Pip. Ian Hay
and formality which adults might have found a trifle irksome; but it did the children no particular harm beyond making them slightly priggish in their manners, and no particular good beyond instilling into them a few habits of order and method.
The day began at twenty minutes past nine with "whistle-in." The "monitor" for the week—a patriarch of ten or eleven—appeared at the side door, which gave on to the playground, and blew a resonant blast on a silver whistle. Followed a scramble in the dressing-rooms, while boys and girls changed their boots for slippers. At three minutes to the half-hour the monitor, having hung the whistle on its proper peg and armed him-(or her-) self with a dinner-bell, clanged out a summons to "line up." Thereupon the pupils of Wentworth House School formed a double queue along the passage, the eldest boy with the eldest girl, and so on—Mr. Pocklington believed in mingling the sexes thoroughly: it taught girls not to whisper and giggle, and gave boys ease of manner in the presence of females—and at the stroke of nine-thirty, to the accompaniment of an ear-splitting fantasia on the bell, the animals marched arm-in-arm into the ark (as represented by the large schoolroom), where Noah (Mr. Pocklington), supported by Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Amazonian Miss Mary, shy and retiring Miss Arabella, and pretty and frivolous Miss Amelia) stood ready to take roll-call.
Roll-call at Wentworth House was an all-embracing function. Besides answering their names, pupils were required to state whether they required "lunch" at the interval, and to announce the name of any library books that they might be borrowing or returning. Parental petitions and ultimatums were also delivered at this time. As might have been expected in such an establishment, all communications had to be couched in elegant and suitable phraseology of Mr. Pocklington's own composition. Consequently roll-call was a somewhat protracted function. As a rule the performance consisted of a series of conversations of the following type:—
Mr. Pocklington. Reginald!
A high squeaky Voice. Present, sir. I wish to take a glass of milk during the interval, and I am returning "The Young Carthaginian," thanking you for the loan-of-the-same.
Or—
Mr. Pocklington. Beatrice!
A rather breathless little Voice. Present, sir. I wish to take a glass of milk and a bun [very emphatic this] durin' the interval, and I propose, with your permission, to borrow this copy of "Carrots Just a Little Boy"; and, please, I've got a note from mum—I mean I am the bearer of a letter from my mother asking for you to be so kind as to—to excuse my not havin' done all my home work, 'cos I forgot—
Mr. Pocklington. Beatrice!
The R. B. L. V. I mean 'cos I neglected [there was no such word as "forget" in Mr. Pocklington's curriculum] to take the book home. And, please, mum—my mother would have written to you by post last night, only she forg—neglected to do it till it was too late.
And Beatrice, having unburdened herself of a task which has been clouding her small horizon ever since breakfast, sits down with a sigh of intense relief.
On the first morning after their arrival, Mr. Pocklington, having called out the last name and registered the last glass of milk, drew the attention of the school to Pip and Pipette.
"You have to welcome two fresh companions this morning," he said. "I will enter their names on the register, and will then read them aloud to you, in order that you may know how to address your new friends."
Turning to Pip, Mr. Pocklington asked his name.
"Pip."
"No, no," said Mr. Pocklington testily. "Your first baptismal name, boy!"
Pip, to whom the existence of baptismal names was now revealed for the first time, merely turned extremely red and shook his head.
"We do not countenance childish nicknames here," said Mr. Pocklington grandly. "What is your Christian name, boy?"
Pip, to whom Christian and baptismal names were an equal mystery, continued to sit mute, glaring the while in a most disconcerting fashion at poor Miss Arabella, who happened to sit opposite to him.
Mr. Pocklington turned impatiently to Pipette.
"What is your brother's name?"
"Please, it's just Pip," replied Pipette plaintively, groping for Pip's hand under the desk. "He hasn't got any other name, I don't fink."
"Perhaps it is Philip," suggested pretty Miss Amelia. "I believe"—with a little blush—"that 'Pip' is occasionally used as an abbreviation for that name. Is your name Philip, little boy?" she asked, leaning forward to Pip, with a glance which he would have valued considerably more if he had been ten years older.
"I don't know," said Pip.
"I think it must be Philip," said Miss Amelia, turning to her father.
So Pip was inscribed on the roll as Philip, which, as it happened, was his real name. (By the way, his surname was Wilmot.)
"Now, your first baptismal name, little girl?" said Mr. Pocklington briskly, turning to Pipette.
"Please, it's Pipette," she replied apprehensively.
Her fears were not ungrounded. The school began to titter.
"Pipette? My dear, that is a quite impossible name. A pipette is a small glass instrument employed in practical chemistry. Surely you have some proper baptismal name! Perhaps you can suggest a solution again," he added, turning to Miss Amelia.
No, Miss Amelia could offer no suggestion. Her forte, it appeared, was gentlemen's names. As a matter of fact, Pipette's name, as ascertained by reference to Father by post that night, was Dorothea, and she had been laughingly christened "Pipette" by her mother, because her father, when summoned from the laboratory to view his newly born daughter, had arrived holding a pipette in his hand.
So Pip and Pipette, much to their surprise and indignation, found themselves addressed as Philip and Dorothea respectively, and as such joined in the pursuit of knowledge in company with a motley crew of Arthurs, Reginalds, Ermyntrudes, Winifreds, and the like. Surnames were not employed in the school. If two children possessed the same Christian name they were distinguished by the addition of any other sub-title they happened to possess. Three unfortunate youths, for instance, were addressed respectively as John Augustus, John William, and John Evelyn.
Things at Wentworth House School move in a stereotyped circle, and Pip and Pipette soon became familiar with the curriculum. There were three classes, they found. The First Class, the veterans, nearly old enough to go to a preparatory school, dwelt in a stuffy apartment called "The Study." Their learning was profound, for they were taught a mysterious language called Latin, and another, even more mysterious, called "Alzeber" (or something like that). The Second Class, conducted by Miss Mary—formidable, but a good sort—in a corner of the schoolroom, did not fly so high. They studied history and geography, and were addicted to a fearsome form of parlour-game called "Mentalarithmetic," which involved much shrieking of answers to highly impossible questions about equally dividing seventeen apples among five boys.
Pip and Pipette occupied a humble position in the Third Class, where they soon developed a fervent admiration for pretty Miss Amelia, who was always smiling, always daintily dressed, and charmingly inaccurate and casual.
On Thursday afternoons the whole school assembled in the Music Room. Here faded Miss Arabella thumped mechanically on the piano, while the pupils of Wentworth House School chanted an inexplicable and interminable ditty entitled "Doh-ray-me-fah." The words of this canticle were printed on a canvas sheet upon the wall, and the method of inculcation was somewhat peculiar. Mr. Pocklington, taking his stand beside the sheet, would lay the tip of his little white wand upon the word "Doh" printed at the bottom. Miss Arabella would strike a note upon the piano, and the school would reproduce the same with no uncertain sound, sustaining it by one prolonged howl until the white wand slid up to "Ray," an example which the vocalists would attempt to follow to the best of their ability, and with varying degrees of success. Having rallied and concentrated his forces on "Ray," Mr.