there’s more stuff torked about fagging at school than anything else in the world, as far as i can see; and being the smalest boy but two at dunston’s, and a fag myself, i ought to know. of corse, fags do get it pretty hot sometimes if they happen to fag for a beast, but big fellows aren’t beasts to small ones as a general thing. i’m sure bradwell was the best chap that ever came to dunston’s, and when he was expelled over the seege in the wing dormatery--him and trelawny--i felt frightful. i’m watson minor myself, my brother being watson major, one of the reserves for the second eleven and captain of the third.
the thing i’m going to write out happened just before the seege, and was all over before that; and it shows what a fag can do. it also shows what a jolly good thing it is for 116big fellows to treat fags well, and give them odds and ends so as to get their affecksun. if i hadn’t felt what i did to bradwell, i shouldn’t have run the awful risks i did for him. what i did certinly ruined a great project of bradwell’s, and upsett him a good bit at the time. but he said afterwards, when the blow had fallen, and when he could look back and think of it without smacking my head, that i had ment well. i remember his very words, for that matter. he said, “your intenshuns were all right--i will say that--but you’ve ruined my life.” no chap could say farer than that; and, mind you, i did ruin his life in a way. i’ve heard many fellows say bradwell was a bounder by birth; but he never was to me.
well, bradwell had a great admeration for mabel dunston, the doctor’s youngest daughter but one, and she had an equal great admeration for him, for two terms. bradwell, although a great sportsman in other ways, was fond of girls. if he passed a school of them he would look awfully rum and reddish in the face an’ watery in the 117eyes. once, going with him to the playing-field for a football match, he made the distance half a mile longer by going up a side-street to avoid the high-school girls; and i asked him why, and he said it was cheek, but told me all the same. he said, “you can’t meet women got up like this.” bradwell has frightfully thin calves to his legs when seen in “knickers,” though he is the best goalkeeper that was ever known at dunston’s. of course, his affair with mabel dunston would never have got to be known by me but for my great use to bradwell in carrying notes. being in the doctor’s house that term i was easily able to do this, and there was a jar of green stuff in the hall where she told me to leave the notes, which i did. she was fifteen, i believe, or else sixteen, but well on in years anyway, and a few months older than bradwell. it was his general brillance won her, for he could do anything, and his father had plenty of money, being a man like whitely’s in london, only in the north of england. bradwell drew almost as well as pictures in books, and he used to illustrate the latin grammar for his special 118chums. there’s a part of the latin grammar called syntax, which i haven’t come to yet myself, but it has rather rummy things in it, with both the latin and english of them. and bradwell used to illustrate these things; and he illustrated two in my grammar out of puer kindness to me. one was, “balbus is crowning the boy’s head with a garland”; and the other was, “a snake appeared to sulla while sacrifising”; and you never saw anything better. they were done on the margin in ink, and the snake appearing to sulla was about the queerest and best thing even seen in a latin grammar.
i have to tell you this because such a lot happened owing to it.
now browne took my class, which is the lowest in the school, and i am seventh in it. and i gradually got to hate browne, because bradwell did, and for other reesons of my own to. browne was said to be only twenty-two, and he looked younger than many of the chaps, his moustashe being whitish and invisibel to the eye. he wore necktyes which i remember hearing mathers say were an insult to nature, and would 119have made a rainbow curl up and faint. we always noticed, at arithmetic times, that browne, if he got a stumper, would put up the lid of his private desk and hide behind it--of course, looking the thing up in his crib. then he would wander round, as if by accident, to the chap and do the sum off quick while he remembered it. bradwell always hated him; and when he found that browne was very friendly with mabel and mabel was very friendly with browne, he hated him far, far wurse.
bradwell and this girl had a row in the shrubbery at the back of the chapel, and i, being in the gardener’s potting-shed at the time, feeding a cattipiller of mine, heard it. bradwell said:
“i’m not blind, mabel, i’ve seen it going on ever since last term. you read his beastly books, and leave rosebuds with scented verbena leaves round them in that stone urn at the gate when he comes down from his house to class.”
and she said:
“and why shouldn’t i? you must remember, please, that i am my own mistress. 120besides, the intelligents of a grown-up man is very refreshing.”
for some reason bradwell didn’t like this. his voice squeaked up into his head in a rather rum way when he answered:
“d’you call him a man? he hasn’t got a muscle on him; and he doesn’t know more than enough to teach the kids.”
“that’s merely mean jellousy,” said mabel. “of course, he doesn’t talk to you, or show you what is in him. but he tells me all about his secret life, and very butiful it is. he is a jenius, in fact.”
“if it comes to that, what can he do?” said bradwell, awfully clevverly. “can he draw?”
“no, he doesn’t draw.”
“oh! can he sing?”
“no.”
“can he play the piano?”
“no.”
now all of these things bradwell could do to perfecksun, so he got cheerfuller and cheerfuller.
“what can he do, then, besides jaw the kids and always sneak to the doctor?”
