David Blaize

“ His straw hat, with cricket eleven colours, was tilted over the top part of his face, so as to shield his eyes from the speckles and sparkles of sun that filtered through the canopy of leaves above him, and his mouth and chin alone were visible. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, showing a white hiatus between a despondent sock and the end of his trousers, and a persistent fly kept settling there, an attention which he acknowledged by dabbing at it with the other ankle.
“’Tisn’t as if I was a little boy any longer,” he said. ”

“ It counts double this time. But as I was saying, a little curds and whey⁠—⁠oh! it’s tipped up again. What restless things curds are!’
She had not been looking at her bowl, and for several minutes now a perfect stream of curds and whey had been pouring from it over her knees and along the floor, to where the butler lay. He was still repeating, ‘Miss Muffet, David Blaize⁠—⁠David Blaize, Miss Muffet.’ Sometimes, by way of variety, he said, ‘Miss Blaize⁠—⁠David Muffet,’ but as nobody attended, it made no difference what he said.
‘It always happens when I get talking,’ she said. ”

“ OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Not infrequently our novelists will follow success with a boy hero by a sequel showing the same character grown up. Mr. E.F. BENSON, however, has reversed this process, and in a second book about David Blaize introduces him grown not up, but down. So far down, indeed, as to be able to pass through a door conveniently situated under his own pillow and leading to a dreamland of the most varied enchantments. ”

“ But David’s persistent adventures had protruded themselves into his notice, and a consultation with Maddox seemed to him desirable.
“About David,” he said. “It’s only energy, Frank, and not viciousness. You gave just the same sort of trouble yourself, when you were his age.”
“Sorry, sir,” said Maddox. “But I don’t believe I was ever quite such a nuisance as David is. If ever there’s a crash in the house, it’s always David breaking a window or throwing his boots at somebody.”
“Can’t you do anything with him?” asked Adams. “He’ll listen to you when he won’t attend to a word I say.” ”

“ David would have supplied that night an excellent concrete example to any philosopher who wished to study the unstable nature of popularity. During that exquisite hour when he was tying up and confusing the Eagles side with his “wily” bowling there was no bounds to his popularity, and in one moment, by the insufficient closing of his hand, he had forfeited it all. Bags alone was faithful, and though that shot with the classical dictionary had silenced one of his tormentors, it had been a great mistake. ”

“ You never saw anything so ripping.”
“Oh, sorry,” said David, flushing; “but I didn’t know.”
Hughes paused a moment and looked at him again.
“I say, Blazes, it’s awful sport your coming down like this,” he said. “Do sweat your eyes out over this exam. It would be ripping if you got a scholarship. We’re all working like beans in the house: that’s Maddox’s doing. Work’s quite different, if you take an interest in it, you know. Yes, that path goes down to the bathing-place, and there are nightingales in the trees. Then hall: fuggy spot, we all have dinner there, both out-boarders and in-boarders. ”

“ David brought his Brigadier-General alongside, and caught hold of something slippery which wriggled.
‘That’s the pike,’ said a choking voice from the other end of the Brigadier-General. ‘Lend a hand, your Grace, to a drowning soldier.’
David kept tight hold of the pike with one hand, put his baton over his shoulder, and began walking up the bank. The Brigadier-General came up out of the water with a loud pop, just as if a cork had been drawn.
‘That’s the ginger-beer, your Grace,’ he said.
‘Is it? It was lemonade this morning,’ said David. ‘This is an awfully strong pike. ”

“ Then he gave a little cackle of delight, for he saw that Bags had stopped in his indolent stroll with the racquet-handle; then that he turned and was coming back towards him. David lay down at full length and whistled in an absent manner. Without looking, he became aware that Bags was standing close to him.
“I say, Blazes, I want to tell you something,” said that conscious-stricken one at length.
David sat up with an air of great surprise.
“Hallo: that you?” he said. “Tell away then, if it won’t take too long.”
“Well, it’s private. You must swear not to tell any one.” ”

