Pelham Wodehouse: The Pothunters

'Certainly, Barrett. Why do you wish to go?'

This was something of a poser, but Barrett's brain worked quickly.

'I wanted to send a telegram, sir.'

'Very well. But'—with suspicion—'why did you not ask Mr Philpott? Your House-master can give you leave to go to Stapleton.'

'I couldn't find him, sir.' This was true, for he had not looked.

'Ah. Very well.'

'Thank you, sir.'

And Barrett went off to tell Reade that in some mysterious manner the cups had come back on their own account.

When Jim had congratulated himself that everything had ended happily, at any rate as far as he himself was concerned, he had forgotten for the moment that at present he had only one pound to his credit instead of the two which he needed. Charteris, however, had not. The special number of The Glow Worm was due on the following day, and Jim's accident left a considerable amount of 'copy' to be accounted for. He questioned Tony on the subject.

'Look here, Tony, have you time to do any more stuff for The Glow Worm?

'My dear chap,' said Tony, 'I've not half done my own bits. Ask Welch.'

'I asked him just now. He can't. Besides, he only writes at about the rate of one word a minute, and we must get it all in by tonight at bed-time. I'm going to sit up as it is to jellygraph it. What's up?'

Tony's face had assumed an expression of dismay.

'Why,' he said, 'Great Scott, I never thought of it before. If we jellygraph it, our handwriting'll be recognized, and that will give the whole show away.'

Charteris took a seat, and faced this difficulty in all its aspects. The idea had never occurred to him before. And yet it should have been obvious.

'I'll have to copy the whole thing out in copper-plate,' he said desperately at last. 'My aunt, what a job.'

'I'll help,' said Tony. 'Welch will, too, I should think, if you ask him. How many jelly machine things can you raise?'

'I've got three. One for each of us. Wait a bit, I'll go and ask Welch.'

Welch, having first ascertained that the matter really was a pressing one, agreed without hesitation. He had objections to spoiling his sleep without reason, but in moments of emergency he put comfort behind him.

'Good,' said Charteris, when this had been settled, 'be here as soon as you can after eleven. I tell you what, we'll do the thing in style, and brew. It oughtn't to take more than an hour or so. It'll be rather a rag than otherwise.'

'And how about Jim's stuff?' asked Welch.

'I shall have to do that, as you can't. I've done my own bits. I think I'd better start now.' He did, and with success. When he went to bed at half-past ten, The Glow Worm was ready in manuscript. Only the copying and printing remained to be done.

Charteris was out of bed and in the study just as eleven struck. Tony and Welch, arriving half-an-hour later, found him hard at work copying out an article of topical interest in a fair, round hand, quite unrecognizable as his own.

It was an impressive scene. The gas had been cut off, as it always was when the House went to bed, and they worked by the light of candles. Occasionally Welch, breathing heavily in his efforts to make his handwriting look like that of a member of a board-school (second standard), blew one or more of the candles out, and the others grunted fiercely. That was all they could do, for, for evident reasons, a vow of silence had been imposed. Charteris was the first to finish. He leant back in his chair, and the chair, which at a reasonable hour of the day would have endured any treatment, collapsed now with a noise like a pistol-shot.

'Now you've done it,' said Tony, breaking all rules by speaking considerably above a whisper.

Welch went to the door, and listened. The House was still. They settled down once more to work. Charteris lit the spirit-lamp, and began to prepare the meal. The others toiled painfully on at their round-hand. They finished almost simultaneously.

'Not another stroke do I do,' said Tony, 'till I've had something to drink. Is that water boiling yet?'

It was at exactly a quarter past two that the work was finished.

'Never again,' said Charteris, looking with pride at the piles of Glow Worms stacked on the table; 'this jelly business makes one beastly sticky. I think we'll keep to print in future.'

And they did. Out of the twenty or more numbers of The Glow Worm published during Charteris' stay at School, that was the only one that did not come from the press. Readers who have themselves tried jellygraphing will sympathize. It is a curious operation, but most people will find one trial quite sufficient. That special number, however, reached a record circulation. The School had got its journey-money by the time it appeared, and wanted something to read in the train. Jim's pound was raised with ease.

Charteris took it round to him at the Babe's house, together with a copy of the special number.

'By Jove,' said Jim. 'Thanks awfully. Do you know, I'd absolutely forgotten all about The Glow Worm . I was to have written something for this number, wasn't I?'

And, considering the circumstances, that remark, as Charteris was at some pains to explain to him at the time, contained—when you came to analyse it—more cynical immorality to the cubic foot than any other half-dozen remarks he (Charteris) had ever heard in his life.

'It passes out of the realm of the merely impudent,' he said, with a happy recollection of a certain favourite author of his, 'and soars into the boundless empyrean of pure cheek.'