Pelham Wodehouse - The Gold Bat

“Pretty useful, that,” commented Trevor, admiringly.

“Ye should see Moriarty,” gasped O’Hara.

“Now, will ye tell me why it is you’re going to fight, and with whom you’re going to fight?”

“Very well. It’s with Rand-Brown.”

“Rand-Brown!” exclaimed O’Hara. “But, me dearr man, he’ll ate you.”

Trevor gave a rather annoyed laugh. “I must say I’ve got a nice, cheery, comforting lot of friends,” he said. “That’s just what Clowes has been trying to explain to me.”

“Clowes is quite right,” said O’Hara, seriously. “Has the thing gone too far for ye to back out? Without climbing down, of course,” he added.

“Yes,” said Trevor, “there’s no question of my getting out of it. I daresay I could. In fact, I know I could. But I’m not going to.”

“But, me dearr man, ye haven’t an earthly chance. I assure ye ye haven’t. I’ve seen Rand-Brown with the gloves on. That was last term. He’s not put them on since Moriarty bate him in the middles, so he may be out of practice. But even then he’d be a bad man to tackle. He’s big an’ he’s strong, an’ if he’d only had the heart in him he’d have been going up to Aldershot instead of Moriarty. That’s what he’d be doing. An’ you can’t box at all. Never even had the gloves on.”

“Never. I used to scrap when I was a kid, though.”

“That’s no use,” said O’Hara, decidedly. “But you haven’t said what it is that ye’ve got against Rand-Brown. What is it?”

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you. You’re in it as well. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the bat turning up, you’d have been considerably more in it than I am.”

“What!” cried O’Hara. “Where did you find it? Was it in the grounds? When was it you found it?”

Whereupon Trevor gave him a very full and exact account of what had happened. He showed him the two letters from the League, touched on Milton’s connection with the affair, traced the gradual development of his suspicions, and described with some approach to excitement the scene in Ruthven’s study, and the explanations that had followed it.

“Now do you wonder,” he concluded, “that I feel as if a few rounds with Rand-Brown would do me good.”

O’Hara breathed hard.

“My word!” he said, “I’d like to see ye kill him.”

“But,” said Trevor, “as you and Clowes have been pointing out to me, if there’s going to be a corpse, it’ll be me. However, I mean to try. Now perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing me a few tricks.”

“Take my advice,” said O’Hara, “and don’t try any of that foolery.”

“Why, I thought you were such a believer in science,” said Trevor in surprise.

“So I am, if you’ve enough of it. But it’s the worst thing ye can do to learn a trick or two just before a fight, if you don’t know anything about the game already. A tough, rushing fighter is ten times as good as a man who’s just begun to learn what he oughtn’t to do.”

“Well, what do you advise me to do, then?” asked Trevor, impressed by the unwonted earnestness with which the Irishman delivered this pugilistic homily, which was a paraphrase of the views dinned into the ears of every novice by the school instructor.

“I must do something.”

“The best thing ye can do,” said O’Hara, thinking for a moment, “is to put on the gloves and have a round or two with me. Here’s Moriarty at last. We’ll get him to time us.”

As much explanation as was thought good for him having been given to the newcomer, to account for Trevor’s newly-acquired taste for things pugilistic, Moriarty took the watch, with instructions to give them two minutes for the first round.

“Go as hard as you can,” said O’Hara to Trevor, as they faced one another, “and hit as hard as you like. It won’t be any practice if you don’t. I sha’n’t mind being hit. It’ll do me good for Aldershot. See?”

Trevor said he saw.

“Time,” said Moriarty.

Trevor went in with a will. He was a little shy at first of putting all his weight into his blows. It was hard to forget that he felt friendly towards O’Hara. But he speedily awoke to the fact that the Irishman took his boxing very seriously, and was quite a different person when he had the gloves on. When he was so equipped, the man opposite him ceased to be either friend or foe in a private way. He was simply an opponent, and every time he hit him was one point. And, when he entered the ring, his only object in life for the next three minutes was to score points. Consequently Trevor, sparring lightly and in rather a futile manner at first, was woken up by a stinging flush hit between the eyes. After that he, too, forgot that he liked the man before him, and rushed him in all directions. There was no doubt as to who would have won if it had been a competition. Trevor’s guard was of the most rudimentary order, and O’Hara got through when and how he liked. But though he took a good deal, he also gave a good deal, and O’Hara confessed himself not altogether sorry when Moriarty called “Time”.

“Man,” he said regretfully, “why ever did ye not take up boxing before? Ye’d have made a splendid middle-weight.”

“Well, have I a chance, do you think?” inquired Trevor.

“Ye might do it with luck,” said O’Hara, very doubtfully. “But,” he added, “I’m afraid ye’ve not much chance.”

And with this poor encouragement from his trainer and sparring-partner, Trevor was forced to be content.

The health of Master Harvey of Seymour’s was so delicately constituted that it was an absolute necessity that he should consume one or more hot buns during the quarter of an hour’s interval which split up morning school. He was tearing across the junior gravel towards the shop on the morning following Trevor’s sparring practice with O’Hara, when a melodious treble voice called his name. It was Renford. He stopped, to allow his friend to come up with him, and then made as if to resume his way to the shop. But Renford proposed an amendment. “Don’t go to the shop,” he said, “I want to talk.”

“Well, can’t you talk in the shop?”

“Not what I want to tell you. It’s private. Come for a stroll.”

Harvey hesitated. There were few things he enjoyed so much as exclusive items of school gossip (scandal preferably), but hot new buns were among those few things. However, he decided on this occasion to feed the mind at the expense of the body. He accepted Renford’s invitation.

“What is it?” he asked, as they made for the football field. “What’s been happening?”

“It’s frightfully exciting,” said Renford.

“What’s up?”

“You mustn’t tell any one.”

“All right. Of course not.”

“Well, then, there’s been a big fight, and I’m one of the only chaps who know about it so far.”

“A fight?” Harvey became excited. “Who between?”

Renford paused before delivering his news, to emphasise the importance of it.

“It was between O’Hara and Rand-Brown,” he said at length.

“ By Jove! ” said Harvey. Then a suspicion crept into his mind.

“Look here, Renford,” he said, “if you’re trying to green me—­”

“I’m not, you ass,” replied Renford indignantly. “It’s perfectly true. I saw it myself.”

“By Jove, did you really? Where was it? When did it come off? Was it a good one? Who won?”

“It was the best one I’ve ever seen.”

“Did O’Hara beat him? I hope he did. O’Hara’s a jolly good sort.”

“Yes. They had six rounds. Rand-Brown got knocked out in the middle of the sixth.”