I’ve only got 3½d, an’ I wun’t lend that to
Eric, ’cause I’m not such a mug, ’cause I lent him my mouth organ once an’ he bit a bit off an’—’
Miss Drew interrupted sharply. Teaching on a hot afternoon is rather trying.
‘You’d better stay in after school, William, and I’ll explain.’
William scowled, emitted his monosyllable of scornful disdain ‘Huh!’ and relapsed into gloom.
He brightened, however, on remembering a lizard he had caught on the way to school, and drew it from its hiding place in his pocket. But the lizard had abandoned the unequal struggle for
existence among the stones, top, penknife, bits of putty, and other small objects that inhabited William’s pocket. The housing problem had been too much for it.
William in disgust shrouded the remains in blotting paper, and disposed of it in his neighbour’s inkpot. The neighbour protested and an enlivening scrimmage ensued.
Finally the lizard was dropped down the neck of an inveterate enemy of William’s in the next row, and was extracted only with the help of obliging friends. Threats of vengeance followed,
couched in blood-curdling terms, and written on blotting paper.
Meanwhile Miss Drew explained Simple Practice to a small but earnest coterie of admirers in the front row. And William, in the back row, whiled away the hours for which his father paid the
education authorities a substantial sum.
But his turn was to come.
At the end of afternoon school one by one the class departed, leaving William only nonchalantly chewing an India rubber and glaring at Miss Drew.
‘Now, William.’
Miss Drew was severely patient.
William went up to the platform and stood by her desk.
‘You see, if someone borrows a hundred pounds from someone else—’
She wrote down the figures on a piece of paper, bending low over her desk. The sun poured in through the window, showing the little golden curls in the nape of her neck. She lifted to William
eyes that were stern and frowning, but blue as blue above flushed cheeks.
‘Don’t you see, William?’ she said.
There was a faint perfume about her, and William the devil-may-care pirate and robber-chief, the stern despiser of all things effeminate, felt the first dart of the malicious blind god. He
blushed and simpered.
‘Yes, I see all about it now,’ he assured her. ‘You’ve explained it all plain now. I cudn’t unner stand it before. It’s a bit soft – in’t it
– anyway, to go lending hundred pounds about just ’cause someone says they’ll give you five pounds next year. Some folks is mugs. But I do unner stand now. I cudn’t
unnerstand it before.’
‘You’d have found it simpler if you hadn’t played with dead lizards all the time,’ she said wearily, closing her books.
William gasped.
He went home her devoted slave. Certain members of the class always deposited dainty bouquets on her desk in the morning. William was determined to outshine the rest. He went into the garden
with a large basket and a pair of scissors the next morning before he set out for school.
It happened that no one was about. He went first to the hothouse. It was a riot of colour. He worked there with a thoroughness and concentration worthy of a nobler cause. He came out staggering
beneath a piled-up basket of hothouse blooms. The hothouse itself was bare and desolate.
Hearing a sound in the back garden he hastily decided to delay no longer, but to set out to school at once. He set out as unostentatiously as possible.
Miss Drew, entering her classroom, was aghast to see instead of the usual small array of buttonholes on her desk, a mass of already withering hothouse flowers completely covering her desk and
chair.
William was a boy who never did things by halves.
‘Good Heavens!’ she cried in consternation.
William blushed with pleasure.
He changed his seat to one in the front row. All that morning he sat, his eyes fixed on her earnestly, dreaming of moments in which he
Eric, ’cause I’m not such a mug, ’cause I lent him my mouth organ once an’ he bit a bit off an’—’
Miss Drew interrupted sharply. Teaching on a hot afternoon is rather trying.
‘You’d better stay in after school, William, and I’ll explain.’
William scowled, emitted his monosyllable of scornful disdain ‘Huh!’ and relapsed into gloom.
He brightened, however, on remembering a lizard he had caught on the way to school, and drew it from its hiding place in his pocket. But the lizard had abandoned the unequal struggle for
existence among the stones, top, penknife, bits of putty, and other small objects that inhabited William’s pocket. The housing problem had been too much for it.
William in disgust shrouded the remains in blotting paper, and disposed of it in his neighbour’s inkpot. The neighbour protested and an enlivening scrimmage ensued.
Finally the lizard was dropped down the neck of an inveterate enemy of William’s in the next row, and was extracted only with the help of obliging friends. Threats of vengeance followed,
couched in blood-curdling terms, and written on blotting paper.
Meanwhile Miss Drew explained Simple Practice to a small but earnest coterie of admirers in the front row. And William, in the back row, whiled away the hours for which his father paid the
education authorities a substantial sum.
But his turn was to come.
At the end of afternoon school one by one the class departed, leaving William only nonchalantly chewing an India rubber and glaring at Miss Drew.
‘Now, William.’
Miss Drew was severely patient.
William went up to the platform and stood by her desk.
‘You see, if someone borrows a hundred pounds from someone else—’
She wrote down the figures on a piece of paper, bending low over her desk. The sun poured in through the window, showing the little golden curls in the nape of her neck. She lifted to William
eyes that were stern and frowning, but blue as blue above flushed cheeks.
‘Don’t you see, William?’ she said.
There was a faint perfume about her, and William the devil-may-care pirate and robber-chief, the stern despiser of all things effeminate, felt the first dart of the malicious blind god. He
blushed and simpered.
‘Yes, I see all about it now,’ he assured her. ‘You’ve explained it all plain now. I cudn’t unner stand it before. It’s a bit soft – in’t it
– anyway, to go lending hundred pounds about just ’cause someone says they’ll give you five pounds next year. Some folks is mugs. But I do unner stand now. I cudn’t
unnerstand it before.’
‘You’d have found it simpler if you hadn’t played with dead lizards all the time,’ she said wearily, closing her books.
William gasped.
He went home her devoted slave. Certain members of the class always deposited dainty bouquets on her desk in the morning. William was determined to outshine the rest. He went into the garden
with a large basket and a pair of scissors the next morning before he set out for school.
It happened that no one was about. He went first to the hothouse. It was a riot of colour. He worked there with a thoroughness and concentration worthy of a nobler cause. He came out staggering
beneath a piled-up basket of hothouse blooms. The hothouse itself was bare and desolate.
Hearing a sound in the back garden he hastily decided to delay no longer, but to set out to school at once. He set out as unostentatiously as possible.
Miss Drew, entering her classroom, was aghast to see instead of the usual small array of buttonholes on her desk, a mass of already withering hothouse flowers completely covering her desk and
chair.
William was a boy who never did things by halves.
‘Good Heavens!’ she cried in consternation.
William blushed with pleasure.
He changed his seat to one in the front row. All that morning he sat, his eyes fixed on her earnestly, dreaming of moments in which he
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