Wherefore it was manifestly unjust for Mr. Pearson, when nobody made a confession, to pull out a large gunmetal watch, hold it dramatically in one hand, and say: “Very well, if the boy who did it doesn’t own up within twenty seconds, I shall detain the whole form for half an hour after morning school. … Five … Ten … Fifteen … Very well, then, you will all meet me here again at twelve-thirty.”
Partly by its detestable novelty, the system worked after a few preliminary trials, and Mr. Pearson’s class remained fairly free from ragging. Which, doubtless, may be held to justify the system; for Mr. Pearson knew from long experience that, in matters of class discipline, he was such stuff as screams are made of.
Now young Waveney, who was about as clever as an eleven-year-old can well be without achieving something absolutely insufferable, had declared war on Mr. Pearson right from the first day, when in answer to a question in a history test-paper: “What do you know about the Star Chamber?”—he had written: “Nothing”; and had afterwards claimed full marks, because, as he said, it was a perfectly correct answer. “It wasn’t my fault, sir, that you framed the question badly—what you meant to say, sir, was ‘Write what you know about the Star Chamber’—we like to be accurate about these things at Brookfield, you know, sir.” Mr. Pearson did not give him full marks, but he mentally catalogued him as a boy to beware of; and Waveney mentally catalogued him as a poor sort of fish, anyway.
“The system,” however, brought matters to a head. As Waveney urged afterwards to an excited mass-meeting of fourth-formers—“Can’t you see that the whole thing’s just beastly unfair on everybody? He can’t keep order himself, and he expects us to do the job for him. If we don’t own up, we’re supposed to be letting other people down—sort of honour- bright business—pretty convenient for him, when you come to think about it. Well, anyhow, I warn you, I’m going to make a stand, and I advise all you others to do the same. In future, let’s arrange not to own up—ever—when he tries his little game. Let him spot us himself, if he wants to—why should we save him trouble? And if he keeps us in after hours, then let’s all put up with it for a time until he gets tired. He soon will. Mind now, not another confession from anybody—we’ll soon break his rotten system!”
As it happened, Waveney was himself the first to make the experiment. On the following day, he threw a piece of inky paper while Mr. Pearson’s back was turned; refused to confess himself the thrower when the gunmetal watch was brought out, and became thus, the cause of a detention for the whole class. The detention took place, and at the end of it Mr. Pearson said: “Some coward among you has allowed you all to suffer rather than confess his own trivial misdeed. I will give him another chance to declare himself, failing which I shall have no alternative but to repeat this detention every day until Conscience has done its work.”
Afterwards, in rising fury, Waveney told his companions: “Well, if that’s his game, we’ll see who can stick it out the longest! Only, mind, you fellows have got to back me up! It’s hard luck on you for the time being, but I’m breaking the system for you, don’t forget that!”
Another detention followed on the next day, and another after that. Young Waveney became more and more tight-lipped about it; he was certainly not enjoying himself, though he was sustained by the feeling that he was leading a moral crusade. After the third detention Mr. Pearson said: “I am truly sorry for the hardship that some unspeakable coward is inflicting on you all, and if you should happen to know who he is, I don’t for a moment suggest that you should tell me, but I have no doubt that you will let him know—in your own way—what you think of his behaviour.” It became disappointingly clear, moreover, that Mr. Pearson did not greatly mind the detentions; he read a novel all the time, and as he was a lonely man with few social engagements an extra half-hour a day did not much matter to him.
Unfortunately the fourth form had many social engagements—in particular the annual match against Barnhurst, of which one of the detentions compelled them to miss the beginning. Ladbroke, a keen cricketer (which Waveney was not), said, rather curtly: “Pity you chose this week of all weeks for your stunt, Waveney.”
After the fourth detention someone said: “Waveney daren’t own up now, he’s in too much of a funk—so I suppose we’ll all get kept in for ever.”
After the fifth detention Waveney found himself suddenly unpopular, and he hated it. “Bit of a swine, young Waveney, the way he’s carrying on—pity he hasn’t got more guts, he’d have owned up long since. Pearson says it’s a cowardly thing to do, and I reckon it is, too.”