121“i never saw such jellousy as this,” said mabel; “but if you must know i’ll tell you what he can do: he can write poetry out of his own head, and he has got a solid book of it reddy to print some day--there!”
i suppose bradwell couldn’t write poetry. anyway, he got very down in the face at this. he didn’t say anything--appeering to be frightfully shocked at what he’d heard. then mabel said:
“when you can quote browning and byron and shelley, and write poems yourself, it will be soon enough to sneer at mr. browne.”
“you love him,” said bradwell, in a very tragik voice.
“i don’t love anybody but my own family,” said mabel; “but i admire him, and i admire his poetry, which is very much out of the common indeed.”
“it’s all over then, i suppose,” said bradwell.
“i don’t know what you mean,” she replied to him. “a thing that has never begun can’t be all over”; which words of mabel’s seemed to knock the heart out of bradwell.
122then the gardener came along, and i didn’t hear anything else. of corse, i couldn’t help hearing what i had done, though i tried hard not to, and kept feeding my catterpeller like anything all the time.
two days after i had to carry another note to mabel, and found one waiting for bradwell in the usual place; so they must have made it up. then came the beginning of my misforchunes with browne. he found the snake appeering to sulla in my latin grammar, and called me up and said he knew very well i hadn’t drawn it myself, but wanted to know who had. he said it was wrong to the doctor to ruin our books, and that he had seen in several different books the same snake, evidently done by the same boy, owing to them being so much similar.
but the very identical thing had happened in another class--to steggles, bradwell having drawn him the same picture; and knowing what steggles said, being a chap who is frightfully cunning, i said the same now to browne. i said i left the book 123on my desk, and somebody came along and done it while i was out of the room. browne seemed inclined not to believe this. anyway, he took the latin grammar away with him. but i heard no more about it till the next evening, when i wanted the book in prep. remembering browne had it, i went off to his study and knocked and walked in.
browne wasn’t there for the moment, and the room was empty. i took the opportunity to look at a rather butiful tobacco-jar of browne’s which i have seen at a distance on his mantlepiece many times. passing his table to get to it, i chanced to glance there, and juge of my surprise when the first words i saw at the top of a big sheet of paper were, "to mabel"! underneeth was a lot of writing, and the whole table seemed to be littered with paper covered with small bits of separate writing, much of it scratched out and done over again. but the piece with “to mabel” at the top was all butiful and clean, without anything scratched, being, i suppose, the result of all the other bits put together and neetly copied out.
well, there i was with my duty towards 124bradwell as his fag. browne had evidently done a verse out of his own head for mabel dunston, and had written it in this butiful style, on thick white paper, to send to her. i felt if she got it, knowing what she’d said to bradwell about browne, that it was certin she would abbandon bradwell, him not being any good at poems. i wouldn’t have done it for anybody else in the world but bradwell; i wouldn’t have done it at all if i had known what the end of it was going to be; but, anyway, at the time it seemed to me, as bradwell s fag, i ought to do it; so i did.
i took the poem and rolled it up so as not to hurt it, and hooked off to bradwell. he was in his study, and trelawny, who shares it with him, being out of the room, i was able to explain. i said:
“if you please, bradwell, i’ve come from mr. browne’s study, and he was not there, and happening by a curious axcident to glance on the table i saw this. knowing about you and mabel, and being your fag, i took it.”
“took what?” said bradwell.
125i put the thing in front of him, and he got red and excited.
“it’s a poem to mabel by that beast browne,” he said.
then he read it out, half to himself, but i heard. the thing ran like this:
"to mabel
“oh let my muse sing to the name of mabel,
whose azure eyes are fastened to my soul,
like to forget-me-nots in button-hole.
to tell of my heart’s torment i’m unable.
my thoughts they spin; my brain it grows unstable
when fixed on thee. perchance it is my r?le
never to reach my mad ambition’s goal,
but to live ever ’midst scholastic babel.
thy glances brighten all my lonely lot.
prometheus-like a vulture gnaws my heart,
in biting blasts and under sunshine hot.
my dreams are shattered by a barbed dart,
and, waking wild, i scream that i may not
whisper the oaths i yearn to thee impart.”
i told bradwell i didn’t quite understand it, and he sat on me.
“you wouldn’t,” he said, “a kid like you. but i do. it’s a sonnit, and an extramly 126fine one. i hate the chap, but it’s no good pretending he’s not a poet, because this jolly well proves he is. look at the rimes and the smoothness!”
it seemed a heroik thing of bradwell to say that, feeling as he did to browne. he thought for a bit, but told me not to go.
“of corse,” he said, “this must be returned. all’s fair in--in a case of this kind, but--”
then he thought very deeply and read the sonnit again. suddenly he took a bit of paper and copied down browne’s poem word for word. then he told me to cut back like lightning to browne’s study, and to put the poem back on his desk if i could--if not, to most carefully keep it till the first chance of getting it back to browne’s room without being spotted.
“you’re a splendid fag,” he said, “and i shan’t forget this. it’s the sort of thing that squires did for their knights in olden times; and they got good rewards too. now hook it.”
it’s worth a lot, mind you, to get praise like that from such a chap as bradwell.
