Debits and Credits

r, reddish man picked up by the Head at the very last moment of the summer holidays in default of Macrea (of Macrea

went for a walk to the beach, and saw ‘Potiphar’ Mullins, Head of Games, smoking without conceal on the sands. ‘Pot,’ having the whole of the Autumn Football challenges, acceptances, and Fifteen reconstructio

replied: ‘P

on was uninformed, suggested t

all — sure I shall, s

ebble-ridge a few hundred yards to his right. They were a Major and his Minor, the latter a new boy and, as such, entitled to his brother’s countenance for exactly three days — after which

said the Ma

the Minor, who ha

’re wanted

the end of the sprint, fetched up a couple of y

d Pot, looking ov

ns,’ the Ma

along!’ They c

d Major!

led th

ou grunt like a pig. ‘Mustn’

r?’ the Minor asked o

we could ru

han you, anyhow,’ was

you’ll get yourself kicked all round Coll. An’ you must

awe. ‘I thought it was only

ns–Head o’ Games. You

aplain, the Reverend John Gillett, beating up against the soft

h,’ the latter began. ‘I wanted to sh

nell answered., Gillett, is there anything

the Chaplain answered. ‘

, there was Potiphar, ground-ash, pipe, and all,

ld Pot — our

hose two little boys, too!’ Mr. Brownell pa

in their studies, of course, but within limits, out of doors. You see, we h

land was this the cold truth, and for th

ell to the gulls and the gray

have — But it’s all right,’ the Chaplain add

ut of his twelve years’ experience of what he called th

mount to much. They talk a great deal about their brands of tobacco. Practically, it makes them rather keen on putting down sm

end of these practices.’ He told his companion, in detail, with

st.’ Aloud: ‘We-ell, I suppose no one can be sure of any school’s tendency at any given moment, but, personally, I s

t out of that! It’s preposterous! You

now, and the Reverend John asked

nk you, sir. Ho

y son. What about the dates of t

as we can get ’em,

oe,’ he explained to the frozen Mr. Brownell. ‘Aren

t Packman’s playin’

himself a heaven-born half-back, but Pot had been working on him diplomatically. ‘He’l

alk. ‘A bad beginning to a bad business,’

p the gloss on his new seven-and-sixpenny silver-mounted, rat

and the Cri, and all would be explained later. But, before they met again, Beetle came across two fags at war in a box-room, one of whom cried to the other ‘Turn me loose, or I’ll knock the natal stuffin’ out of you.’ Beetle demanded why he, being offal, presumed to use this strange speech. The fag said it came out of a new book about rabbits and foxes and turtles and niggers, which was in his locker. (Uncle Remus was a popular holiday gift-book in Shotover’s year: when Cetewayo lived in the Melbury Road, Arabi Pasha in Egypt, and Spofforth on the

i! Tu

pea! I pi

all unlike a bull-frog, came out and answered from the bo

jang, my j

o-jang,

home, my jo

ey found many who knew the book of the words, but who, boylike, had waited for a lead ere giving tongue. In a short time the College was as severely infected with Uncle Remus as it had been with Pinafore and Patie

to the Head in the tatter’s st

ould have dug up something that might h

so much on hand. Our Governing Counc

h! We call

er Bro

took Us three days

stitutions? You say he is On the

l Chaplai

ed. Setting aside we haven’t even a curtain in a dormitory, let alone a

ows. And —‘tisn’t as if I ever pr

way, what’s this new line of Patristic discourse you’re giving u

own. Some one who knows his Gibbon must have done ’em. Aren’t they good?’ The Reverend John,

eek. For the juniors, a shortish course on the Burrows, which he intended to oversee personally the first few times, while Packman lunged Big Side across the inland and upland ploughs, for

hn volunteered to shift one of his extra-Tu classes from four to five p.m. ti

we, Pot?’ the Headmaster as

eeps ’em in trainin

e-es! He’ll leave at the end of the term . . . A-aah! How does it go? “Don’t ‘spute wid de squ

y too. It has some sort of

use, where he had detected reprehensible laxities. The Head sighed. The Reverend John only heard the beg

eetle had prophesied. But Dick Four had managed to run his own line when it skirted Bideford, a

ted, and slipped out a w

‘Brer Terrapin! Where you cat

hey talked in Uncle Remus; and he

y choice for a bob. Leave him alone, you owl! He won’t swim where you’ve been washing your filthy se

