No Winding-Sheet

‘Oh, nonsense! Battle of life, eh? Anyway, I rely on you to offer prizes for everything, not just for school-work. Never did any good at school myself and look at me now!’

Yes, thought Mr Ronsonby, and was reminded of a phrase he had read: Look at you now, you super-fatted bore!

‘We could offer prizes for good attendance and punctuality,’ he said. ‘Those would include some of the less able boys perhaps, but it would be a return to the Victorian age, wouldn’t it?’

‘Victorian age, yes, and none the worse for that,’ said Sir Wilfred sturdily. ‘Anyway, lots of prizes, Ronsonby. We want the boys to remember the day.’

Mr Ronsonby thought that the day would best be remembered not by the boys but by himself and the staff, who would be bearing the burden and heat of it. He made a last suggestion that the governors might prefer to spend their money on sports equipment, but this was flatly turned down.

Meanwhile there were other problems. On the first day of term, a Monday, as it happened, young Mr Scaife called the names of his pupils as usual and then asked, ‘Anybody know anything about Travis and Maycock?’

‘They went camping, sir.’

‘I didn’t know they were Scouts.’

‘No, they went on their own, sir.’

‘I was about to add, Kemp, that how they spent the holiday is to me immaterial. My only concern is that this morning they ought to have shown up and they have not done so.’

‘No, sir, they couldn’t, sir. They’ve joined a union, sir.’ (This from the form’s ‘funny man’.)

Mr Scaife prided himself upon being a broadminded person and was sufficiently to the left in politics to be interested in this statement.

‘Oh, yes?’ he said. ‘What sort of a union?’

‘Travis said he didn’t see any point in coming back to school on a Monday, sir. He said that Monday morning was a dead loss anyway, so he and Maycock would be back on Tuesday, sir. That’s tomorrow.’

‘Well, it will be nice to see them and very nice for them to explain themselves to the headmaster.’

‘The difficulty there, sir, is that they may not turn up tomorrow, either. Their union may not allow them to work a broken week, sir.’

‘Take fifty lines for insolence!’ snapped Mr Scaife, coming to his senses. He inserted two black noughts in the register, closed it and mustered his class for assembly. However, his absentees did not show up on Tuesday, either, so again he had to mark them absent. As there was now only a fortnight to go before the great day, Mr Ronsonby, having conducted the assembly service on Tuesday morning, left the platform to Mr Burke, who surveyed and then addressed the school.

‘I am giving you ample time,’ said Mr Burke, ‘to present yourselves on opening day in a manner which will do us and yourselves credit. You now have a full fortnight in which to get school blazers cleaned, grey flannel trousers pressed and school ties bought (if yours looks like some I have seen lately). On the day, every boy will be personally inspected by his form master. Any boy falling short of what is expected of him so far as his appearance is concerned will be referred to me. Shoes are to shine, hair is to be trimmed and then well brushed to present a tidy appearance, and I need hardly say that a clean shirt and a sweater free of the ravages of the moth’s tooth and Old Father Time are de rigueur. Every boy will also come provided with a clean pocket handkerchief. We need no midshipmen here. Right? First-year boys, lead off.’

So far as the senior master in a boys’ school can be popular, Mr Burke was well liked and his remark about ‘the moth’s tooth and Old Father Time’ had gone down well — a little too well, in fact, for the comfort of Mr Scaife and other inexperienced masters.

‘Sir, do moths have teeth, sir?’

‘How could they eat, you ass, if they didn’t have teeth? They couldn’t, could they, sir?’

‘Tortoises don’t have teeth. I’ve got one, so I know.’

‘Sir, if a moth got into Old Father Time’s beard, would it nest there, sir?’

‘Do spiders eat moths, sir, as well as flies?’

‘No, you ass! Spiders eat their mates.’

‘Sir, are spiders cannibals, then? Cor! Suppose my mum ate my dad!’

‘Do cannibals eat their own family, sir, or only their friends and enemies?’

‘Pity someone doesn’t eat you!’

‘Sir, why did Mr Burke talk about midshipmen, sir?’

‘Snotties, you fool. Don’t you know any history? I bet you haven’t even got a clean handkerchief!’

This humming from the hornets’ nest came to an end with the entrance of Margaret Wirrell with a message from the headmaster for Mr Scaife. Would Mr Scaife please set his form to work and go down to Mr Ronsonby’s office.

Mr Scaife gladly complied, leaving his form captain in charge of the class, but his relief at being able to leave his devil’s brood behind him was short-lived.

‘What does he want me for?’ he asked, when he and Margaret were in the corridor. Her answer was hardly reassuring.

‘Parent.’

‘Oh, Lord! Irate?’

‘I expect so. They don’t come up for much else.’