“ David’s heart stood still, not with fear but with suspense. For the last three days he had hourly expected that news would come of the result of the Marchester scholarship examination, and perhaps this meant its arrival. But his friends thought otherwise, and Ferrers Major rattled his keys and slapped a book with suggestive resonance.
“Don’t bully me, sir,” he said. “The other hand, sir. Whack, whack, whack, all in the same place! The fellow who was going to take all the wickets in the old boys’ match won’t be able to bowl a ball. Whack, whack. Sobs and cries!” ”

“ I wonder if he would find a lot of happiness-germs all over the shop.”
“I could do with a few,” said David, with a sudden return to melancholy.
“No, you couldn’t. You’ve got plenty of them, as it is. . . . Lord, there’s that rotten speech I have to make at house-supper. What am I to say?”
“Oh, usual thing. Say Adams is a good fellow, and we’re all good fellows, and it’s a good house, and a good school, and a good everything—hurrah.”
“That’s about it,” said Frank. “Oh, there’s one other thing, David. Look after Jevons a bit, will you? He’s turning into rather a jolly little kid.” ”

“ It was perfectly impossible for David not to feel elated at sitting down to strawberry-mess with two members of the eleven, in the full light of day, and in sight of the school generally, or, having dreamed night and day of being “some good” in house-matches, not to feel exalted when those dreams had merged into realities that so far exceeded all his imaginings. But in a little while Maddox and Tomlin began to speak in undertones, and David rose, with the sense that private conversation was going forward. ”

“ He had all that one boy admires in another: he was quick and ready of laughter, he was in the eleven, which was an attraction, he was very good-looking, which was another, and in point of fact, at that portentous moment when it was made matter of common knowledge that Blaize’s Christian name was David, Bags would have rather liked it if some one had proclaimed that his own name was Jonathan. ”

“ David’s head reeled at the thickness of the troubles.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Good. Question two, which you need not answer if any sense of honour forbid you. Why have they deserved this—er disgrace? And why do you join in inflicting it?”
David drew a long breath; there was no sense of honour that would be violated in telling the Head, but to do so was like taking a high header into unknown waters, when it required all the courage you were possessed of to go off a low board into four feet of familiar swimming-bath. ”

“ David had not really meant to go away by train at all, but somehow it seemed all settled for him, and instantly all the happy families began blowing on things, with piercing shrieks, to summon his taxi, or the hundred taxis, or however many they thought good for him. Miss Bones picked up her sirloin, and blew that, Mr. Chip the carpenter blew on his gimlet, Mrs. Dose blew her bottle, and Miss Bun her bun. Never since the flame-cats had mewed and squealed to accompany their dances, had David heard such a deafening noise. ”

“ David did not rise at this.
“You always stick up for a chap,” he observed. “Anything else?”
“Yes. I may as well tell you, as everybody else will know by chapel-time. Fact is, I’m putting you into the twenty-two to-night. And on Saturday, next week, you’re playing in the eleven and sixteen match for the eleven.”
David stopped quite dead. And then he thought he saw. Frank had tried to get a rise out of him just now and failed, and of course was trying again. It wasn’t really quite nice of him to try to get a rise out of him over such matters, but then he didn’t know how dreadfully David cared. ”

“ But this was a step in the right direction, and soon the hubbub died down, and Canon Rook spoke again.
‘The candidate is David Blaize, a boy still quite unfledged, except on the top of his head,’ he said, ‘and his age is six.’
‘Rather old!’ cooed a wood pigeon.
‘Yes, but it’s better late than never,’ said Canon Rook, ‘and I’m sure we’re all very pleased that he has remembered how to fly at last. He’ll probably be a bit stiff from age, and you mustn’t expect too much. He will now please jump off, loop the loop twice, and return to his seat. ”

“ David scratched his head.
“It’s all rather rotten if you come to think of it,” he said. “I only crib sufficiently myself to get off impots, and very often I run it too fine and don’t crib enough. But I do think it’s rot to crib your way to the top of the form. Cribbing wasn’t meant for that. Plugs got full marks last Euclid lesson, just by copying the propositions slap out of the book. He didn’t have the decency to make a howler or two!” ”

