Pip. Ian Hay
very silent, and not undignified little figure.
"Have you anything further to say?" inquired Mr. Pocklington at last, now almost convinced that he was the Lord Chief Justice himself.
Pip shook his head. He seldom wasted words.
"Then I pronounce you guilty. You have committed an offence against decency and good taste that I have never known paralleled in the history of this school. Your punishment"—the children held their breath—"must be a matter for consideration. Meanwhile—"
Mr. Pocklington paused, and frowned at Isabel Dinting, who was groping for something in her desk.
"Meanwhile," he continued, having suddenly decided to keep Pip in durance vile until a punishment could be devised in keeping with his crime, "you will be incarcerated—Well, Isabel?"
Isabel Dinting was standing up in her place, with her small countenance flushed and apprehensive, but bravely waving one hand in the air to attract attention. In the other she grasped a rather grubby and bulgy envelope.
"Please, may I speak to Pi—Philip?" she gasped.
Mr. Pocklington was too surprised to be pedantic.
"To Philip? Why, my child?"
"Because—well, because I've got somefing to give him."
"This is hardly the time for an exchange of gifts," remarked Mr. Pocklington severely.
"But may I?" persisted Isabel, with a boldness which surprised herself.
"I cannot imagine what your gift can be, but if it has any bearing on the present deplorable case, I should be only too thankful to permit—"
But long before this homily was completed Isabel had slipped out of her seat and was standing by Pip's side, whispering excitedly into his ear and endeavouring to thrust the grubby envelope into his hands.
"Take them," she panted. "There's thirty-five of them. Give him them all, now, and he'll let you off."
Poor little Isabel! Surely under all the broad heavens there was no crime that could not be atoned for by the surrender of thirty-five laboriously acquired Special Task-Tickets!
Pip smiled at her. He was a plain-looking little boy, but he possessed an extraordinarily attractive smile, and Isabel felt utterly, absolutely, and completely rewarded for her sacrifice.
Meanwhile Mr. Pocklington had come to the conclusion that all this was highly irregular.
"Bring me that envelope!" he commanded.
Pip handed up the envelope. Mr. Pocklington opened it, and out tumbled the thirty-five Special Task-Tickets.
"What is all this?" he inquired testily.
"Special Task-Tickets," replied Pip.
"To whom do they belong?"
"Isabel."
"No—they belong to Pip!" screamed that small maiden. "Won't you let him off if he gives them all to you, please? I've given them to him. I—I don't mind losin' them."
Isabel's voice quavered suddenly; and then, having conducted her case unflinchingly past the critical point, she dissolved, woman-like, into reactionary tears.
There was a long silence now, broken only by Isabel's sobs. Pip stood still stiffly at attention, facing the grinning effigy of Julius Cæsar. Every child in the room (except Pipette) was lost in admiration of Isabel's heroic devotion, for all knew how precious was her collection of tickets to her. Miss Mary smiled genially; Miss Amelia's eyes filled with sympathetic tears. Even Mr. Pocklington was touched. Hastily he flung together in his mind a few sentences appropriate to the occasion. "Unselfishness"—"devotion to a friend"—"a lesson for all"—the rounded phrases formed themselves upon his tongue. He was ready now.
"I cannot refrain—" he began.
It was true enough, but he got no further; for above the formal tones of his voice, above the stifled whispering of the school, and above the now unrestrained lamentations of Isabel Dinting, rose the voice of Master Thomas Oates, in a howl in which remorse, hysteria, and apprehension were about equally mingled.
"It was me!" he roared. "Booh—hoo!"
His sinful but sentimental soul, already goaded to excessive discomfort by the promptings of an officious conscience, had with difficulty endured the inquisition upon the innocent Pip, and after Isabel's romantic intervention he could contain himself no longer. Confession burst spontaneously from his lips.
"It was me!" he repeated, fortissimo, knuckling his eyes.
There was a final astonished gasp from the school.
"It was I, Thomas," corrected Mr. Pocklington, the ruling passion strong even at this crisis.
"No it wasn't!" roared Thomas, determined to purge his soul. "It was me! I was in the Study when Pip was outside, and I did it and got out when he was talking to Isabel, and—and I won't do it again. Aah—ooh!"
Pip became a hero, of course, but bore his honours with indifference.
Isabel expostulated with him.
"It was awful brave of you to say nothin' all the time," she remarked admiringly.
"There was nothing to say," replied Pip, with truth.
"But you said nothin' when you knew it was Tommy all the time," persisted Isabel, anxious to keep her idol on his pedestal.
"I didn't think it was Tommy," said Pip; "I thought it was you."
Isabel's round eyes grew positively owl-like.
"Me? Oh, Pip! How splendid of you!"
In his lifetime Pip inspired three women with love for him—two more than his proper allowance. Isabel was the first. The others will follow in due course.
CHAPTER III
"HAM"
The schoolmaster realises early in his career that he is not a universally popular person. If he keeps his boys in order and compels them to work, they dislike him heartily; if he allows them to do as they please they despise him; if he is cheerful and jocose in his demeanour, they consider him "a funny ass"; if he is austere and academic, they call him "a gloomy swine." If he endeavours, by strong measures, to call sinners to repentance, he is said to have done so from personal spite; and if he shows kindness to the few righteous persons whom he may encounter in his form, he is accused of favouritism. After he has been at school a short time he realises this, and it distresses him.
Sometimes he goes so far as to decide that he has mistaken his vocation, and he resigns and becomes a school inspector. But presently he notices that elderly and revered colleagues have laughed and grown fat under this treatment for thirty years, and indeed look upon the seething indignation of their subjects as the salt of life. This comforts him. He tries again, and presently discovers that it is possible to be the hated oppressor of his form in public and their familiar friend and trusted adviser in private. Collective hostility vanishes under the influence of a cup of tea or an evening on the river, and individual friendship takes its place. Last of all as he grows older, comes that continuous calm which marks his older colleagues: for he knows now that Jinks minor and Muggins tertius, who sit in the back row with lowering brows and grinding teeth, chafing under his tyranny and preaching sedition at intervals, will one day come and sit in his armchairs, with their feet on his mantelpiece, bearded or sunburned or distinguished, and will convey to him, if not in words, at any rate by their