Pelham Wodehouse - The Little Nugget

I needed it, and I got it.

It was almost as if Mr Abney had realized intuitively how excellent the discipline of work was for my soul, for the kindly man allowed me to do not only my own, but most of his as well. I have talked with assistant-masters since, and I have gathered from them that headmasters of private schools are divided into two classes: the workers and the runners-up-to-London. Mr Abney belonged to the latter class. Indeed, I doubt if a finer representative of the class could have been found in the length and breadth of southern England. London drew him like a magnet.

After breakfast he would take me aside. The formula was always the same.

'Ah—Mr Burns.'

Myself (apprehensively, scenting disaster, 'like some wild creature caught within a trap, who sees the trapper coming through the wood'). 'Yes? Er—yes?'

'I am afraid I shall be obliged to run up to London today. I have received an important letter from—' And then he would name some parent or some prospective parent. (By 'prospective' I mean one who was thinking of sending his son to Sanstead House. You may have twenty children, but unless you send them to his school, a schoolmaster will refuse to dignify you with the name of parent.)

Then, 'He wishes—ah—to see me,' or, in the case of titled parents, 'He wishes—ah—to talk things over with me.' The distinction is subtle, but he always made it.

And presently the cab would roll away down the long drive, and my work would begin, and with it that soul-discipline to which I have alluded.

'Taking duty' makes certain definite calls upon a man. He has to answer questions; break up fights; stop big boys bullying small boys; prevent small boys bullying smaller boys; check stone-throwing, going-on-the-wet-grass, worrying-the-cook, teasing-the-dog, making-too-much-noise, and, in particular, discourage all forms of hara-kiri such as tree-climbing, water-spout-scaling, leaning-too-far-out-of-the-window, sliding-down-the-banisters, pencil-swallowing, and ink-drinking-because-somebody-dared-me-to.

At intervals throughout the day there are further feats to perform. Carving the joint, helping the pudding, playing football, reading prayers, teaching, herding stragglers in for meals, and going round the dormitories to see that the lights are out, are a few of them.

I wanted to oblige Cynthia, if I could, but there were moments during the first day or so when I wondered how on earth I was going to snatch the necessary time to combine kidnapping with my other duties. Of all the learned professions it seemed to me that that of the kidnapper most urgently demanded certain intervals for leisured thought, in which schemes and plots might be matured.

Schools vary. Sanstead House belonged to the more difficult class. Mr Abney's constant flittings did much to add to the burdens of his assistants, and his peculiar reverence for the aristocracy did even more. His endeavour to make Sanstead House a place where the delicately nurtured scions of the governing class might feel as little as possible the temporary loss of titled mothers led him into a benevolent tolerance which would have unsettled angels.

Success or failure for an assistant-master is, I consider, very much a matter of luck. My colleague, Glossop, had most of the qualities that make for success, but no luck. Properly backed up by Mr Abney, he might have kept order. As it was, his class-room was a bear-garden, and, when he took duty, chaos reigned.

I, on the other hand, had luck. For some reason the boys agreed to accept me. Quite early in my sojourn I enjoyed that sweetest triumph of the assistant-master's life, the spectacle of one boy smacking another boy's head because the latter persisted in making a noise after I had told him to stop. I doubt if a man can experience so keenly in any other way that thrill which comes from the knowledge that the populace is his friend. Political orators must have the same sort of feeling when their audience clamours for the ejection of a heckler, but it cannot be so keen. One is so helpless with boys, unless they decide that they like one.

It was a week from the beginning of the term before I made the acquaintance of the Little Nugget.

I had kept my eyes open for him from the beginning, and when I discovered that he was not at school, I had felt alarmed. Had Cynthia sent me down here, to work as I had never worked before, on a wild-goose chase?

Then, one morning, Mr Abney drew me aside after breakfast.

'Ah—Mr Burns.'

It was the first time that I had heard those soon-to-be-familiar words.

'I fear I shall be compelled to run up to London today. I have an important appointment with the father of a boy who is coming to the school. He wishes—ah—to see me.'

This might be the Little Nugget at last.

I was right. During the interval before school, Augustus Beckford approached me. Lord Mountry's brother was a stolid boy with freckles. He had two claims to popular fame. He could hold his breath longer than any other boy in the school, and he always got hold of any piece of gossip first.

'There's a new kid coming tonight, sir,' he said—'an American kid. I heard him talking about it to the matron. The kid's name's Ford, I believe the kid's father's awfully rich. Would you like to be rich, sir? I wish I was rich. If I was rich, I'd buy all sorts of things. I believe I'm going to be rich when I grow up. I heard father talking to a lawyer about it. There's a new parlour-maid coming soon, sir. I heard cook telling Emily. I'm blowed if I'd like to be a parlour-maid, would you, sir? I'd much rather be a cook.'

He pondered the point for a moment. When he spoke again, it was to touch on a still more profound problem.

'If you wanted a halfpenny to make up twopence to buy a lizard, what would you do, sir?'

He got it.

Ogden Ford, the El Dorado of the kidnapping industry, entered Sanstead House at a quarter past nine that evening. He was preceded by a Worried Look, Mr Arnold Abney, a cabman bearing a large box, and the odd-job man carrying two suitcases. I have given precedence to the Worried Look because it was a thing by itself. To say that Mr Abney wore it would be to create a wrong impression. Mr Abney simply followed in its wake. He was concealed behind it much as Macbeth's army was concealed behind the woods of Dunsinane.

I only caught a glimpse of Ogden as Mr Abney showed him into his study. He seemed a self-possessed boy, very like but, if anything, uglier than the portrait of him which I had seen at the Hotel Guelph.

A moment later the door opened, and my employer came out. He appeared relieved at seeing me.

'Ah, Mr Burns, I was about to go in search of you. Can you spare me a moment? Let us go into the dining-room.'

'That is a boy called Ford, Mr Burns,' he said, when he had closed the door. 'A rather—er—remarkable boy. He is an American, the son of a Mr Elmer Ford. As he will be to a great extent in your charge, I should like to prepare you for his—ah—peculiarities.'

'Is he peculiar?'

A faint spasm disturbed Mr Abney's face. He applied a silk handkerchief to his forehead before he replied.

'In many ways, judged by the standard of the lads who have passed through my hands—boys, of course, who, it is only fair to add, have enjoyed the advantages of a singularly refined home-life—he may be said to be—ah—somewhat peculiar. While I have no doubt that au fond ... au fond he is a charming boy, quite charming, at present he is—shall I say?—peculiar. I am disposed to imagine that he has been, from childhood up, systematically indulged. There has been in his life, I suspect, little or no discipline. The result has been to make him curiously unboylike. There is a complete absence of that diffidence, that childish capacity for surprise, which I for one find so charming in our English boys. Little Ford appears to be completely blase'. He has tastes and ideas which are precocious, and—unusual in a boy of his age.... He expresses himself in a curious manner sometimes.... He seems to have little or no reverence for—ah—constituted authority.'