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CHAPTER XXIV - BRUCE EXPLAINS
Mr Spence was a master with a great deal of sympathy and a highly
developed sense of duty. It was the combination of these two qualities
which made it so difficult for him to determine on a suitable course of
action in relation to Sheen's out-of-bounds exploits. As a private
individual he had nothing but admiration for the sporting way in which
Sheen had fought his up-hill fight. He felt that he himself in similar
circumstances would have broken any number of school rules. But, as a
master, it was his duty, he considered, to report him. If a master
ignored a breach of rules in one case, with which he happened to
sympathise, he would in common fairness be compelled to overlook a
similar breach of rules in other cases, even if he did not sympathise
with them. In which event he would be of small use as a master.
On the other hand, Sheen's case was so exceptional that he might very
well compromise to a certain extent between the claims of sympathy and
those of duty. If he were to go to the headmaster and state baldly that
Sheen had been in the habit for the last half-term of visiting an
up-river public-house, the headmaster would get an entirely wrong idea
of the matter, and suspect all sorts of things which had no existence
in fact. When a boy is accused of frequenting a public-house, the
head-magisterial mind leaps naturally to Stale Fumes and the Drunken
Stagger.
So Mr Spence decided on a compromise. He sent for Sheen, and having
congratulated him warmly on his victory in the Light-Weights, proceeded
as follows:
"You have given me to understand, Sheen, that you were taught boxing by
Bevan?"
"Yes, sir."
"At the 'Blue Boar'?"
"Yes, sir."
"This puts me in a rather difficult position, Sheen. Much as I dislike
doing it, I am afraid I shall have to report this matter to the
headmaster."
Sheen said he supposed so. He saw Mr Spence's point.
"But I shall not mention the 'Blue Boar'. If I did, the headmaster
might get quite the wrong impression. He would not understand all the
circumstances. So I shall simply mention that you broke bounds by going
up the river. I shall tell him the whole story, you understand, and
it's quite possible that you will hear no more of the affair. I'm sure
I hope so. But you understand my position?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's all, then, Sheen. Oh, by the way, you wouldn't care for a game
of fives before breakfast tomorrow, I suppose?"
"I should like it, sir."
"Not too stiff?"
"No, sir."
"Very well, then. I'll be there by a quarter-past seven."
* * * * *
Jack Bruce was waiting to see the headmaster in his study at the end of
afternoon school.
"Well, Bruce," said the headmaster, coming into the room and laying
down some books on the table, "do you want to speak to me? Will you
give your father my congratulations on his victory. I shall be writing
to him tonight. I see from the paper that the polling was very even.
Apparently one or two voters arrived at the last moment and turned the
scale."
"Yes, sir."
"It is a most gratifying result. I am sure that, apart from our
political views, we should all have been disappointed if your father
had not won. Please congratulate him sincerely."
"Yes, sir."
"Well, Bruce, and what was it that you wished to see me about?"
Bruce was about to reply when the door opened, and Mr Spence came in.
"One moment, Bruce," said the headmaster. "Yes, Spence?"
Mr Spence made his report clearly and concisely. Bruce listened with
interest. He thought it hardly playing the game for the gymnasium
master to hand Sheen over to be executed at the very moment when the
school was shaking hands with itself over the one decent thing that had
been done for it in the course of the athletic year; but he told
himself philosophically that he supposed masters had to do these
things. Then he noticed with some surprise that Mr Spence was putting
the matter in a very favourable light for the accused. He was avoiding
with some care any mention of the "Blue Boar". When he had occasion to
refer to the scene of Sheen's training, he mentioned it vaguely as a
house.
"This man Bevan, who is an excellent fellow and a personal friend of my
own, has a house some way up the river."
Of course a public-house _is_ a house.
"Up the river," said the headmaster meditatively.
It seemed that that was all that was wrong. The prosecution centred
round that point, and no other. Jack Bruce, as he listened, saw his way
of coping with the situation.
"Thank you, Spence," said the headmaster at the conclusion of the
narrative. "I quite understand that Sheen's conduct was very excusable.
But--I distinctly said--I placed the upper river out of bounds....Well,
I will see Sheen, and speak to him. I will speak to him."
Mr Spence left the room.
"Please sir--" said Jack Bruce.
"Ah, Bruce. I am afraid I have kept you some little time. Yes?
"I couldn't help hearing what Mr Spence was saying to you about Sheen,
sir. I don't think he knows quite what really happened."
"You mean--?"
"Sheen went there by road. I used to take him in my motor."
"Your--! What did you say, Bruce?"
"My motor-car, sir. That's to say, my father's. We used to go together
every day."
"I am glad to hear it. I am glad. Then I need say nothing to Sheen
after all. I am glad....But--er--Bruce," proceeded the headmaster after
a pause.
"Yes, sir?"
"Do you--are you in the habit of driving a motor-car frequently?"
"Every day, sir. You see, I am going to take up motors when I leave
school, so it's all education."
The headmaster was silent. To him the word "Education" meant Classics.
There was a Modern side at Wrykyn, and an Engineering side, and also a
Science side; but in his heart he recognised but one Education--the
Classics. Nothing that he had heard, nothing that he had read in the
papers and the monthly reviews had brought home to him the spirit of
the age and the fact that Things were not as they used to be so clearly
as this one remark of Jack Bruce's. For here was Bruce admitting that
in his spare time he drove motors. And, stranger still, that he did it
not as a wild frolic but seriously, with a view to his future career.
"The old order changeth," thought the headmaster a little sadly.
Then he brought himself back from his mental plunge into the future.
"Well, well, Bruce," he said, "we need not discuss the merits and
demerits of driving motor-cars, need we? What did you wish to see me
about?"
"I came to ask if I might get off morning school tomorrow, sir. Those
voters who got to the poll just in time and settled the election--I
brought them down in the car. And the policeman--he's a Radical, and
voted for Pedder--Mr Pedder--has sworn--says I was exceeding the
speed-limit."
The headmaster pressed a hand to his forehead, and his mind swam into
the future.
"Well, Bruce?" he said at length, in the voice of one whom nothing can
surprise now.
"He says I was going twenty-eight miles an hour. And if I can get to
the Court tomorrow morning I can prove that I wasn't. I brought them to
the poll in the little runabout."
"And the--er--little runabout," said the headmaster, "does not travel
at twenty-eight miles an hour?"
"No, sir. It can't go more than twenty at the outside."
"Very well, Bruce, you need not come to school tomorrow morning."
"Thank you, sir."
The headmaster stood thinking....The new order....
"Bruce," he said.
"Yes, sir?"
"Tell me, do I look very old?"
Bruce stared.
"Do I look three hundred years old?"
"No, sir," said Bruce, with the stolid wariness of the boy who fears
that a master is subtly chaffing him.
"I feel more, Bruce," said the headmaster, with a smile. "I feel more.
You will remember to congratulate your father for me, won't you?"
* * * * *
Outside the door Jack Bruce paused in deep reflection. "Rum!" he said
to himself. "Jolly rum!"
* * * * *
On the senior gravel he met Sheen.
"Hullo, Sheen," he said, "what are you going to do?"
"Drummond wants me to tea with him in the infirmary."
"It's all right, then?"
"Yes. I got a note from him during afternoon school. You coming?"
"All right. I say, Sheen, the Old Man's rather rum sometimes, isn't
he?"
"What's he been doing now?"
"Oh--nothing. How do you feel after Aldershot? Tell us all about it.
I've not heard a word yet."
Content of CHAPTER XXIV - BRUCE EXPLAINS
-THE END-
P G Wodehouse's novel: White Feather
_
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