Stalky and Co Part 35

"One good job--the Common-room hate this as much as we do. Watch King wrigglin' to get out of the draft."

"Where's the Raymondiferous Martin? Punctuality, my beloved 'earers, is the image o' war--"

"Shut up. Here's the giddy Dook. Golly, what a dewlap!" Mr. Martin, in evening dress, was undeniably throaty--a tall, generously designed, pink-and-white man. Still, Beetle need not have been coa.r.s.e.

"Look at his back while he's talkin' to the Head. Vile bad form to turn your back on the audience! He's a Philistine--a Bopper--a Jebusite--an'

a Hivite." McTurk leaned back and sniffed contemptuously.

In a few colorless words, the Head introduced the speaker and sat down amid applause. When Mr. Martin took the applause to himself, they naturally applauded more than ever. It was some time before he could begin. He had no knowledge of the school--its tradition or heritage. He did not know that the last census showed that eighty per cent. of the boys had been born abroad--in camp, cantonment, or upon the high seas; or that seventy-five per cent. were sons of officers in one or other of the services--Willoughbys, Paulets, De Castros, Maynes, Randalls, after their kind--looking to follow their fathers' profession. The Head might have told him this, and much more; but, after an hour-long dinner in his company, the Head decided to say nothing whatever. Mr. Raymond Martin seemed to know so much already.

He plunged into his speech with a long-drawn, rasping "Well, boys,"

that, though they were not conscious of it, set every young nerve ajar.

He supposed they knew--hey?--what he had come down for? It was not often that he had an opportunity to talk to boys. He supposed that boys were very much the same kind of persons--some people thought them rather funny persons--as they had been in his youth.

"This man," said McTurk, with conviction, "is _the_ Gadarene Swine."

But they must remember that they would not always be boys. They would grow up into men, because the boys of to-day made the men of to-morrow, and upon the men of to-morrow the fair fame of their glorious native land depended.

"If this goes on, my beloved 'earers, it will be my painful duty to rot this bargee." Stalky drew a long breath through his nose.

"Can't do that," said McTurk. "He ain't chargin' anything for his Romeo."

And so they ought to think of the duties and responsibilities of the life that was opening before them. Life was not all--he enumerated a few games, and, that nothing might be lacking to the sweep and impact of his fall, added "marbles." "Yes, life was not," he said, "all marbles."

There was one tense gasp--among the juniors almost a shriek--of quivering horror, he was a heathen--an outcast---beyond the extremest pale of toleration--self-d.a.m.ned before all men. Stalky bowed his head in his hands. McTurk, with a bright and cheerful eye, drank in every word, and Beetle nodded solemn approval.

Some of them, doubtless, expected in a few years to have the honor of a commission from the Queen, and to wear a sword. Now, he himself had had some experience of these duties, as a Major in a volunteer regiment, and he was glad to learn that they had established a volunteer corps in their midst. The establishment of such an establishment conduced to a proper and healthy spirit, which, if fostered, would be of great benefit to the land they loved and were so proud to belong to. Some of those now present expected, he had no doubt--some of them anxiously looked forward to leading their men against the bullets of England's foes; to confronting the stricken field in all the pride of their youthful manhood.

Now the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, she being made for one end only by blind Nature, but man for several.

With a large and healthy hand, he tore down these veils, and trampled them under the well-intentioned feet of eloquence. In a raucous voice, he cried aloud little matters, like the hope of Honor and the dream of Glory, that boys do not discuss even with their most intimate equals, cheerfully a.s.suming that, till he spoke, they had never considered these possibilities. He pointed them to s.h.i.+ning goals, with fingers which smudged out all radiance on all horizons. He profaned the most secret places of their souls with outcries and gesticulations, he bade them consider the deeds of their ancestors in such a fas.h.i.+on that they were flushed to their tingling ears. Some of them--the rending voice cut a frozen stillness--might have had relatives who perished in defence of their country. They thought, not a few of them, of an old sword in a pa.s.sage, or above a breakfast-room table, seen and fingered by stealth since they could walk. He adjured them to emulate those ill.u.s.trious examples; and they looked all ways in their extreme discomfort.

Their years forbade them even to shape their thoughts clearly to themselves. They felt savagely that they were being outraged by a fat man who considered marbles a game.