After the sixth detention Waveney went to Mr. Pearson in his room and confessed.
“Ah,” said Mr. Pearson, who was not essentially an unkind man (especially when his enemy was humbled), “so you are the culprit, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And it is for you that your classmates have already suffered so much—and so undeservedly?”
“Yes, I did it.”
“And you found you could not go on, eh? The pangs of Conscience became too acute—the still, small voice that spoke inside you, telling you it was a mean thing to have done, a cowardly thing—isn’t that what it told you, Waveney—isn’t that why the tears are in your eyes?”
“No,” answered Waveney, nearly howling with rage. “I think it’s nothing but a dirty trap, and it’s your rotten system that’s really the mean and cowardly thing, and—and—”
Mr. Pearson faced Waveney with a glassy stare. His moment was spoilt. “Waveney, you forget yourself! And you will go to the Headmaster for being intolerably impudent—impudence, sir, is a thing I will not put up with. …”
So young Waveney was summoned to Chips’s study that same evening. Chips was seventy then, recalled from a well-earned retirement to assume the temporary headship of Brookfield during the War years. He had been at Brookfield for nearly half a century, and he had known boys rather like young Waveney before. He had also known masters rather like Mr. Pearson before. There was not much, indeed, that Chips had not known before; only the details, the patterned configurations of events, were apt to rearrange themselves.
“Well—umph?” he said, peering over his spectacles across the desk and giving his characteristic chuckle.
“Mr. Pearson sent me, sir.”
“ Umph—yes—you’re Waveney, yes—umph—Mr. Pearson sent me a little note about you. Some little—umph—misunderstanding—eh ? Suppose you—umph—tell me about it—in your own words?”
Waveney launched into a concise account of exactly what had happened (he was really a very clear-minded boy), while Chips listened with an occasional twitching of the eyes and face. When the tale was told, Chips sat for a moment in silence, looking at Waveney. At length he said: “Bless me, boy, what a chatterer you are—you take after your father—umph—he was president of the debating society—talked the biggest—umph—nonsense—I ever heard! And now he’s—umph—in Parliament—well, well, I’m not surprised. …”
After a pause he went on:
“But you know, Waveney—umph—you’re not fair to Mr. Pearson. You’d make his life a misery—umph—if you could—and you blame him because—umph—he’s found a way of stopping you! Come, come—he’s got to protect himself against all you fourth-form ruffians—umph—eh?”
“But it’s the system, sir.”
“Systems, my boy, are hard things to fight. I warn you of that. … Well, I must do something with you—umph—I suppose. What do you—umph—suggest?”
“I—I don’t know, sir.”
“The—umph—usual?”
“If you like, sir.”
“Umph—as if I care—so long as you’re satisfied—umph … but there’s one thing, Waveney …”
“Yes, sir?”
“ Be—be kind, my boy.”
“Kind, sir?”
“Yes—umph—even when you’re fighting systems. Because there are—umph—human beings—behind those systems. … And now—umph—run along.”
Chips wat
ched the boy’s receding figure as he walked to the door across the study carpet; then, with a half-mile to himself, he called out:
“Oh, Waveney——”
“Yes, sir?”
“What—umph—are you going to be when you grow up?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Well—umph—I think I can tell you. You’re going to be either—umph—a great man or—umph—a confounded nuisance. … Or—umph—both … as so many of ’em are. … Remember that. … Good-bye, my boy. …”
After Waveney had gone, Chips sat for a time at his desk, thinking about the boy; then he wrote a note asking Mr. Pearson to come and see him.
