Balefanio - tmp0

"Darling Mrs. Brown, do you think we might have just one more little cup?"

"Oh, do let me go, Mr. Scriven, please; you'll make me drop everything!"

"Oh, Mrs. Brown, you are marvellous!"

At tea, Farncombe and one or two others talked rowing, football, actresses and machinery. Maurice, standing at his favourite position on the fender-rail, listened seriously for a minute or two at a time, seldom longer. Even when they were discussing the merits of the Scott Squirrel, he interrupted the conversation by starting a game of lobbing screwed-up balls of paper into the hideous new pink-veined marble lamp-bowl—Mrs. Brown's pride. And presently he picked up a golf ball from the mantelpiece and threw that. Everybody laughed at his gasp of relief when the bowl didn't break. Encouraged, Maurice took a glass paper-weight

from his desk and, weighing it in his hand, hold­ing his breath, lobbed it very gently into the bowl. It landed—but the bowl smashed to atoms. "Oh, Goddy!" screamed Maurice. And they collected the bits hastily before Mrs. Brown appeared.

"I thought I heard a noise, Mr. Scriven. I hope nothing's broken."

"You can't see anything broken—can you, Mrs. Brown?"

Mrs. Brown looked round, her every movement followed by the others, their faces writhing with half-controlled laughter. Actually, for a minute, she could find nothing. Then she realised:

"Oh, Mr. Scriven! that's too bad of you, really it is. My beautiful new shade!"

"I'm most dreadfully sorry, Mrs. Brown. I simply can't imagine how it happened. Perhaps one of its little chains wasn't very strong."

"And to think—I only bought it the day before yesterday!"

"I know, Mrs. Brown. It's most awfully sad. But you shall have another just exactly like it. We'll buy Mrs. Brown another, won't we, chaps? Has anyone got a quid?"

None of Maurice's regular friends responded, of course, but a second-year man named Currie, who didn't know Maurice well, eagerly pro­duced it.

"Thanks most terrifically, ducky. I'll let you have it back first thing tomorrow."

"Oh, there's no hurry," said Currie, delighted to have been of service.

Mrs. Brown retired, partially soothed.

"That was a blasted silly thing to do," said Farncombe severely.

Maurice's spirits seemed rather dashed. He kept quiet for a minute or two. But conversation had hardly begun again, when the gramophone uttered a long continuous squealing scream. Maurice had been quietly tinkering about with it. The record was being played at several times the fastest normal speed. There was a general roar of laughter, in which Maurice delightedly joined. How he loved it when he could make everybody laugh.

During Hall, that evening, Maurice was in even higher spirits. He'd had a couple of gin and vermouths at the Buttery. The least drop of alcohol made him visibly excited. Sometimes, it seemed, he needed only to look at it. And in the Porter's Lodge he'd found a wire from Edward:

"Arriving lunch-time tomorrow."

That was splendid.

Sitting in his favourite place, commanding the whole room, craning his neck to catch the eyes of his special friends, waving to them, throwing bread at the College servants; scribbling notes,

which were passed round from hand to hand, and getting back replies; fighting Hughes and Gerald Ramsbotham and being forced under the table; glancing every few moments quickly towards the dons to make sure that he wasn't being noticed—-he got through the meal in his usual style.

"What shall we do this evening, honey?"

"I think I'll give the 'bus an airing," said Gerald.

Maurice was pleased. He'd hoped Gerald would say that. He'd discovered, at tea, that their new friend Currie also had a car: a Sunbeam. He had pots of cash. And when Maurice had casually suggested that one day they might all go out together, he'd simply jumped at the idea. Maurice had asked him to coffee that evening.

"We'll get the others, won't we, lovey?"

"Sure thing," said Gerald.

Currie proved most amenable. After several more drinks, they went round to the garage to fetch the cars.

There were too few of them for Hide-and-Seek. They decided just to "crash around a bit." Maurice got into Currie's Sunbeam with Farncombe and Hughes. Gerald Ramsbotham had Moody with him.

"Where shall we go?" asked Gerald.

"There and back," said Maurice.

Off they went, flashing round the corner by the church, catching a glimpse of the Proctor and his Bullers coming up towards the Theatre—Maurice

waved to him—past the station, out into the dark­ness.

The Sunbeam had guts, but it soon became obvious that Currie wasn't a very experienced driver. He was nervous when Gerald brought his car abreast and they raced down the road doing close on sixty. Maurice shouted and screamed with joy. Farncombe told him not to make such a filthy row:

"They'll think we're a girls' school coming home from a picnic."

They struck into side lanes, twisted and turned, until Currie said that he was quite lost. But Maurice and Gerald knew the way. They knew the country for miles round.

Swinging into a main road, they found an A.A. box. There was nobody there. Maurice had a key and wanted to ring up Jimmy. He would have done so if Farncombe and Hughes hadn't dragged him away.

"You're madder than usual tonight," said Hughes.

When, presently, they were passing through a long straggling village where there were still several people about, Maurice suddenly scrambled out over the windscreen, opened the bonnet and got hold of the accelerator control. He waggled it up and down. The car moved forward in a series of bounds. At the end of the village was a right-angle turn and a high arched bridge. When they reached

it, Maurice opened the car full out. They skidded round the corner somehow and did a jump—it was a marvel how the back axle stood it—with Maurice clinging on like a monkey, his hair flying. Currie was scared, but he wouldn't stop the engine. He tried to take it all as a joke. It was Farncombe who shouted out:

"You damned little fool!"

Maurice climbed back into the car, temporarily subdued:

"You're not angry with me, are you, lovey?" he asked Currie.

"Do you imagine anyone'd waste their time," said Farncombe, "being angry with a little twirt like you?"

"Come and sit in the back," said Hughes, "where you'll be out of mischief."

So Maurice and Farncombe changed places. And presently Currie asked Farncombe if he'd like to drive. He was disappointed not to be sitting next to Maurice.

Soon Maurice had a new game. He fished an old plug out of his pocket and a coil of string. In another minute the plug was trailing out behind the car. They were leading. Maurice let out more and more string until the plug was bouncing along just in front of Gerald's headlights. Gerald put on a spurt, trying to overtake it. Maurice, screaming with laughter, sat on the hood playing the plug, which bounded along, skidding from one side of

the road to the other. Suddenly Hughes yelled: "Look out!" A cyclist was passing. The plug whizzed out and caught the spokes of the cyclist's back wheel. Maurice let go of the string, but too late. The cyclist wobbled and nearly went under Gerald's car—for Gerald had no time or room to swerve. Finally he collapsed, cursing, into the ditch. Gerald switched off all his lights, and they vanished round the corner.

When Farncombe realised what had been happening, he asked Maurice whether he wanted to get them all hanged.

"But it was really your fault," he told Hughes, "for letting him do it."

Currie, however, had enjoyed the joke im­mensely.

"I've never laughed so much in my life," he told Maurice later.

At last they got to a place where there was an old two-armed signpost. The names on it were quite illegible.