School Stories by P. G. Wodehouse (children's ebooks free online .TXT) 📕

“Yes?” I said.

He leant forward impressively, and whispered. “Only the actual fight is the work of the genuine author. The interference of Arthur has been interpolated!”

“By Jove!” I said. “Not really?”

“Yes. Fact, I assure you. Why, think for a minute. Could a man capable of describing a fight as that fight is described, also be capable of stopping it just as the man the reader has backed all through is winning? It would be brutal. Positively brutal, sir!”

“Then, how do you explain it?”

“A year ago I could not have told you. Now I can. For five years I have been unravelling the mystery by the aid of that one clue. Listen. When Mr. Hughes had finished part one, he threw down his pen and started to Wales for a holiday. He had been there a week or more, when one day, as he was reclining on the peak of a mountain looking down a deep precipice, he was aware of a body of men approaching him. They were dressed soberly in garments of an inky black. Each had side whiskers, and each wore spectacles. ‘Mr. Hughes, I believe?’ said the leader, as they came up to him.

“ ‘Your servant, sir,’ said he.

“ ‘We have come to speak to you on an important matter, Mr. Hughes. We are the committee of the Secret Society For Putting Wholesome Literature Within The Reach Of Every Boy, And Seeing That He Gets It. I, sir, am the president of the S.S.F.P.W.L.W.T.R.O.E.B.A.S.T.H.G.I.’ He bowed.

“ ‘Really, sir, I⁠—er⁠—don’t think I have the pleasure,’ began Mr. Hughes.

“ ‘You shall have the pleasure, sir. We have come to speak to you about your book. Our representative has read Part I, and reports unfavourably upon it. It contains no moral. There are scenes of violence, and your hero is far from perfect.’

“ ‘I think you mistake my object,’ said Mr. Hughes; ‘Tom is a boy, not a patent medicine. In other words, he is not supposed to be perfect.’

“ ‘Well, I am not here to bandy words. The second part of your book must be written to suit the rules of our Society. Do you agree, or shall we throw you over that precipice?’

“ ‘Never. I mean, I don’t agree.’

“ ‘Then we must write it for you. Remember, sir, that you will be constantly watched, and if you attempt to write that second part yourself⁠—’ ” (he paused dramatically). “So the second part was written by the committee of the Society. So now you know.”

“But,” said I, “how do you account for the fight with Slogger Williams?”

“The president relented slightly towards the end, and consented to Mr. Hughes inserting a chapter of his own, on condition that the Society should finish it. And the Society did. See?”

“But⁠—”

“Ticket.”

“Eh?”

“Ticket, please, sir.”

I looked up. The guard was standing at the open door. My companion had vanished.

“Guard,” said I, as I handed him my ticket, “where’s the gentleman who travelled up with me?”

“Gentleman, sir? I haven’t seen nobody.”

“Not a man in tweeds with red hair? I mean, in tweeds and owning red hair.”

“No, sir. You’ve been alone in the carriage all the way up. Must have dreamed it, sir.”

Possibly I did.

The qualities which in later years rendered Frederick Wackerbath Bradshaw so conspicuous a figure in connection with the now celebrated affair of the European, African, and Asiatic Pork Pie and Ham Sandwich Supply Company frauds, were sufficiently in evidence during his school career to make his masters prophesy gloomily concerning his future. The boy was in every detail the father of the man. There was the same genial unscrupulousness, upon which the judge commented so bitterly during the trial, the same readiness to seize an opportunity and make the most of it, the same brilliance of tactics. Only once during those years can I remember an occasion on which Justice scored a point against him. I can remember it, because I was in a sense responsible for his failure. And he can remember it, I should be inclined to think, for other reasons. Our then Headmaster was a man with a straight eye and a good deal of muscular energy, and it is probable that the talented Frederick, in spite of the passage of years, has a tender recollection of these facts.

It was the eve of the Euripides examination in the Upper Fourth. Euripides is not difficult compared to some other authors, but he does demand a certain amount of preparation. Bradshaw was a youth who did less preparation than anybody I have ever seen, heard of, or read of, partly because he preferred to peruse a novel under the table during prep, but chiefly, I think, because he had reduced cribbing in form to such an exact science that he loved it for its own sake, and would no sooner have come tamely into school with a prepared lesson than a sportsman would shoot a sitting bird. It was not the marks that he cared for. He despised them. What he enjoyed was the refined pleasure of swindling under a master’s very eye. At the trial the judge, who had, so ran report, been himself rather badly bitten by the Ham Sandwich Company, put the case briefly and neatly in the words, “You appear to revel in villainy for villainy’s sake,” and I am almost certain that I saw the beginnings of a gratified smile on Frederick’s expressive face as he heard the remark. The rest of our study⁠—the juniors at St. Austin’s pigged in quartettes⁠—were in a state of considerable mental activity on account of this Euripides examination. There had been House-matches during the preceding fortnight, and House-matches are not a help to study, especially if you are on the very fringe of the cock-house team, as I was. By dint of practising every minute of spare time, I had got the eleventh place for my fielding. And, better still, I had caught two catches in the second innings, one of them a regular gallery affair, and both off the captain’s bowling. It was