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Peter Burns' Narrative: Chapter 3
I have never kept a diary, and I have found it, in consequence,
somewhat difficult, in telling this narrative, to arrange the
minor incidents of my story in their proper sequence. I am writing
by the light of an imperfect memory; and the work is complicated
by the fact that the early days of my sojourn at Sanstead House
are a blur, a confused welter like a Futurist picture, from which
emerge haphazard the figures of boys--boys working, boys eating,
boys playing football, boys whispering, shouting, asking
questions, banging doors, jumping on beds, and clattering upstairs
and along passages, the whole picture faintly scented with a
composite aroma consisting of roast beef, ink, chalk, and that
curious classroom smell which is like nothing else on earth.
I cannot arrange the incidents. I can see Mr Abney, furrowed as to
the brow and drooping at the jaw, trying to separate Ogden Ford
from a half-smoked cigar-stump. I can hear Glossop, feverishly
angry, bellowing at an amused class. A dozen other pictures come
back to me, but I cannot place them in their order; and perhaps,
after all, their sequence is unimportant. This story deals with
affairs which were outside the ordinary school life.
With the war between the Little Nugget and Authority, for
instance, the narrative has little to do. It is a subject for an
epic, but it lies apart from the main channel of the story, and
must be avoided. To tell of his gradual taming, of the chaos his
advent caused until we became able to cope with him, would be to
turn this story into a treatise on education. It is enough to say
that the process of moulding his character and exorcising the
devil which seemed to possess him was slow.
It was Ogden who introduced tobacco-chewing into the school, with
fearful effects one Saturday night on the aristocratic interiors
of Lords Gartridge and Windhall and Honourables Edwin Bellamy and
Hildebrand Kyne. It was the ingenious gambling-game imported by
Ogden which was rapidly undermining the moral sense of twenty-four
innocent English boys when it was pounced upon by Glossop. It was
Ogden who, on the one occasion when Mr Abney reluctantly resorted
to the cane, and administered four mild taps with it, relieved his
feelings by going upstairs and breaking all the windows in all the
bedrooms.
We had some difficult young charges at Sanstead House. Abney's
policy of benevolent toleration ensured that. But Ogden Ford stood
alone.
* * * * *
I have said that it is difficult for me to place the lesser events
of my narrative in their proper order. I except three, however
which I will call the Affair of the Strange American, the Adventure
of the Sprinting Butler, and the Episode of the Genial Visitor.
I will describe them singly, as they happened.
It was the custom at Sanstead House for each of the assistant
masters to take half of one day in every week as a holiday. The
allowance was not liberal, and in most schools, I believe, it is
increased; but Mr Abney was a man with peculiar views on other
people's holidays, and Glossop and I were accordingly restricted.
My day was Wednesday; and on the Wednesday of which I write I
strolled towards the village. I had in my mind a game of billiards
at the local inn. Sanstead House and its neighbourhood were
lacking in the fiercer metropolitan excitements, and billiards at
the 'Feathers' constituted for the pleasure-seeker the beginning
and end of the Gay Whirl.
There was a local etiquette governing the game of billiards at the
'Feathers'. You played the marker a hundred up, then you took him
into the bar-parlour and bought him refreshment. He raised his
glass, said, 'To you, sir', and drained it at a gulp. After that
you could, if you wished, play another game, or go home, as your
fancy dictated.
There was only one other occupant of the bar-parlour when we
adjourned thither, and a glance at him told me that he was not
ostentatiously sober. He was lying back in a chair, with his feet
on the side-table, and crooning slowly, in a melancholy voice, the
following words:
_'I don't care--if he wears--a crown,
He--can't--keep kicking my--dawg aroun'.'_
He was a tough, clean-shaven man, with a broken nose, over which
was tilted a soft felt hat. His wiry limbs were clad in what I put
down as a mail-order suit. I could have placed him by his
appearance, if I had not already done so by his voice, as an
East-side New Yorker. And what an East-side New Yorker could be
doing in Sanstead it was beyond me to explain.
We had hardly seated ourselves when he rose and lurched out. I saw
him pass the window, and his assertion that no crowned head should
molest his dog came faintly to my ears as he went down the street.
'American!' said Miss Benjafield, the stately barmaid, with strong
disapproval. 'They're all alike.'
I never contradict Miss Benjafield--one would as soon contradict
the Statue of Liberty--so I merely breathed sympathetically.
'What's he here for I'd like to know?'
It occurred to me that I also should like to know. In another
thirty hours I was to find out.
I shall lay myself open to a charge of denseness such as even
Doctor Watson would have scorned when I say that, though I thought
of the matter a good deal on my way back to the school, I did not
arrive at the obvious solution. Much teaching and taking of duty
had dulled my wits, and the presence at Sanstead House of the
Little Nugget did not even occur to me as a reason why strange
Americans should be prowling in the village.
We now come to the remarkable activity of White, the butler.
It happened that same evening.
It was not late when I started on my way back to the house, but the
short January day was over, and it was very dark as I turned in at
the big gate of the school and made my way up the drive. The drive
at Sanstead House was a fine curving stretch of gravel, about two
hundred yards in length, flanked on either side by fir trees and
rhododendrons. I stepped out briskly, for it had begun to freeze.
Just as I caught sight through the trees of the lights of the
windows, there came to me the sound of running feet.
I stopped. The noise grew louder. There seemed to be two runners,
one moving with short, quick steps, the other, the one in front,
taking a longer stride.
I drew aside instinctively. In another moment, making a great
clatter on the frozen gravel, the first of the pair passed me; and
as he did so, there was a sharp crack, and something sang through
the darkness like a large mosquito.
The effect of the sound on the man who had been running was
immediate. He stopped in his stride and dived into the bushes. His
footsteps thudded faintly on the turf.
