The White Feather Part 1

The White Feather.

by P. G. Wodehouse.

I

EXPERT OPINIONS

"With apologies to gent opposite," said Clowes, "I must say I don't think much of the team."

"Don't apologise to _me_," said Allardyce disgustedly, as he filled the teapot, "I think they're rotten."

"They ought to have got into form by now, too," said Trevor. "It's not as if this was the first game of the term."

"First game!" Allardyce laughed shortly. "Why, we've only got a couple of club matches and the return match with Ripton to end the season. It is about time they got into form, as you say."

Clowes stared pensively into the fire.

"They struck me," he said, "as the sort of team who'd get into form somewhere in the middle of the cricket season."

"That's about it," said Allardyce. "Try those biscuits, Trevor. They're about the only good thing left in the place."

"School isn't what it was?" inquired Trevor, plunging a hand into the tin that stood on the floor beside him.

"No," said Allardyce, "not only in footer but in everything. The place seems absolutely rotten. It's bad enough losing all our matches, or nearly all. Did you hear that Ripton took thirty-seven points off us last term? And we only just managed to beat Greenburgh by a try to nil."

"We got thirty points last year," he went on. "Thirty-three, and forty-two the year before. Why, we've always simply walked them. It's an understood thing that we smash them. And this year they held us all the time, and it was only a fluke that we scored at all. Their back miskicked, and let Barry in."

"Barry struck me as the best of the outsides today," said Clowes. "He's heavier than he was, and faster."

"He's all right," agreed Allardyce. "If only the centres would feed him, we might do something occasionally. But did you ever see such a pair of rotters?"

"The man who was marking me certainly didn't seem particularly brilliant. I don't even know his name. He didn't do anything at footer in my time," said Trevor.

"He's a chap called Attell. He wasn't here with you. He came after the summer holidays. I believe he was sacked from somewhere. He's no good, but there's n.o.body else. Colours have been simply a gift this year to anyone who can do a thing. Only Barry and myself left from last year's team. I never saw such a clearance as there was after the summer term."

"Where are the boys of the Old Brigade?" sighed Clowes.

"I don't know. I wish they were here," said Allardyce.

Trevor and Clowes had come down, after the Easter term had been in progress for a fortnight, to play for an Oxford A team against the school. The match had resulted in an absurdly easy victory for the visitors by over forty points. Clowes had scored five tries off his own bat, and Trevor, if he had not fed his wing so conscientiously, would probably have scored an equal number. As it was, he had got through twice, and also dropped a goal. The two were now having a late tea with Allardyce in his study. Allardyce had succeeded Trevor as Captain of Football at Wrykyn, and had found the post anything but a sinecure.

For Wrykyn had fallen for the time being on evil days. It was experiencing the reaction which so often takes place in a school in the year following a season of exceptional athletic prosperity. With Trevor as captain of football, both the Ripton matches had been won, and also three out of the four other school matches. In cricket the eleven had had an even finer record, winning all their school matches, and likewise beating the M.C.C. and Old Wrykinians. It was too early to prophesy concerning the fortunes of next term's cricket team, but, if they were going to resemble the fifteen, Wrykyn was doomed to the worst athletic year it had experienced for a decade.

"It's a bit of a come-down after last season, isn't it?" resumed Allardyce, returning to his sorrows. It was a relief to him to discuss his painful case without restraint.

"We were a fine team last year," agreed Clowes, "and especially strong on the left wing. By the way, I see you've moved Barry across."

"Yes. Attell can't pa.s.s much, but he pa.s.ses better from right to left than from left to right; so, Barry being our scoring man, I s.h.i.+fted him across. The chap on the other wing, Stanning, isn't bad at times. Do you remember him? He's in Appleby's. Then Drummond's useful at half."

"Jolly useful," said Trevor. "I thought he would be. I recommended you last year to keep your eye on him."

"Decent chap, Drummond," said Clowes.

"About the only one there is left in the place," observed Allardyce gloomily.