And so he worked towards his peroration--which, by the way, he used later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors--while they sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many, many words, he reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom.

This--this was the concrete symbol of their land--worthy of all honor and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to worthily add to its imperishable l.u.s.tre. He shook it before them--a large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colors, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort.

They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before--down at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high when a brig went ash.o.r.e on Braunton Sands; above the roof of the Golf-club, and in Keyte's window, where a certain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never displayed it; it was no part of the scheme of their lives; the Head had never alluded to it; their fathers had not declared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eyes? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk.

The Head saved the situation by rising swiftly to propose a vote of thanks, and at his first motion, the school clapped furiously, from a sense of relief.

"And I am sure," he concluded, the gaslight full on his face, "that you will all join me in a very hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Raymond Martin for the most enjoyable address he has given us."

To this day we shall never know the rights of the case. The Head vows that he did no such thing; or that, if he did, it must have been something in his eye; but those who were present are persuaded that he winked, once, openly and solemnly, after the word "enjoyable." Mr.

Raymond Martin got his applause full tale. As he said, "Without vanity, I think my few words went to their hearts. I never knew boys could cheer like that."

He left as the prayer-bell rang, and the boys lined up against the wall.

The flag lay still unrolled on the desk, Foxy regarding it with pride, for he had been touched to the quick by Mr. Martin's eloquence. The Head and the Common-room, standing back on the dais, could not see the glaring offence, but a prefect left the line, rolled it up swiftly, and as swiftly tossed it into a glove and foil locker.

Then, as though he had touched a spring, broke out the low murmur of content, changing to quick-volleyed hand-clapping.

They discussed the speech in the dormitories. There was not one dissentient voice. Mr. Raymond Martin, beyond question, was born in a gutter, and bred in a board-school, where they played marbles. He was further (I give the barest handful from great store) a Flopshus Cad, an Outrageous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper (this was Stalky's contribution), and several other things which it is not seemly to put down.

The volunteer cadet-corps fell in next Monday, depressedly, with a face of shame. Even then, judicious silence might have turned the corner.

Said Foxy: "After a fine speech like what you 'eard night before last, you ought to take 'old of your drill with _re_-newed activity. I don't see how you can avoid comin' out an' marchin' in the open now."

"Can't we get out of it, then, Foxy?" Stalky's fine old silky tone should have warned him.

"No, not with his giving the flag so generously. He told me before he left this morning that there was no objection to the corps usin' it as their own. It's a handsome flag."

Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead silence, and fell out. His example was followed by Hogan and Ansell. Perowne hesitated. "Look here, oughtn't we--?" he began.

"I'll get it out of the locker in a minute," said the Sergeant, his back turned. "Then we can--"

"Come on!" shouted Stalky. "What the devil are you waiting for? Dismiss!

Break off."

"Why--what the--where the--?"

The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as boy after boy fell out.

"I--I don't know that I shan't have to report this to the Head," he stammered.

"Report, then, and be d.a.m.ned to you," cried Stalky, white to the lips, and ran out.

"Rummy thing!" said Beetle to McTurk. "I was in the study, doin' a simply lovely poem about the Jelly-Bellied Flag-Flapper, an' Stalky came in, an' I said 'Hullo!' an' he cursed me like a bargee, and then he began to blub like anything. Shoved his head on the table and howled.

Hadn't we better do something?"

McTurk was troubled. "P'raps he's smashed himself up somehow."

They found him, with very bright eyes, whistling between his teeth.

"Did I take you in, Beetle? I thought I would. Wasn't it a good draw?

Didn't you think I was blubbin'? Didn't I do it well? Oh, you fat old a.s.s!" And he began to pull Beetle's ears and checks, in the fas.h.i.+on that was called "milking."

"I knew you were blubbin'," Beetle replied, composedly. "Why aren't you at drill?"

"Drill! What drill?"

"Don't try to be a clever fool. Drill in the Gym."

"'Cause there isn't any. The volunteer cadet-corps is broke up--disbanded--dead--putrid--corrupt---stinkin'. An' if you look at me like that, Beetle, I'll slay you too... Oh, yes, an' I'm goin' to be reported to the Head for swearin'."

THE LAST TERM.