The whole incident had lasted only a few seconds, and I was still
standing there when I was aware of the other man approaching. He
had apparently given up the pursuit, for he was walking quite
slowly. He stopped within a few feet of me and I heard him
swearing softly to himself.
'Who's that?' I cried sharply. The crack of the pistol had given a
flick to my nerves. Mine had been a sheltered life, into which
hitherto revolver-shots had not entered, and I was resenting this
abrupt introduction of them. I felt jumpy and irritated.
It gave me a malicious pleasure to see that I had startled the
unknown dispenser of shocks quite as much as he had startled me.
The movement he made as he faced towards my direction was almost a
leap; and it suddenly flashed upon me that I had better at once
establish my identity as a non-combatant. I appeared to have
wandered inadvertently into the midst of a private quarrel, one
party to which--the one standing a couple of yards from me with a
loaded revolver in his hand--was evidently a man of impulse, the
sort of man who would shoot first and inquire afterwards.
'I'm Mr Burns,' I said. 'I'm one of the assistant-masters. Who are
you?'
'Mr Burns?'
Surely that rich voice was familiar.
'White?' I said.
'Yes, sir.'
'What on earth do you think you're doing? Have you gone mad? Who
was that man?'
'I wish I could tell you, sir. A very doubtful character. I found
him prowling at the back of the house very suspiciously. He took
to his heels and I followed him.'
'But'--I spoke querulously, my orderly nature was shocked--'you
can't go shooting at people like that just because you find them
at the back of the house. He might have been a tradesman.'
'I think not, sir.'
'Well, so do I, if it comes to that. He didn't behave like one. But
all the same--'
'I take your point, sir. But I was merely intending to frighten
him.'
'You succeeded all right. He went through those bushes like a
cannon-ball.'
I heard him chuckle.
'I think I may have scared him a little, sir.'
'We must phone to the police-station. Could you describe the man?'
'I think not, sir. It was very dark. And, if I may make the
suggestion, it would be better not to inform the police. I have a
very poor opinion of these country constables.'
'But we can't have men prowling--'
'If you will permit me, sir. I say--let them prowl. It's the only
way to catch them.'
'If you think this sort of thing is likely to happen again I must
tell Mr Abney.'
'Pardon me, sir, I think it would be better not. He impresses me
as a somewhat nervous gentleman, and it would only disturb him.'
At this moment it suddenly struck me that, in my interest in the
mysterious fugitive, I had omitted to notice what was really the
most remarkable point in the whole affair. How did White happen to
have a revolver at all? I have met many butlers who behaved
unexpectedly in their spare time. One I knew played the fiddle;
another preached Socialism in Hyde Park. But I had never yet come
across a butler who fired pistols.
'What were you doing with a revolver?' I asked.
He hesitated.
'May I ask you to keep it to yourself, sir, if I tell you
something?' he said at last.
'What do you mean?'
'I'm a detective.'
'What!'
'A Pinkerton's man, Mr Burns.'
I felt like one who sees the 'danger' board over thin ice. But for
this information, who knew what rash move I might not have made,
under the assumption that the Little Nugget was unguarded? At the
same time, I could not help reflecting that, if things had been
complex before, they had become far more so in the light of this
discovery. To spirit Ogden away had never struck me, since his
arrival at the school, as an easy task. It seemed more difficult
now than ever.
I had the sense to affect astonishment. I made my imitation of an
innocent assistant-master astounded by the news that the butler is
a detective in disguise as realistic as I was able. It appeared to
be satisfactory, for he began to explain.
'I am employed by Mr Elmer Ford to guard his son. There are
several parties after that boy, Mr Burns. Naturally he is a
considerable prize. Mr Ford would pay a large sum to get back his
only son if he were kidnapped. So it stands to reason he takes
precautions.'
'Does Mr Abney know what you are?'
'No, sir. Mr Abney thinks I am an ordinary butler. You are the
only person who knows, and I have only told you because you have
happened to catch me in a rather queer position for a butler to be
in. You will keep it to yourself, sir? It doesn't do for it to get
about. These things have to be done quietly. It would be bad for
the school if my presence here were advertised. The other parents
wouldn't like it. They would think that their sons were in danger,
you see. It would be disturbing for them. So if you will just
forget what I've been telling you, Mr Burns--'
I assured him that I would. But I was very far from meaning it. If
there was one thing which I intended to bear in mind, it was the
fact that watchful eyes besides mine were upon that Little Nugget.
The third and last of this chain of occurrences, the Episode of
the Genial Visitor, took place on the following day, and may be
passed over briefly. All that happened was that a well-dressed
man, who gave his name as Arthur Gordon, of Philadelphia, dropped
in unexpectedly to inspect the school. He apologized for not
having written to make an appointment, but explained that he was
leaving England almost immediately. He was looking for a school
for his sister's son, and, happening to meet his business
acquaintance, Mr Elmer Ford, in London, he had been recommended to
Mr Abney. He made himself exceedingly pleasant. He was a breezy,
genial man, who joked with Mr Abney, chaffed the boys, prodded the
Little Nugget in the ribs, to that overfed youth's discomfort,
made a rollicking tour of the house, in the course of which he
inspected Ogden's bedroom--in order, he told Mr Abney, to be able
to report conscientiously to his friend Ford that the son and heir
was not being pampered too much, and departed in a whirl of
good-humour, leaving every one enthusiastic over his charming
personality. His last words were that everything was thoroughly
satisfactory, and that he had learned all he wanted to know.
Which, as was proved that same night, was the simple truth.
Content of Part 2 - Peter Burns' Narrative: Chapter 3 [P G Wodehouse's novel: The Little Nugget]
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