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A PREFECT'S UNCLE
by P. G. Wodehouse
1903
[Dedication]TO W. TOWNEND
Contents
1 Term Begins
2 Introduces an Unusual Uncle
3 The Uncle Makes Himself at Home
4 Pringle Makes a Sporting Offer
5 Farnie Gets Into Trouble--
6 --and Stays There
7 The Bishop Goes For a Ride
8 The M.C.C. Match
9 The Bishop Finishes His Ride
10 In Which a Case is Fully Discussed
11 Poetry and Stump-cricket
12 'We, the Undersigned--'
13 Leicester's House Team Goes Into a Second Edition
14 Norris Takes a Short Holiday
15 _Versus_ Charchester (at Charchester)
16 A Disputed Authorship
17 The Winter Term
18 The Bishop Scores
[1]
TERM BEGINS
Marriott walked into the senior day-room, and, finding no one there,hurled his portmanteau down on the table with a bang. The noise broughtWilliam into the room. William was attached to Leicester's House,Beckford College, as a mixture of butler and bootboy. He carried a pailof water in his hand. He had been engaged in cleaning up the Houseagainst the conclusion of the summer holidays, of which this was thelast evening, by the simple process of transferring all dust, dirt, andother foreign substances from the floor to his own person.
''Ullo, Mr Marriott,' he said.
'Hullo, William,' said Marriott. 'How are you? Still jogging along?That's a mercy. I say, look here, I want a quiet word in season withthe authorities. They must have known I was coming back this evening.Of course they did. Why, they specially wrote and asked me. Well,where's the red carpet? Where's the awning? Where's the brass band thatought to have met me at the station? Where's anything? I tell you whatit is, William, my old companion, there's a bad time coming for theHeadmaster if he doesn't mind what he's doing. He must learn that lifeis stern and life is earnest, William. Has Gethryn come back yet?'
William, who had been gasping throughout this harangue, for theintellectual pressure of Marriott's conversation (of which there wasalways plenty) was generally too much for him, caught thankfully at thelast remark as being the only intelligible one uttered up to presentdate, and made answer--
'Mr Gethryn 'e's gorn out on to the field, Mr Marriott. 'E come 'arf anhour ago.'
'Oh! Right. Thanks. Goodbye, William. Give my respects to the cook, andmind you don't work too hard. Think what it would be if you developedheart disease. Awful! You mustn't do it, William.'
Marriott vanished, and William, slightly dazed, went about hisprofessional duties once more. Marriott walked out into the grounds insearch of Gethryn. Gethryn was the head of Leicester's this term,_vice_ Reynolds departed, and Marriott, who was second man up,shared a study with him. Leicester's had not a good name at Beckford,in spite of the fact that it was generally in the running for thecricket and football cups. The fact of the matter was that, with theexception of Gethryn, Marriott, a boy named Reece, who kept wicket forthe School Eleven, and perhaps two others, Leicester's seniors were nota good lot. To the School in general, who gauged a fellow's characterprincipally by his abilities in the cricket and football fields, itseemed a very desirable thing to be in Leicester's. They had beenrunners-up for the House football cup that year, and this term mighteasily see the cricket cup fall to them. Amongst the few, however, itwas known that the House was passing through an unpleasant stage in itscareer. A House is either good or bad. It is seldom that it can combinethe advantages of both systems. Leicester's was bad.
This was due partly to a succession of bad Head-prefects, and partly toLeicester himself, who was well-meaning but weak. His spirit waswilling, but his will was not spirited. When things went on that oughtnot to have gone on, he generally managed to avoid seeing them, and thethings continued to go on. Altogether, unless Gethryn's rule should actas a tonic, Leicester's was in a bad way.
The Powers that Be, however, were relying on Gethryn to effect someimprovement. He was in the Sixth, the First Fifteen, and the FirstEleven. Also a backbone was included in his anatomy, and if he made uphis mind to a thing, that thing generally happened.
