Pelham Wodehouse - The White Feather

"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."