127when i got back, browne was rumaging over his table and sweering a good deal in a loud wisper. he told me to wait a minute, and went off to look in his bedroom. then i seezed my opportunity, and slipped the sonnit on his table under some papers. when he came back he was worried, and went on hunting till he found it. then he said “ah!” to himself, and got pleasanter and asked me what i wanted. i told him my latin grammar, and, being in a very happy state now, owing to finding the poem, he gave my book back and told me to clear out; which i did.
after prep. i met bradwell going in to prayers, and he handed me a note for mabel to put in the usual place. he looked awfully rum when he gave it to me, and he saw that i saw he looked rum. so he said:
“i don’t mind letting you know, owing to your being such a good fag and my trusting you as i do. you may read the letter in prayers, then seal it down and put it behind the pot of ferns in the hall in the usual place.”
of corse, it wasn’t really a letter, or 128bradwell wouldn’t have let me read it. it was just browne’s sonnit coppied out by bradwell word for word; and at the bottom where the words, “what about poetry now?--a. t. b.” a. t. b. are bradwell’s initials, his full name being arthur thomas bradwell. you see, he didn’t exsaxtly say he’d written the sonnit. he only said, “what about poetry now?”
the excitement of it all kept me awake for hours and hours through the night. i don’t suppose any fag ever did more for a big fellow than i had done for bradwell that day. then i began to wonder when browne would send off his poem, and wether mabel would get them both together or one at a time. you see, of corse, browne would send her the thing as original, and there was nothing in bradwell’s letter to exsaxtly say he hadn’t written it; and puzzling the thing out for hours and hours, i at last came to the conklusion that she would find it very difficult which to believe, because how could she know which was telling the truth to her? then, about three or four in the morning almost, i began to feel rather 129terrible over it, because i thought of what frightful trouble browne must have had to write the sonnit. he might have taken terms and terms over it for all i could tell, not, of corse, knowing myself how long it took to write poetry. i felt rather sorry for browne; but after all a chap’s duty is to the fellow he fags for before masters; and feeling that, i went to sleep.
three days later bradwell had me in his room and told me the end of it all, which shows that a girl never does what you might exspect.
“as a lesson to you, young watson,” said bradwell, “i may tell you that my career has been utterly blighted and my life ruined by that business of the sonnit.”
i said i was sorry to hear it.
he said:
“yes, blighted; and so’s his--i mean browne’s. she got my letter that night and his next morning. that night she felt all her old feeling for me return because of the sonnit, thinking i’d done it. then, next morning, she got just the very same stuff to a word from browne, with a letter 130saying he had burned the midnight oil to compose it. well, there you are. what does she do? insted of accepting my statement, being the first, she argues in a most elaborate way that i couldn’t possibly have coppied from browne, and browne couldn’t possibly have copied from me. but it would have been to much of a coinsidence if we’d both written exsaxtly the same sonnit out of our own heads, so what does she conklude?”
i said i didn’t know.
“why, fathead, that we both coppied it from somebody else--out of some book by some well-known proper dead poet. i’ve no doubt now, on thinking over it, that browne did do that; because when i first read his poem i could hardly believe that he had written such real poetry, owing to the rimes and smoothness. but it’s all over now. she’s written a letter i can’t show you. to hope even for her friendship wouldn’t be any good. a girl hates a joke something frightful.”
“how about browne?” i said.
“she’s written to him also, asking him 131where he got the verses out of, and exsplaining she doesn’t believe they are original, and saying how another acquaintance of hers had sent the very same lot the day before. so now you see what a sinful mess you’ve made of it.”
i said i did, but i felt it was my duty to him.
“yes, i know,” he said; “but the question is, what do i do now? you see ‘all’s fair’ and all that; but now, being out of the hunt, ought i to throw up the sponge and tell the truth, or ought i not?”
“i don’t know, bradwell,” i said; “but anyway you won’t mention me, i hope, because i only acted for you, and did a jolly dangerous thing.”
“no, you’re safe enough, and, in fact, i’m going to reward you for what you did do,” said bradwell. “but seeing i’m out of it, i think it will be a manly act to browne if i tell mabel frankly that i resorted to strateji.”
“but me?” i said.
“i shall merely inform her,” answered bradwell, “that one of my emissaceries found the poem, and, of course, brought it 132to me; that i despatched it--as a joke, taking care not to say i was the auther. i shall end with these words: ‘browne is innosent.’”
all of which he did, and i left the letter in the usual spot. but mabel cut him altogether from that day; and he told me girls have no humer and laughed it off, though he felt it a lot, and often smacked my head out of bitterness of mind afterwards, but not hard. he gave me an old knife for a reward, but told me at the same time never to do anything for him again without being commanded.
as for mabel, she threw over browne just like she threw over bradwell, in spite of bradwell’s letter; and bradwell said it was a nemmecis, whatever that is; and i had a nemmecis to, because a week afterwards bradwell threw over me and made young west his fag. i felt hert, but, of corse, that didn’t get known to bradwell; and if i fag again, i wont so much as make a peece of toste unless i’m commanded to.