The Rev. James Beckett, the Headmaster of Beckford, had formed a veryfair estimate of Gethryn's capabilities, and at the moment whenMarriott was drawing the field for the missing one, that worthy wassitting in the Headmaster's study with a cup in his right hand and amuffin (half-eaten) in his left, drinking in tea and wisdomsimultaneously. The Head was doing most of the talking. He had led upto the subject skilfully, and, once reached, he did not leave it. Thetext of his discourse was the degeneracy of Leicester's.
'Now, you know, Gethryn--another muffin? Help yourself. You know,Reynolds--well, he was a capital boy in his way, capital, and I'm surewe shall all miss him very much--_but_ he was not a good head of aHouse. He was weak. Much too weak. Too easy-going. You must avoid that,Gethryn. Reynolds....' And much more in the same vein. Gethryn left theroom half an hour later full of muffins and good resolutions. He metMarriott at the fives-courts.
'Where have you been to?' asked Marriott. 'I've been looking for youall over the shop.'
'I and my friend the Headmaster,' said Gethryn, 'have been having aquiet pot of tea between us.'
'Really? Was he affable?'
'Distinctly affable.'
'You know,' said Marriott confidentially, 'he asked me in, but I toldhim it wasn't good enough. I said that if he would consent to make histea with water that wasn't two degrees below lukewarm, and bring on hismuffins cooked instead of raw, and supply some butter to eat with them,I might look him up now and then. Otherwise it couldn't be done at theprice. But what did he want you for, really?'
'He was ragging me about the House. Quite right, too. You know, there'sno doubt about it, Leicester's does want bucking up.'
'We're going to get the cricket cup,' said Marriott, for the defence.
'We may. If it wasn't for the Houses in between. School House andJephson's especially. And anyhow, that's not what I meant. The gamesare all right. It's--'
'The moral _je-ne-sais-quoi_, so to speak,' said Marriott.'That'll be all right. Wait till we get at 'em. What I want you to turnyour great brain to now is this letter.'
He produced a letter from his pocket. 'Don't you bar chaps who show youtheir letters?' he said. 'This was written by an aunt of mine. I don'twant to inflict the whole lot on you. Just look at line four. You seewhat she says: "A boy is coming to Mr Leicester's House this term, whomI particularly wish you to befriend. He is the son of a great friend ofa friend of mine, and is a nice, bright little fellow, very jolly andfull of spirits."'
'That means,' interpolated Gethryn grimly, 'that he is up to the eyesin pure, undiluted cheek, and will want kicking after every meal andbefore retiring to rest. Go on.'
'His name is--'
'Well?'
'That's the point. At this point the manuscript becomes absolutelyillegible. I have conjectured Percy for the first name. It may beRichard, but I'll plunge on Percy. It's the surname that stumps me.Personally, I think it's MacCow, though I trust it isn't, for the kid'ssake. I showed the letter to my brother, the one who's at Oxford. Heswore it was Watson, but, on being pressed, hedged with Sandys. You mayas well contribute your little bit. What do you make of it?'
Gethryn scrutinized the document with care.
'She begins with a D. You can see that.'
'Well?'
'Next letter a or u. I see. Of course. It's Duncan.'
'Think so?' said Marriott doubtfully. 'Well, let's go and ask thematron if
she knows anything about him.'
'Miss Jones,' he said, when they had reached the House, 'have you onyour list of new boys a sportsman of the name of MacCow or Watson? I amalso prepared to accept Sandys or Duncan. The Christian name is eitherRichard or Percy. There, that gives you a fairly wide field to choosefrom.'
'There's a P. V. Wilson on the list,' said the matron, after aninspection of that document.
'That must be the man,' said Marriott. 'Thanks very much. I suppose hehasn't arrived yet?'
'No, not yet. You two are the only ones so far.'
'Oh! Well, I suppose I shall have to see him when he does come. I'llcome down for him later on.'
They strolled out on to the field again.
'In _re_ the proposed bucking-up of the House,' said Marriott,'it'll be rather a big job.'
'Rather. I should think so. We ought to have a most fearfully sportingtime. It's got to be done. The Old Man talked to me like severalfathers.'