“ The Archdeacon had seen his son, and, to David’s great relief, did not bowl any more, but came towards him. There were bad moments to follow, for he kissed him in sight of the whole school, at which Ward looked delicately away. Also he had turned up the sleeves of his brown flannel shirt (as if brown flannel was not bad enough) and revealed the fact that below it he wore a long-sleeved Jaeger vest. How hopelessly impossible that was words fail to convey. Nobody ever wore vests in the summer: you had your coat, waistcoat and shirt, and then it was you. ”

“ To-day, on his way to the museum, just as David passed the long French windows of the Head’s study, he stepped out and called him.
“So you’ve seen your father off, Blaize?” he asked.
“Yes, sir; thank you, sir,” said David, beaming.
“Ah! Well, we’ll take a little stroll across the field, you and I, before we begin our English literature.”
It was one of those days when Rhadamanthus unbent, when the man who could be so terrible became wholly enchanting, a man not to fear but to love. These days were not common, but when they came they were golden. ”

“ David regarded the roof of mulberry-leaves severely.
“Well, I suppose I’ve just got the hump,” he said. “I don’t care for the old things, and I haven’t got any new ones yet. Look at these holidays! I hate cathedrals, and we’re going to stop here all August. I don’t want to grub in the attics any more, or to play pirates, and there’s no cricket except one match against those rotten little choirboys. And father talks the most awful tosh about cricket. Says he never wore pads when he was a boy—I dare say they weren’t invented—and, anyhow, he could never have played for nuts. ”

“ David hadn’t the slightest idea. He was only sure that the bottle had something to do with the electric light, and he took it up and began shaking it, as Nannie did to his medicine bottle. To his great delight, he saw that, as he shook it, the cats grew fainter and fainter, and the passage lighter and lighter.
The tabby spoke to him in a tremulous voice.
‘You’re shocking us frightfully,’ she said. ‘Please, don’t. You may have all the mouse-marmalade as soon as the cook comes back with her whiskers. She’s been gone a long time. And if you don’t like it, you really know where everything else is. ”

“ At the end David gave a long whistle.
“Well, ’pon my word, you are in a mess,” he said. “I’m not at all sure that I shouldn’t resign my prefectship if I were you before the Head kicked me out. You are the deuce of a hand at suppressio veri—ain’t that it, Brother Gregson? Why there isn’t an ounce of truth that you haven’t suppressed. And it’s all as full of suggestio—er——”
“Falsi,” said Bags.
“Yes, suggestio falsi, as it can stick. The best thing you can do is to go and talk it over with Crossley, and then come back and tell us what you propose to tell the Head. ”

“ Do shut up being funny with sponges.”
“Right oh,” said Plugs, “if you swear you’re not lying.”
“Swear!” said David. “Hurry up and dress, and come to my study, because you and I and Bags have to talk. It’s—it’s a welter of politics.”
The Court accordingly met in about ten minutes’ time in David’s study, where he had made tea for them, and where, on the table, lay Jevons’s appeal. He laid before the other two all his talk with Adams, reproducing it with laudable accuracy.
“And as it’s a dead cert that we shall appear before the Head,” he finished up, “we’ve got to agree exactly what we say. ”

“ David looked up in bland and innocent surprise.
“Eating, sir?” he asked. “My pen-holder, sir.”
A slight titter went round the class, for David had the enviable reputation of “drawing” his pastors and masters (always excepting Head) by the geniality and unexpectedness of his replies. But on this occasion the blandness was a little overdone, and instead of “taking a back seat” Mr. Dutton put down his yellow novel on his desk, back upwards, and came across the room to where David was sitting. The dart, with its wet, inky point lay there, and it was too late to draw his blotting-paper over it. ”

“ You’ve less of romance than—than a horse-roller,” he said, looking round for inspiration and seeing that useful article with its shafts in the air.
“Perhaps I have, perhaps I haven’t,” said Bags. “But it’s perfectly true I don’t jaw about it. Never mind that. Look here: supposing you might either kiss Violet Gray, twice, we’ll say, or see the Oxford and Cambridge match, which would you choose?”
“Depends on the match,” said David. “Of course if Frank was going to make a century, and I were to see him do that, I don’t know what else I could choose. O Lord, but fancy kissing her, though! ”