03 Tales of St.Austin's

MEPH.: Rather. Talking of cricket, you seemed to be shaping rather well last Saturday. I had just run up on business, and someone told me you made eighty not out. Get your century all right?

SMITH (_brightening at the recollection_): Just a bit—117 not out. I hit—but perhaps you’ve heard?

MEPH.: Not at all, not at all. Let’s hear all about it.

CONSCIENCE seeks to interpose, but is prevented by MEPH., who eggs SMITH on to talk cricket for over an hour.

CONSCIENCE (at last; in an acid voice): That is a history of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides on the table in front of you. I thought I would mention it, in case you had forgotten.

SMITH: Great Scott, yes! Here, I say, I must start.

CONSCIENCE: Hear! Hear!

MEPH. (insinuatingly): One moment. Did you say you had prepared this book during the term? Afraid I’m a little hard of hearing. Eh, what?

SMITH: Well—er—no, I have not. Have you ever played billiards with a walking-stick and five balls?

MEPH.: Quite so, quite so. I quite understand. Don’t you distress yourself, old chap. You obviously can’t get through a whole book of Thucydides in under two hours, can you?

CONSCIENCE (severely): He might, by attentive application to study, master a considerable portion of the historian’s chef d’oeuvre in that time.

MEPH.: Yes, and find that not one of the passages he had prepared was set in the paper.

CONSCIENCE: At the least, he would, if he were to pursue the course which I have indicated, greatly benefit his mind.

MEPH. gives a short, derisive laugh. Long pause.

MEPH. (looking towards bookshelf): Hullo, you’ve got a decent lot of books, pommy word you have. Rodney Stone, Vice Versa, Many Cargoes. Ripping. Ever read Many Cargoes?

CONSCIENCE (glancing at his watch): I am sorry, but I must really go now. I will see you some other day.

Exit sorrowfully.

MEPH.: Well, thank goodness he’s gone. Never saw such a fearful old bore in my life. Can’t think why you let him hang on to you so. We may as well make a night of it now, eh? No use your trying to work at this time of night.

SMITH: Not a bit.

MEPH.: Did you say you’d not read Many Cargoes?

SMITH: Never. Only got it today. Good?

MEPH.: Simply ripping. All short stories. Make you yell.

SMITH (with a last effort): But don’t you think—

MEPH.: Oh no. Besides, you can easily get up early tomorrow for the Thucydides.

SMITH: Of course I can. Never thought of that. Heave us Many Cargoes. Thanks.

Begins to read. MEPH. grins fiendishly, and vanishes through floor enveloped in red flame. Sobbing heard from the direction of the ceiling.

Scene closes.

Next morning, of course, he will oversleep himself, and his Thucydides paper will be of such a calibre that that eminent historian will writhe in his grave.

[14]

NOTES

Of all forms of lettered effusiveness, that which exploits the original work of others and professes to supply us with right opinions thereanent is the least wanted.

Kenneth Grahame

It has always seemed to me one of the worst flaws in our mistaken social system, that absolutely no distinction is made between the master who forces the human boy to take down notes from dictation and the rest of mankind. I mean that, if in a moment of righteous indignation you rend such a one limb from limb, you will almost certainly be subjected to the utmost rigour of the law, and you will be lucky if you escape a heavy fine of five or ten shillings, exclusive of the costs of the case. Now, this is not right on the face of it. It is even wrong. The law should take into account the extreme provocation which led to the action. Punish if you will the man who travels second-class with a third-class ticket, or who borrows a pencil and forgets to return it; but there are occasions when justice should be tempered with mercy, and this murdering of pedagogues is undoubtedly such an occasion.

It should be remembered, however, that there are two varieties of notes. The printed notes at the end of your Thucydides or Homer are distinctly useful when they aim at acting up to their true vocation, namely, the translating of difficult passages or words. Sometimes, however, the author will insist on airing his scholarship, and instead of translations he supplies parallel passages, which neither interest, elevate, nor amuse the reader. This, of course, is mere vanity. The author, sitting in his comfortable chair with something short within easy reach, recks nothing of the misery he is inflicting on hundreds of people who have done him no harm at all. He turns over the pages of his book of Familiar Quotations with brutal callousness, and for every tricky passage in the work which he is editing, finds and makes a note of three or four even trickier ones from other works. Who has not in his time been brought face to face with a word which defies translation? There are two courses open to you on such an occasion, to look the word up in the lexicon, or in the notes. You, of course, turn up the notes, and find: ‘See line 80.’ You look up line 80, hoping to see a translation, and there you are told that a rather similar construction occurs in Xenophades’ Lyrics from a Padded Cell. On this, the craven of spirit