'What did he say?'
'Oh, heaps of things.'
'I know. Did he mention amongst other things that Reynolds was theworst idiot on the face of this so-called world?'
'Something of the sort.'
'So I should think. The late Reynolds was a perfect specimen of thegelatine-backboned worm. That's not my own, but it's the onlydescription of him that really suits. Monk and Danvers and the mob ingeneral used to do what they liked with him. Talking of Monk, when youembark on your tour of moral agitation, I should advise you to startwith him.'
'Yes. And Danvers. There isn't much to choose between them. It's a pitythey're both such good bats. When you see a chap putting them throughthe slips like Monk does, you can't help thinking there must besomething in him.'
'So there is,' said Marriott, 'and it's all bad. I bar the man. He'sslimy. It's the only word for him. And he uses scent by the gallon.Thank goodness this is his last term.'
'Is it really? I never heard that.'
'Yes. He and Danvers are both leaving. Monk's going to Heidelberg tostudy German, and Danvers is going into his pater's business in theCity. I got that from Waterford.'
'Waterford is another beast,' said Gethryn thoughtfully. 'I supposehe's not leaving by any chance?'
'Not that I know of. But he'll be nothing without Monk and Danvers.He's simply a sort of bottle-washer to the firm. When they go he'llcollapse. Let's be strolling towards the House now, shall we? Hullo!Our only Reece! Hullo, Reece!'
'Hullo!' said the new arrival. Reece was a weird, silent individual,whom everybody in the School knew up to a certain point, but very fewbeyond that point. His manner was exactly the same when talking to thesmallest fag as when addressing the Headmaster. He rather gave one theimpression that he was thinking of something a fortnight ahead, ortrying to solve a chess problem without the aid of the board. Inappearance he was on the short side, and thin. He was in the Sixth, anda conscientious worker. Indeed, he was only saved from being considereda swot, to use the vernacular, by the fact that from childhood'searliest hour he had been in the habit of keeping wicket like an angel.To a good wicket-keeper much may be forgiven.
He handed Gethryn an envelope.
'Letter, Bishop,' he said. Gethryn was commonly known as the Bishop,owing to a certain sermon preached in the College chapel some fiveyears before, in aid of the Church Missionary Society, in which thepreacher had alluded at frequent intervals to another Gethryn, abishop, who, it appeared, had a see, and did much excellent work amongthe heathen at the back of beyond. Gethryn's friends and acquaintances,who had been alternating between 'Ginger'--Gethryn's hair beinginclined to redness--and 'Sneg', a name which utterly baffles thephilologist, had welcomed the new name warmly, and it had stuck eversince. And, after all, there are considerably worse names by which onemight be called.
'What the dickens!' he said, as he finished reading the letter.
'Tell us the worst,' said Marriott. 'You must read it out now out ofcommon decency, after rousing our expectations like that.'
'All right! It isn't private. It's from an aunt of mine.'
'Seems to be a perfect glut of aunts,' said Marriott. 'What views hasyour representative got to air? Is _she_ springing any jollylittle fellow full of spirits on this happy community?'
'No, it's not that. It's only an uncle of mine who's coming down here.He's coming tomorrow, and I'm to meet him. The uncanny part of it isthat I've never heard of him before in my life.'
'That reminds me of a story I heard--' began Reece slowly. Reece'sobservations were not frequent, but when they came, did so for the mostpart in anecdotal shape. Somebody was constantly doing something whichreminded him of something he had heard somewhere from somebody. Theunfortunate part of it was that he exuded these reminiscences at such aleisurely rate of speed that he was rarely known to succeed infinishing any of them. He resembled those serial stories which appearin papers destined at a moderate price to fill an obvious void, andwhich break off abruptly at the third chapter, owing to the prematuredecease of the said periodicals. On this occasion Marriott cut in witha few sage remarks on the subject of uncles as a class. 'Uncles,' hesaid, 'are tricky. You never know where you've got 'em. You thinkthey're going to come out strong with a sovereign, and they make it ashilling without a blush. An uncle of mine once gave me a threepennybit. If it hadn't been that I didn't wish to hurt his feelings, Ishould have flung it at his feet. Also I particularly wanted threepenceat the moment. Is your uncle likely to do his duty, Bishop?'