,’ and Tertius broke in upon Num

jang, my j

o-jang,

t home, my

o-jang,

d at one or two studies on the way, and were warmly welcomed; but when they reached the still shut doors of the dining-hall (Richards, ex-Petty Officer, R.N., was always unpunctual — but they needn’t

him. Fags in blazin’ paper-baskets!’ and with thunde

Church) the Reverend John’s own sermons. Mr. King, who had heard the noise but had not appeared, made no comment till dinner, when he told the Common Room ceiling that he entertained the lowest opinion of Uncle Remus’s buffoonery, but opined that it might interest certain types of intellect. Little Hartopp, School Librarian, who had, by special request, laid in an extra copy of the book, differed acridly. He had, he said, heard or overheard every salient line of Uncle Remus quoted, appositely too, by boys whom he would not have cr

ledge that Stalky has ever played second-fiddle to any one. Brer Terrapin was en

d that our Dickson Quartus had the rudiments of i

re done by judicious letting alone than

Mr. Prout. ‘You haven’t a House,’

o. Leave ’em alone! Leave ’em alone! Haven’t you ev

begetter of this manifestation. I wasn’t aware that the — e

dozen lavatory-towels; a condemned cretonne curtain and, ditto, baize table-cloth for ‘natal stuffin’’; an ancient, but air-tight puntabout-ball for

down and Tar Baby hitched to the end of it by a loop in its

d, handling the curtain-pole like a flail ‘Now, sh

speakable front and behind of the black and bu

says, you always pull off something dam’-fine. Brer Terrapin’

etic line.” Well, Tar Baby’s the filthiest thing I’ve eve

defaulters’ drill in the Corridor, squawk like an outraged hen. And when they ceremoniously saluted each other, like aristocratic heads on revolutionary pikes, it beat the previous day’s performance out of sight and mind. The very fags, offe

rate, the cleavage developed as swiftly as in a new religion, and by tea-time, when they were fairly hoarse, the rolling world was rent to the death between Ingles versus Tungles, and Brer Terrapin had swept out Number Eleven

. There was a smell of singed fag down the lines and a watery eye or so; but nothing to which the

’ Stalky explained. ‘We haven’t really begun. There’s goin’ t

’ the Reverend John quoted. ‘Well, I’ve got

; so that one never knew when a peaceful form-room would flare up in song and slaughter. But not a soul dreamed, for a moment, that that Saturday’s jape would develop into — what it did! They were rigidly punctilious about the ritual; exquisitely careful as to the weights on Miss Meadow’s bed-cord, kindly lent by Richards, who said

invented the Royal Battering–Ram Corps. It grew and — it grew till a quarter to nine when the Prefects, most of whom had fo

o selected seniors, eight ‘millies’ (one thousand), fourteen ‘usuals’ (five hundred lines), minor impositions

tion for their future careers kept him from expelling the wanton ruffians who had noosed all the desks in Number Twelve and swept them up in one crackling mound, barring a couple that had pitch-poled through the window. This, again, had been no man’s design but the inspiration of necessity when Tar Baby’s bodyguard, surrounded but defiant, was only resc

anings were inept, he had not confiscated the Idols and, above all, had not castig

choking them off as we came into prayers. You’ve

was done under your banner, K

ter of fact, I believe Brer Terrapin triumphed ove

he Tar Babies were handicapped, of course, by

studious perversity of certain aspects of the org

emanded. ‘Dickson Quartus

ile and calculated indec

attle, all round and ripe, before Turkey had beg

ssible yo

id Prout. ‘If there had been,

sniggered, which d

e and for my colleague’s . . . No! Folly I concede. Utter childishness and complete absence of discipline in all quarters, as the natural corollary

things,’ said Mr. Prout. ‘‘Silly, of cours

xperience knows that, Brownell,’ t

wered. ‘But with such amazing traditions as exist here, no man with any exper

at he testified what smoking led to — what, indeed, he was

t-huntings — than one’s own. The Reverend John did his best to pour water on the flames. Little Hartopp, perceiving that it was pure oil, threw in canfuls of his own, from the wings. In the end, words passed which would have made the Common Room uninhabitable for the future, but that Macrea had written (the Reverend John had seen the letter) saying that his knee

urn. ‘I do hope there was nothing in my letters to you — you asked me to keep you posted —

for King, but after all, one’s House is one’s House. One c

station-platform, the Reve

Yes! King’s conduct was inexcusable, absolutely inexcusable! About the smoking? Lamentable, but we m

kind of animal who’d keep to advantage in our atmosphere. Luckily he lost his

e up. I’ll slip it in under our recent — er — barrac

’ said the Reverend John. ‘Youth is

sually devout, echo

ed on review of the profit-and-loss a

ong-assez,’ St

ra’ar up an’ cuss Tar

an —‘Keep your hair on! We all know the Idolaters w

House-colours. You can always conciliate King by sooth

ile of modest worth un

term how he ran his house when Macrea was tryin’ to marry fat widows i

ack to Macrea for Maths. He do

ter” know anythin

as you,’ was

pretending to. W

ather like King–

sely the fluid that Stal