, touched the back of Albert's wrist gently with the palm of his right hand, and Albert, turning round in a circle, ended the manœuvre with his back towards his opponent. He faced round again irresolutely. The thing had surprised him.

"You go away," said the other, as if he were making the observation for the first time.

"It's Joe Bevan," said one of Albert's friends, excitedly.

Albert's jaw fell. His freckled face paled.

"You go away," repeated the man in the tweed suit, whose conversation seemed inclined to run in a groove.

This time Albert took the advice. His friends had already taken it.

"Thanks," said Sheen.

"Beware," said Mr Bevan oracularly, "of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee. Always counter back when you guard. When a man shows you his right like that, always push out your hand straight. The straight left rules the boxing world. Feeling better, sir?"

"Yes, thanks."

"He got that right in just on the spot. I was watching. When you see a man coming to hit you with his right like that, don't you draw back. Get on top of him. He can't hit you then."

That feeling of utter collapse, which is the immediate result of a blow in the parts about the waistcoat, was beginning to pass away, and Sheen now felt capable of taking an interest in sublunary matters once more. His ear smarted horribly, and when he put up a hand and felt it the pain was so great that he could barely refrain from uttering a cry. But, however physically battered he might be, he was feeling happier and more satisfied with himself than he had felt for years. He had been beaten, but he had fought his best, and not given in. Some portion of his self-respect came back to him as he reviewed the late encounter.

Mr Bevan regarded him approvingly.

"He was too heavy for you," he said. "He's a good twelve stone, I make it. I should put you at ten stone—say ten stone three. Call it nine stone twelve in condition. But you've got pluck, sir."

Sheen opened his eyes at this surprising statement.

"Some I've met would have laid down after getting that first hit, but you got up again. That's the secret of fighting. Always keep going on. Never give in. You know what Shakespeare says about the one who first cries, 'Hold, enough!' Do you read Shakespeare, sir?"

"Yes," said Sheen.

"Ah, now he knew his business," said Mr Bevan enthusiastically. "There was ring-craft, as you may say. He wasn't a novice."

Sheen agreed that Shakespeare had written some good things in his time.

"That's what you want to remember. Always keep going on, as the saying is. I was fighting Dick Roberts at the National—an American, he was, from San Francisco. He come at me with his right stretched out, and I think he's going to hit me with it, when blessed if his left don't come out instead, and, my Golly! it nearly knocked a passage through me. Just where that fellow hit you, sir, he hit me. It was just at the end of the round, and I went back to my corner. Jim Blake was seconding me. 'What's this, Jim?' I says, 'is the man mad, or what?' 'Why,' he says, 'he's left-handed, that's what's the matter. Get on top of him.' 'Get on top of him? I says. 'My Golly, I'll get on top of the roof if he's going to hit me another of those.' But I kept on, and got close to him, and he couldn't get in another of them, and he give in after the seventh round."

"What competition was that?" asked Sheen.

Mr Bevan laughed. "It was a twenty-round contest, sir, for seven-fifty aside and the Light Weight Championship of the World."

Sheen looked at him in astonishment. He had always imagined professional pugilists to be bullet-headed and beetle-browed to a man. He was not prepared for one of Mr Joe Bevan's description. For all the marks of his profession that he bore on his face, in the shape of lumps and scars, he might have been a curate. His face looked tough, and his eyes harboured always a curiously alert, questioning expression, as if he were perpetually "sizing up" the person he was addressing. But otherwise he was like other men. He seemed also to have a pretty taste in Literature. This, combined with his strong and capable air, attracted Sheen. Usually he was shy and ill at ease with strangers. Joe Bevan he felt he had known all his life.

"Do you still fight?" he asked.

"No," said Mr Bevan, "I gave it up. A man finds he's getting on, as the saying is, and it don't do to keep at it too long. I teach and I train, but I don't fight now."

A sudden idea flashed across Sheen's mind. He was still glowing with that pride which those who are accustomed to work with their brains feel when they have gone honestly through some labour of the hands. At that moment he felt himself capable of fighting the world and beating it. The small point, that Albert had knocked him out of time in less than a minute, did not damp him at all. He had started on the right road. He had done something. He had stood up to his man till he could stand no longer. An unlimited vista of action stretched before him. He had tasted the pleasure of the fight, and he wanted more.

Why, he thought, should he not avail himself of Joe Bevan's services to help him put himself right in the eyes of the house? At the end of the term, shortly before the Public Schools' Competitions at Aldershot, inter-house boxing cups were competed for at Wrykyn. It would be a dramatic act of reparation to the house if he could win the Light-Weight cup for it. His imagination, jumping wide gaps, did not admit the possibility of his not being good enough to win it. In the scene which he conjured up in his mind he was an easy victor. After all, there was the greater part of the term to learn in, and he would have a Champion of the World to teach him.

Mr Bevan cut in on his reflections as if he had heard them by some process of wireless telegraphy.

"Now, look here, sir," he said, "you should let me give you a few lessons. You're plucky, but you don't know the game as yet. And boxing's a thing every one ought to know. Supposition is, you're crossing a field or going down a street with your sweetheart or your wife—"

Sheen was neither engaged nor married, but he let the point pass.

—"And up comes one of these hooligans, as they call 'em. What are you going to do if he starts his games? Why, nothing, if you can't box. You may be plucky, but you can't beat him. And if you beat him, you'll get half murdered yourself. What you want to do is to learn to box, and then what happens? Why, as soon as he sees you shaping, he says to himself, 'Hullo, this chap knows too much for me. I'm off,' and off he runs. Or supposition is, he comes for you. You don't mind. Not you. You give him one punch in the right place, and then you go off to your tea, leaving him lying there. He won't get up."

"I'd like to learn," said Sheen. "I should be awfully obliged if you'd teach me. I wonder if you could make me any good by the end of the term. The House Competitions come off then."

"That all depends, sir. It comes easier to some than others. If you know how to shoot your left out straight, that's as good as six months' teaching. After that it's all ring-craft. The straight left beats the world."

"Where shall I find you?"

"I'm training a young chap—eight stone seven, and he's got to get down to eight stone