Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

conventions, and he loitered behind in the confusion of merry departures.

“Goodbye, sir,” he said shyly.

Mr. Caryll took off two pairs of spectacles and examined Michael through the remaining pair, rasping out the familiar cough as he did so.

“Now, you great booby, what do you want?” he asked.

“Goodbye, sir,” Michael said, more loudly.

“Oh, goodbye,” said Mr. Caryll. “You’ve been a very idle boy”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“and I”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“I don’t think I ever knew such an idle boy before.”

“I’ve had a ripping time in your class, sir,” said Michael.

“What do you mean?”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“are you trying to be impudent?” exclaimed Mr. Caryll, hastily putting on a second pair of spectacles to cope with the situation.

“No, sir. I’ve enjoyed being in your class. I’m sorry I was so low down in the list. Goodbye, sir.”

Mr. Caryll seemed to realize at last that Michael was being sincerely complimentary, so he took off all the pairs of spectacles and beamed at him with an expression of the most profound benignity.

“Oh, well”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“we can’t all be top”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“but it’s a pity you should be so very low down”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“you’re a Scholar too, which makes it much worse. Never mind. Good boy at heart”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“better luck in your next form”⁠—cough⁠—cough. “Hope you’ll enjoy yourself on your holidays.”

“Goodbye, sir. Thanks awfully,” said Michael. He turned away from the well-loved classroom of old Caryll that still echoed with the laughter of the Upper Fourth A.

“And don’t work too hard”⁠—cough⁠—cough, was Mr. Caryll’s last joke.

In the corridor Michael caught up the lantern-jawed boy who had prophesied this year’s pleasure at the beginning of last autumn.

“Just been saying goodbye to old Christmas,” Michael volunteered.

“He’s a topper,” said Lantern-jaws. “The best old boy that ever lived. I wish I was going to be in his form again next term.”

“So do I,” said Michael. “We had a clinking good time. So long. Hope you’ll have decent holidays.”

“So long,” said the lantern-jawed boy lugubriously, dropping most of his mathematical books. “Same to you.”

When Michael was at home, he took a new volume of Henty into the garden and began to read. Suddenly he found he was bored by Henty. This knowledge shocked him for the moment. Then he went indoors and put For Name and Fame, or Through Afghan Passes back on the shelf. He surveyed the row of Henty’s books gleaming with olivine edges, and presently he procured brown paper and with Cook’s assistance wrapped up the dozen odd volumes. At the top he placed a slip of paper on which was written “Presented to the Boys’ Library by C. M. S. Fane.” Michael was now in a perplexity for literary recreation, until he remembered Don Quixote. Soon he was deep in that huge volume, out of the dull world of London among the gorges and chasms and waterfalls of Castile. Boyhood’s zenith had been attained: Michael’s imagination was primed for strange emotions.

V Incense

Stella came back from Germany less foreign-looking than Michael expected, and he could take a certain amount of pleasure in her company at Bournemouth, For a time they were well matched, as they walked with their mother under the pines. Once, as they passed a bunch of old ladies on a seat, Stella said to Michael:

“Did you hear what those people said?”

Michael had not heard, so Stella whispered:

“They said ‘What good-looking children!’ Shall we turn back and walk by them again?”

“Whatever for?” Michael demanded.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Stella, flapping the big violet bows in her chestnut hair. “Only I like to hear people talking about me. I think it’s interesting. I always try to hear what they say when I’m playing.”

“Mother,” Michael appealed, “don’t you think Stella ought not to be so horribly conceited? I do.”

“Darling Stella,” said Mrs. Fane, “I’m afraid people spoil her. It isn’t her fault.”

“It must be her fault,” argued Michael.

Michael remembered Miss Carthew’s admonition not to snub Stella, but he could not help feeling that Miss Carthew herself would have disapproved of this open vanity. He wished that Miss Carthew were not now Mrs. Ross and far away in Edinburgh. He felt almost a responsibility with regard to Stella, a highly moral sensation of knowing better the world and its pitfalls than she could. He feared for the effect of its lure upon Stella and her vanity, and was very anxious his sister should always comport herself with credit to her only brother. In his mother’s attitude Michael seemed to discern a dangerous inclination not to trouble about Stella’s habit of thought. He resolved, when he and Stella were alone together, to address his young sister seriously. Stella’s nonchalance alarmed him more and more deeply as he began to look back at his own life and to survey his wasted years. Michael felt he must convince Stella that earnestness was her only chance.

“You’re growing very fast, Michael,” said his mother one morning. “Really I think you’re getting too big for Etons.”

Michael critically examined himself in his mother’s toilet-glass and had to admit that his sleeves looked short and that his braces showed too easily under his waistcoat. The fact that he could no longer survey his reflection calmly and that he dreaded to see Stella admire herself showed him something was wrong.

“Perhaps I’d better get a new suit,” he suggested.

In his blue serge suit, wearing what the shops called a Polo or Shakespeare collar, Michael felt more at ease, although the sleeves were now as much too long as lately his old sleeves were too short. The gravity of this new suit confirmed his impression that age was stealing upon him and made him the more inclined to lecture Stella. This desire of his seemed to irritate his mother, who would protest:

“Michael, do leave poor Stella alone. I can’t think why you’ve suddenly altered. One would think you’d got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Like Atlas,” commented Michael gloomily.

“I don’t know who it’s like,” said Mrs. Fane. “But it’s very disagreeable for everybody round you.”

“Michael always thinks he knows about everything,” Stella put in spitefully.

“Oh, shut up!” growled Michael.

He was beginning to