4. MR. CHIPS TAKES A RISK
IT IS THE WISE man who is often wise enough not to know too much, and in his eighty-second year Mr. Chips had grown to be very wise indeed. Living in peaceful retirement after more than half a century of school- mastering, it was possible for him to enter his old school well aware that, in mere items of knowledge, most Brookfield boys could teach him quite as much as they could learn from him. “What is a straight eight?” he might ask, innocently, and when a dozen young voices had finished explaining, he would reply, with the characteristic chuckle that everyone at Brookfield had imitated for years: “Umph—umph—I see. I just wondered how an eight—umph—could possibly be straight—umph—that was all. I thought perhaps—umph—Mr. Einstein had changed—umph—even the shape of the figures. …”
He was always apt to joke about mathematics, partly because (as he freely confessed) he had never understood “all this—umph—x2+y2 business.” Nor, with such an attitude, was it surprising that he regarded High Finance with something of the bewilderment (but none of the adoration) with which a South Sea Islander regards a sewing-machine. Indeed he once said: “Few people understand High Finance, and—umph—the higher it goes, the fewer!” He was certainly not of the few, and whenever he had any small capital to invest he put it prudently, if unadventurously, into British Government securities. Only once did he stray from this orthodox path, and that was when (on the advice of a new and excessively plausible bank manager) he bought a few shares in National and International Trust Limited, a corporation which, in the early spring of 1929, seemed as reliable as its name.
One April morning of that year Chips found the following letter on his breakfast- table:
“DEAR OLD CHIPS,—Just to remind you that we don’t seem to have met for years. Do you remember me? You once thrashed me for climbing on the roof of the Big Hall—that was way back in 1903, which is a long time ago. If you are ever in town nowadays, do please have lunch with me at the St. Swithin’s Club. I should enjoy a chat over old times.
Yours ever,
CHARLES E. MENVERS.”
Which was just the sort of letter from an Old Brookfield boy that Chips delighted to receive. He replied that very morning, in his neat and very minute handwriting:
“DEAR MENVERS,—Of course I remember you, and you will doubtless be glad to know that your roof exploit still holds the Brookfield record for impudence and foolhardiness. I happen to be visiting London next Thursday, so I will lunch with you then with pleasure. …”
So it came about that Mr. Chips entered the luxurious precincts of the St. Swithin’s Club for the first time in his life and was welcomed by a handsome, fresh-complexioned man of middle-age, who had once been a boy with keen eyes and a mischievous face. The eyes were still keen, and to Chips it even seemed that the look of mischief had not disappeared entirely.
“Hullo, Chips! Fine to see you again. You don’t look a day older!”
They all said that. Chips answered: “I can’t—umph—return the compliment. You look many days older!”
Menvers laughed and took the old man’s arm affectionately as they entered the famous St. Swithin’s dining-room.
“Never been here before, Chips? Ah, well, I don’t suppose business often takes you into the City. This is the Cathedral of High Finance, y’know. Why, I reckon there are a dozen millionaires having lunch in this room at the present moment. … And I’m one of ’em. Did you know that?”
No, Chips hadn’t known that. “I’m afraid—umph—I never had much of a head for figures.”
Menvers laughed again. There was nothing of the conventional caricatured financier about him. He was not fat, bloated, or truculent in manner. He did not wear a heavy gold watch-chain—merely an inconspicuous silver wrist-watch. And he did not smoke cigars—just ordinary cigarettes. Except for a veneer of self-display that was more flamboyant than really boastful, he had still the boyish charm that Chips so well remembered. And also (as he proudly confided) he had a pretty wife and one child, a boy. “Hope to put him into Brookfield in September, Chips. Keep an eye on him, won’t you?”
Chips reminded him that he had long retired from schoolmastering and took no active part in the life of the modern Brookfield, but Menvers brushed the implication aside. “Nonsense, Chips. My spies report that your footsteps are heard on dark nights pacing up and down the old familiar corridors. … What was that tag in Virgil you used to teach us—begins ‘Quadrupedante putrem’—ah yes, I remember now—‘Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.’ Have I got it right?”
“Perfectly right,” answered Chips, “except that—umph—I am not yet—umph—a ghost, and I was never—umph—a horse. … But I’m glad to find you still keep up your classical knowledge. It was never—umph—so considerable as to be—umph—a burden to you.”
