Читать книгу The Human Boy - Eden Phillpotts - Страница 5

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Whole books might be written about Steggles at Merivale. I heard Thompson say, after he had been there a week, that it wasn’t what he didn’t know had rendered it necessary for Steggles to leave Harrow, but what he did know. Certainly he had a great deal of general information about rum things. He got newspapers by post concerning sporting matters; he knew an immense deal about dogs and horses; and Nubbs, who was a judge, said his piano-playing surpassed his devil-drawing for sheer brilliance. Yet, with all these accomplishments, he only managed to get into the Fourth. As to his smoking, it was certainly wonderful. And he ate things afterwards to hide the smell. He had a genius for wriggling out of rows and for getting them up between other fellows. He loved to look on at fighting and knew all the proper rules. On the whole he was rather a beast, and, if it hadn’t been for Nubby, Mathers and I should have barred him. But all I’m going to tell about now is the hideous discovery of Steggles and M., and the thing that happened on the day of the match with Buckland Grammar School.

M. had been very queer for a fortnight--queer, I mean, with all three of us--which was unusual. Then, seeing how the cat had taken to jumping, I tackled her one morning going through the hall to the Doctor’s study.

“How d’you like Steggles?” I said.

“Very well. He’s clever,” she said.

“He’s fifteen,” I said; “he ought to know something if he’s ever going to. He’s only in the Fourth, anyway.”

“You’re jealous and so is Mathers,” she said.

“Jealous of a chap with ferret-eyes! Not likely,” I said.

“You are, though.”

“Not more than Nubbs and Mathers, anyway,” I said. “It’s off with the old friends and on with the new, I suppose.”

“Steggles knows how to treat a girl. You might learn manners from him, and so might the others,” she said.

“And also the piano, perhaps?”

“He plays beautifully.”

“Have you seen him play football?”

“No.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Football isn’t everything.”

“No, not since he came; I’ve noticed that.”

This bitter speech stung M., and her eyes jolly well flashed sparks.

“Nor singing either,” I went on. “Nubbs nearly burst himself last Sunday in chapel; and all the time you were watching Steggles making a rabbit with his pocket-handkerchief.”

“I’ll thank you not to interest yourself in me any more,” she said, “either in chapel or out of it.”

“All right. I dare say I shall still live,” I said. “Does that remark apply equally to Mathers and Nubby, or only to me?”

“To Mathers, yes,” she said. “He’s as bad as you are. Not to Nubbs.”

Then she went.

Well, there it stood. When I told them Mathers seemed to think I needn’t have dragged him in, and Nubbs got clean above himself with hope, not seeing that he was really just as much out of it as us. Of course we chucked Steggles for good and all then, and told him what we thought of him. That was when he said something about only the brave deserving the fair, and Mathers made him sit down in a puddle for cheeking him in the playground. Steggles’s eyes looked like one of his own devils while he sat there, but he took it jolly quietly at the time. That got Nubby’s wool off though, because he supported Steggles, and things were, in fact, rather difficult all round till the day of the Buckland Grammar School match. Buckland was two miles from Merivale, and most of the team went by train; but Mathers and I, the day being fine, decided to walk; and at the last moment Nubbs asked if he might come with Steggles.

Out of consideration for Nubby we agreed, and the four of us started on a fine bright afternoon just after dinner. Mathers and I had our football things on, of course; Nubbs was dressed in his usual style, and Steggles, who used to get himself up tremendously on half-holidays, wore yellow spats over his boots, and a sort of white thing under his waistcoat, and gloves. We had rather more than half an hour’s walk before us, and hardly were we out of sight of Merivale when Steggles pulled out his pipe and lighted it.