"Our genial host," said Clowes, sawing at the cake, "appears to have that tired feeling. He seems to have lost that _joie de vivre_ of his, what?"

"It must be pretty sickening," said Trevor sympathetically. "I'm glad I wasn't captain in a bad year."

"The rummy thing is that the worse they are, the more side they stick on. You see chaps who wouldn't have been in the third in a good year walking about in first fifteen blazers, and first fifteen scarves, and first fifteen stockings, and sweaters with first fifteen colours round the edges. I wonder they don't tattoo their faces with first fifteen colours."

"It would improve some of them," said Clowes.

Allardyce resumed his melancholy remarks. "But, as I was saying, it's not only that the footer's rotten. That you can't help, I suppose. It's the general beastliness of things that I bar. Rows with the town, for instance. We've been having them on and off ever since you left. And it'll be worse now, because there's an election coming off soon. Are you fellows stopping for the night in the town? If so, I should advise you to look out for yourselves."

"Thanks," said Clowes. "I shouldn't like to see Trevor sand-bagged. Nor indeed, should I--for choice--care to be sand-bagged myself. But, as it happens, the good Donaldson is putting us up, so we escape the perils of the town.

"Everybody seems so beastly slack now," continued Allardyce. "It's considered the thing. You're looked on as an awful blood if you say you haven't done a stroke of work for a week. I shouldn't mind that so much if they were some good at anything. But they can't do a thing. The footer's rotten, the gymnasium six is made up of kids an inch high--we shall probably be about ninetieth at the Public Schools'

Compet.i.tion--and there isn't any one who can play racquets for nuts.

The only thing that Wrykyn'll do this year is to get the Light-Weights at Aldershot. Drummond ought to manage that. He won the Feathers last time. He's nearly a stone heavier now, and awfully good. But he's the only man we shall send up, I expect. Now that O'Hara and Moriarty are both gone, he's the only chap we have who's up to Aldershot form. And n.o.body else'll take the trouble to practice. They're all too slack."

"In fact," said Clowes, getting up, "as was only to be expected, the school started going to the dogs directly I left. We shall have to be pus.h.i.+ng on now, Allardyce. We promised to look in on Seymour before we went to bed. Friend let us away."

"Good night," said Allardyce.

"What you want," said Clowes solemnly, "is a liver pill. You are looking on life too gloomily. Take a pill. Let there be no stint. Take two. Then we shall hear your merry laugh ringing through the old cloisters once more. Buck up and be a bright and happy lad, Allardyce."

"Take more than a pill to make me that," growled that soured footballer.

Mr Seymour's views on the school resembled those of Allardyce. Wrykyn, in his opinion, was suffering from a reaction.

"It's always the same," he said, "after a very good year. Boys leave, and it's hard to fill their places. I must say I did not expect quite such a clearing out after the summer. We have had bad luck in that way.

Maurice, for instance, and Robinson both ought to have had another year at school. It was quite unexpected, their leaving. They would have made all the difference to the forwards. You must have somebody to lead the pack who has had a little experience of first fifteen matches."

"But even then," said Clowes, "they oughtn't to be so rank as they were this afternoon. They seemed such slackers."

"I'm afraid that's the failing of the school just now," agreed Mr Seymour. "They don't play themselves out. They don't put just that last ounce into their work which makes all the difference."

Clowes thought of saying that, to judge by appearances, they did not put in even the first ounce; but refrained. However low an opinion a games' master may have--and even express--of his team, he does not like people to agree too cordially with his criticisms.

"Allardyce seems rather sick about it," said Trevor.

"I am sorry for Allardyce. It is always unpleasant to be the only survivor of an exceptionally good team. He can't forget last year's matches, and suffers continual disappointments because the present team does not play up to the same form."

"He was saying something about rows with the town," said Trevor, after a pause.

"Yes, there has certainly been some unpleasantness lately. It is the penalty we pay for being on the outskirts of a town. Four years out of five nothing happens. But in the fifth, when the school has got a little out of hand--"