Boy Woodburn Part 14

In the interval she had pa.s.sed through a spiritual crisis and made a great renunciation.

She had resolved to put aside the dream that had dominated her inner life for seven years.

CHAPTER XI

Brazil Silver

Boy Woodburn's calling had thrown her from early youth into contact with Eton men.

Indeed, in her experience the world was divided into Eton men--and the Rest. That was what the girl believed; and it was clearly what the Eton men believed, too. Boy herself belonged to the Rest, and did not seem to regret it. The Rest were infinite in number and variety; that was why she liked them so; for the Infinite can know no limitations. It was not so with the other division of the Human Race. Eton men, though almost equally numerous, were limited and stereotyped all to pattern. In the girl's judgment there were three types of them: the Superior Person, who treated her as if she was not; the Bad a.s.s, to whom she was a poor sort of Joke; and the Incorrigible Creature, who made up to her as if she was a barmaid.

That was her theory. And once the girl had formed a theory as the result of observation, she hated that theory to be upset.

Mr. Silver displeased her because he blew her hypothesis to smithereens on his first appearance; for he was an Eton man, yet clearly he did not come within any of the three known categories.

At first the girl escaped from her intellectual dilemma by a simple and purely feminine wile--she refused to believe that he was an Eton man.

And even when it was proved to her that he had rowed in the Eton boat she remained unconvinced.

"Need you be an Eton man to be in the Eton boat?" she inquired warily.

Mr. Haggard, her informant, thought it probable, but added that he would inquire.

It was not till she had known the young man some six months that she settled the question for herself by asking him point-blank if he had been at Eton.

"I believe so," he answered.

That was his invariable answer to the question when put to him. Now for once he elaborated on it a little.

"Mother wanted me to go," he added. "Father didn't."

"Were you happy there?" asked the girl.

The other's face lit up with the enthusiasm she liked in him so well.

"Was I not?" he said.

Albert Edward took all the credit to himself for the name of Silver Mug.

Albert always took all the credit for everything; but really he was by no means so original as he imagined.

In fact, Jim Silver had been Silver Mug when Albert was still a ragged little urchin asking for cigarette pictures from pa.s.sing toffs outside Brighton Railway Station.

A Lower Boy at Eton had originated the name. It was apt, and it stuck.

Jim Silver in Bromhead's was hugely rich, and he had a great, ugly, honest face. Friends and enemies called him by the name; and he had a good few of both. The former loved him for the qualities the latter hated him for. The cads of the school chaffed surrept.i.tiously about his birth. They said he was the grandson of an agricultural labourer and the son of a bank clerk; but only one of them, more caddish or more courageous than the rest, said so to his face.

"I wouldn't mind if I was," said simple Jim, and was cheered by his loyal little friends, Lord Amersham and others of the right kidney.

His father never came to see him when he was at school.

"I know why," sneered the enemy.

"Why, then?" flared Jim.

"He daren't. Give the show away."

After that the lad gave his enemy a sound hiding, and peace reigned. The bounders might say he was a bounder, but they had to admit that he could give and take punishment with the best.

He left Eton absolutely unspoilt.

A year before the lad quitted the school his father sent for him.

"I didn't want you to go to Eton, Jim," he said. "I'm glad now. Do you want to go on to Oxford?"

The boy thought; and when his reply came it was honest as himself.

"All my friends are going," he said. "I should like it for that reason.

But I don't know that I should get much out of it."

"Go for a year," said his father. "See what you make of it. If you're getting any good of it, you can go on. If not, we'll see."

The boy did not leave the room.

His interviews with his father were rare; and there was a question he had long wished to ask.

Now he blurted it out.

"Am I to go into the Bank, father?"

The old man blinked at his son over his spectacles, and then shoved back his chair.

"What d'you want?" he asked.

"I should like the Army, or to farm," replied the son.

Mr. Silver put down his paper.

It was some time before he answered.

"The Bank's my life," he said at last. "You're my son. You may choose for yourself." He drummed with his fingers on the table; and Jim left the room.