'I tell you I don't know the man. Never heard of him. I thought I knewevery uncle on the list, but I can't place this one. However, I supposeI shall have to meet him.'
'Rather,' said Marriott, as they went into the House; 'we should alwaysstrive to be kind, even to the very humblest. On the off chance, youknow. The unknown may have struck it rich in sheep or something out inAustralia. Most uncles come from Australia. Or he may be the boss ofsome trust, and wallowing in dollars. He may be anything. Let's go andbrew, Bishop. Come on, Reece.'
'I don't mind watching you two chaps eat,' said Gethryn, 'but I can'tjoin in myself. I have assimilated three pounds odd of theHeadmagisterial muffins already this afternoon. Don't mind me, though.'
They went upstairs to Marriott's study, which was also Gethryn's. Twoin a study was the rule at Beckford, though there were recluses wholived alone, and seemed to enjoy it.
When the festive board had ceased to groan, and the cake, whichMarriott's mother had expected to last a fortnight, had been reduced toa mere wreck of its former self, the thought of his aunt's friend'sfriend's son returned to Marriott, and he went down to investigate,returning shortly afterwards unaccompanied, but evidently full of news.
'Well?' said Gethryn. 'Hasn't he come?'
'A little,' said Marriott, 'just a little. I went down to the fags'room, and when I opened the door I noticed a certain weird stillness inthe atmosphere. There is usually a row going on that you could cut witha knife. I looked about. The room was apparently empty. Then I observeda quaint object on the horizon. Do you know one Skinner by any chance?'
'My dear chap!' said Gethryn. Skinner was a sort of juvenile ProfessorMoriarty, a Napoleon of crime. He reeked of crime. He revelled in hiswicked deeds. If a Dormitory-prefect was kept awake at night by somediabolically ingenious contrivance for combining the minimum of riskwith the maximum of noise, then it was Skinner who had engineered thething. Again, did a master, playing nervously forward on a bad pitch atthe nets to Gosling, the School fast bowler, receive the ball gaspinglyin the small ribs, and look round to see whose was that raucous laughwhich had greeted the performance, he would observe a couple of yardsaway Skinner, deep in conversation with some friend of equallyvillainous aspect. In short, in a word, the only adequate word, he wasSkinner.
'Well?' said Reece.
'Skinner,' proceeded Marriott, 'was seated in a chair, bleeding freelyinto a rather dirty pocket-handkerchief. His usual genial smile washampered by a cut lip, and his right eye was blacked in the mostgraceful and pleasing manner. I made
tender inquiries, but could getnothing from him except grunts. So I departed, and just outside thedoor I met young Lee, and got the facts out of him. It appears that P.V. Wilson, my aunt's friend's friend's son, entered the fags' room atfour-fifteen. At four-fifteen-and-a-half, punctually, Skinner wasobserved to be trying to rag him. Apparently the great Percy has nosense of humour, for at four-seventeen he got tired of it, and hitSkinner crisply in the right eyeball, blacking the same as perillustration. The subsequent fight raged gorily for five minutes odd,and then Wilson, who seems to be a professional pugilist in disguise,landed what my informant describes as three corkers on his opponent'sproboscis. Skinner's reply was to sit down heavily on the floor, andgive him to understand that the fight was over, and that for the nextday or two his face would be closed for alterations and repairs. Wilsonthereupon harangued the company in well-chosen terms, tried to getSkinner to shake hands, but failed, and finally took the entire crewout to the shop, where they made pigs of themselves at his expense. Ihave spoken.'
'And that's the kid you've got to look after,' said Reece, after apause.
'Yes,' said Marriott. 'What I maintain is that I require a kid built onthose lines to look after me. But you ought to go down and seeSkinner's eye sometime. It's a beautiful bit of work.'
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