So they talked and joked together throughout a simple but exquisitely expensive meal. Chips found that he still liked Menvers, and neither more nor less because the fellow was a millionaire. Nor, in his innocence, did it occur to him as in the least remarkable that a wealthy City magnate should devote two hours of a busy day to reminiscing with an octogenarian school- master. Finally, when they were on the point of shaking hands and wishing each other the best of luck, Menvers said:
“Oh, by the way, Chips, I happen to be on the board of National and International Trust, and I saw your name on our register the other day. … Hardly the sort of investment for you, I should have thought. Quite safe, mind you—don’t think there’s anything wrong about it. But what’s the matter with War Loan for a staid old buffer like yourself?”
Chips explained about his bank manager’s recommendation, to which Menvers listened with, it seemed, a touch of exasperation. “Those fellows shouldn’t take chances—why can’t they leave that sort of thing to those in the game? … Not, mind you, that I want to give you a false impression. The stock’s sound enough. … Fact is, I want as much of it for myself as I can get hold of. What did you pay for your packet?”
And Chips, of course, having no head for figures, couldn’t remember. But by the time he reached his house at Brookfield that evening a long and (he thought) a quite unnecessarily costly telegram awaited him. It ran:
AFTER YOUR DEPARTURE I FOUND OUT PRICE YOU PAID FOR NATS AND INTERNATS STOP OFFER YOU DOUBLE IF YOU WILL SELL STOP BEG YOU TO DO SO AND DEVOTE PROFIT IF YOU WISH TO SCHOOL MISSION OR ANY SIMILAR RACKET REGARDS CHARLES THE ROOFWALKER.
Now Chips, had he been a shrewd thinker in financial matters, would have argued: This man wants my stock so urgently that he is apparently willing to pay twice the market price for it. Ergo, since he is a financier and in the know, there must be something especially promising about it, and I should do better to refuse his offer and hold on. But Chips was not a shrewd thinker of this kind. He was simple enough to feel that acceptance of the offer was an easy way of obliging Menvers and at the same time benefiting a deserving charity: So he wrote (not telegraphed) an acceptance; and that was that.
April, remember. In June, as you probably won’t need to remember, National and International Trust crashed into spectacular bankruptcy. When Chips saw the newspaper headlines his immediate reaction made him write to Menvers a sympathetic note in which he said :
“I feel that your generous purchase of my shares was so recent that I cannot possibly al
low you to bear any extra loss, however small, that would otherwise have fallen on me. I am therefore enclosing my cheque for the Full amount. …”
By return came a scribbled postcard enclosed in an envelope:
“I have torn up your cheque. Don’t be a damned fool. I could see this coming and I wanted to get you out in time. If you must help me, pray for me. …”
Two days later the arrest of Charles E. Menvers on serious and complicated charges of fraud provided the City with its biggest sensation for years.
Chips, as I have stressed all along, did not understand High Finance. His business code, so far as he had any, was simple—to sell things fairly (though in point of fact he never sold anything in his life except old books to a second-hand dealer), to pay all debts promptly (which was easy for him, as he never owed anything but gas and lighting bills), and to give generously to the needy (which was also easy for him, as he was in the habit of living well within his income). Simple—yes, simple as his life. He didn’t understand the money axis on which the lives of so many people revolve—or stop revolving. What he did understand, however, was the notion that any one of his old boys never ceased to be his, no matter what happened. … no matter what happened … and therefore, though he was old enough to find such a duty arduous, he attended every session of the four-day trial of Charles Menvers.
He sat for hours in one of the back rows of the public gallery at the Old Bailey, listening to expositions by counsel, long arguments by accounting experts, judicial rulings on incomprehensible issues, and (the only really interesting interludes) the prisoner’s evidence under cross- examination. For Menvers, in that stuffy court- room, provided the sole focus of anything even remotely aligned to humanity. The rest of the proceedings—long discussions as to the interpretation of abstruse points in company law—passed beyond Chips’s intelligence as effortlessly as had the “x2+ y2” of his algebra lessons seventy years before. All he gathered was that Menvers had done something (or perhaps many things) he shouldn’t have done, but in a game so complicated that it must (Chips could not help feeling) be extremely difficult to know what should be done at all. Only one incident contributed much to the old man’s understanding, and that was when the Crown Prosecuting Counsel asked Menvers why he had done something or other. Then had followed: