Psmith Series. P. G. Wodehouse
what he did say.
“Ah!” said the headmaster.
There was a silence.
“’M!” said the headmaster.
There was another silence.
“Ye—e—s!” said the headmaster.
He then led the way into the Hall.
Conversation ceased abruptly as he entered.; The school, like an audience at a theatre when the hero has just appeared on the stage, felt that the serious interest of the drama had begun.; There was a dead silence at every table as he strode up the room and on to the dais.
There was something Titanic in his calmness.; Every eye was on his face as he passed up the Hall, but not a sign of perturbation could the school read.; To judge from his expression, he might have been unaware of the emptiness around him.
The master who looked after the music of the school, and incidentally accompanied the hymn with which prayers at Wrykyn opened, was waiting, puzzled, at the foot of the dais.; It seemed improbable that things would go on as usual, and he did not know whether he was expected to be at the organ, or not.; The headmaster’s placid face reassured him.; He went to his post.
The hymn began.; It was a long hymn, and one which the school liked for its swing and noise.; As a rule, when it was sung, the Hall re-echoed.; To-day, the thin sound of the voices had quite an uncanny effect.; The organ boomed through the deserted room.
The school, or the remnants of it, waited impatiently while the prefect whose turn it was to read stammered nervously through the lesson.; They were anxious to get on to what the Head was going to say at the end of prayers.; At last it was over.; The school waited, all ears.
The headmaster bent down from the dais and called to Firby-Smith, who was standing in his place with the Sixth.
The Gazeka, blushing warmly, stepped forward.
“Bring me a school list, Firby-Smith,” said the headmaster.
The Gazeka was wearing a pair of very squeaky boots that morning.; They sounded deafening as he walked out of the room.
The school waited.
Presently a distant squeaking was heard, and Firby-Smith returned, bearing a large sheet of paper.
The headmaster thanked him, and spread it out on the reading-desk.
Then, calmly, as if it were an occurrence of every day, he began to call the roll.
“Abney.”
No answer.
“Adams.”
No answer.
“Allenby.”
“Here, sir,” from a table at the end of the room.; Allenby was a prefect, in the Science Sixth.
The headmaster made a mark against his name with a pencil.
“Arkwright.”
No answer.
He began to call the names more rapidly.
“Arlington.; Arthur.; Ashe.; Aston.”
“Here, sir,” in a shrill treble from the rider in motorcars.
The headmaster made another tick.
The list came to an end after what seemed to the school an unconscionable time, and he rolled up the paper again, and stepped to the edge of the dais.
“All boys not in the Sixth Form,” he said, “will go to their form-rooms and get their books and writing-materials, and return to the Hall.”
("Good work,” murmured Mr. Seymour to himself.; “Looks as if we should get that holiday after all.”)
“The Sixth Form will go to their form-room as usual.; I should like to speak to the masters for a moment.”
He nodded dismissal to the school.
The masters collected on the daïs.
“I find that I shall not require your services to-day,” said the headmaster.; “If you will kindly set the boys in your forms some work that will keep them occupied, I will look after them here.; It is a lovely day,” he added, with a smile, “and I am sure you will all enjoy yourselves a great deal more in the open air.”
“That,” said Mr. Seymour to Mr. Spence, as they went downstairs, “is what I call a genuine sportsman.”
“My opinion neatly expressed,” said Mr. Spence.; “Come on the river.; Or shall we put up a net, and have a knock?”
“River, I think.; Meet you at the boat-house.”
“All right.; Don’t be long.”
“If every day were run on these lines, school-mastering wouldn’t be such a bad profession.; I wonder if one could persuade one’s form to run amuck as a regular thing.”
“Pity one can’t.; It seems to me the ideal state of things.; Ensures the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”
“I say!; Suppose the school has gone up the river, too, and we meet them!; What shall we do?”
“Thank them,” said Mr. Spence, “most kindly.; They’ve done us well.”
The school had not gone up the river.; They had marched in a solid body, with the school band at their head playing Sousa, in the direction of Worfield, a market town of some importance, distant about five miles.; Of what they did and what the natives thought of it all, no very distinct records remain.; The thing is a tradition on the countryside now, an event colossal and heroic, to be talked about in the tap-room of the village inn during the long winter evenings.; The papers got hold of it, but were curiously misled as to the nature of the demonstration.; This was the fault of the reporter on the staff of the Worfield Intelligencer and Farmers’ Guide, who saw in the thing a legitimate “march-out,” and, questioning a straggler as to the reason for the expedition and gathering foggily that the restoration to health of the Eminent Person was at the bottom of it, said so in his paper.; And two days later, at about the time when Retribution had got seriously to work, the Daily Mail reprinted the account, with comments and elaborations, and headed it “Loyal Schoolboys.”; The writer said that great credit was due to the headmaster of Wrykyn for his ingenuity in devising and organising so novel a thanksgiving celebration.; And there was the usual conversation between “a rosy-cheeked lad of some sixteen summers” and “our representative,” in which the rosy-cheeked one spoke most kindly of the head-master, who seemed to be a warm personal friend of his.
The remarkable thing about the Great Picnic was its orderliness.; Considering that five hundred and fifty boys were ranging the country in a compact mass, there was wonderfully little damage done to property.; Wyatt’s genius did not stop short at organising the march.; In addition, he arranged a system of officers which effectually controlled the animal spirits of the rank and file.; The prompt and decisive way in which rioters were dealt with during the earlier stages of the business proved a wholesome lesson to others who would have wished to have gone and done likewise.; A spirit of martial law reigned over the Great Picnic.; And towards the end of the day fatigue kept the rowdy-minded quiet.
At Worfield the expedition lunched.; It was not a market-day, fortunately, or the confusion in the narrow streets would have been hopeless.; On ordinary days Worfield was more or less deserted.; It is astonishing that the resources of the little town were equal to satisfying the needs of the picnickers.; They descended on the place like an army of locusts.
Wyatt, as generalissimo of the expedition, walked into the “Grasshopper and Ant,” the leading inn of the town.
“Anything I can do for you, sir?” inquired the landlord politely.
“Yes, please,” said Wyatt, “I want lunch for five hundred and fifty.”
That was the supreme moment in mine host’s life.; It was his big subject