"It is hard to conceive that even an immature mind, such as you possess, could suppose that pleasure would result to any intelligent being from so pitiful and indecent an achievement," he said. "The boy who tore this wretched bird from its last resting-place and set it up to caricature the entire race of Psittacus erythacus—— However, this is no time to investigate your conduct, Mathers. You will join me after evening school in the study."
Then he looked at the parrot again and cleared his throat. Mathers slunk away to his seat, and as he did so, suddenly the Doctor started and seemed to 'point,' like a sporting dog. I think he had discovered there was more than met the eye about the parrot. He called up Macmullen, who happened to catch his gaze, and told him to take 'Joe' to the gardener.
"Direct Smith to place these remains in the spot I originally selected," he said; "and if anybody ventures to disturb them again the consequences will be exceedingly serious. Now go to your classes."
He waved his hand, and Macmullen took the parrot, and nobody ever saw it again. But to this day Mathers swears that Smith never buried him. He believes that in some secret place in his house the gardener has 'Joe' in a glass case; because, very truly, he says that no ordinary gardener would be likely to resist the temptation of having a rare and beautiful bird to decorate his house. Besides, the glass eyes. Also it is well known that Dr. Dunstan never goes into the gardener's house; which is really the entrance lodge to Merivale, and is full of Smith's wife and children. So I dare say Bunny is right there.
He told me afterwards that Dunstan was very cold, but not actively angry in the evening. Mathers said that the Doctor didn't seem to attach any importance to the fact that he'd stuffed 'Joe' to give him a great and sudden pleasure. Instead, he evidently thought that Bunny had done a rather daring thing to please himself.
"'Unseemly' was the word he used," said Mathers to me. "He seemed to think it was not a case for much punishment; but, all the same, he has told me to write out the article on the stuffer's art from the Encyclopædia Britannica, which is rather rot, because I shall certainly never want to stuff anything again in this world. I couldn't tell him all I'd been through to do it, because he'd got a sort of beastly idea that I liked doing it; though you know that it was nothing of the sort. On the whole it has left him against me, and he seems to take a good deal of credit to himself for not making a lot more row about it. But whether he's going to let it rankle in his mind, so that I may suffer for it more or less till the end of the term, or whether, when I've done the impot., he'll feel as usual—just neither for me nor against me—I can't say yet. He might have tried to look at it from my point of view."
"You could hardly expect him to do that: masters never do," I said.
"It's all the worse for him, anyway," answered Mathers minimus. "To rebury the parrot was a slight on me in a way; because whether he liked it or not he could have seen at a glance the hours and hours of awful trouble, and the fearful expense it must have been to me. The eyes alone were three shillings; and nobody in this world ever threw away valuable money in such a cruel manner. Besides, if it had gone off well and he'd taken it as I meant it, I fully intended other good surprises for him."
"You'd better not surprise him again for a jolly long time," I said. "He doesn't much like surprises—people don't when they grow up. They have a footling way of preferring everything to drag on in a tame and dull manner. My father hates telegrams, for instance."
"I had fully meant to get Johnson to bring him another and a better parrot," said Mathers. "Even a pair of parrots might have been arranged; and they would have made a nest about April, and laid eggs, and there would gradually have been parrots for all his daughters; and he could have taught them what he liked, even to the extent of Latin; for it is well known that a parrot will learn anything. But it's all over now. Never again will I try to give him pleasure—or anybody else either. Why, even Milly hasn't pitied me much—just because it's all a failure; whereas if he'd taken it in a manly way, and thanked me before the school, and, perhaps, given us a half-holiday or something and sent the parrot off at once to be measured for a glass case—how different it all would have been! Nobody would have called me 'body-snatcher' then; whereas now I shall be called that for life."
Which was all true enough in its way, and he was called 'body-snatcher' for ever more. Whereas, to show what mistakes happen, I'd done that part—simply as a friend.
THE BANKRUPTCY OF BANNISTER
No. III
THE BANKRUPTCY OF BANNISTER
I
I am Bannister, and what happened to me was a very gradual thing at first; but it grew and grew until finally something had to be done, and that something was called 'bankruptcy.'
Curiously enough I had heard the word before at home. In fact, as I told Gideon, who kindly let me explain my position to him, my father had once been bankrupted; and when he was a bankrupt my mother cried a good deal and my father talked about 'everlasting disgrace' and 'a bloodthirsty world,' and something in the pound. And then there came a day when my father told my mother gladly that he had been discharged, whatever that was, and my mother seemed much pleased. In fact, she said, "Thank God, Gerald!" and they had a bottle of champagne for lunch. It was in holidays, and I heard it all, and tasted the champagne, and didn't like it.
So, remembering this, when Gideon talked of me being a bankrupt, I said, "All right, and the sooner the better."
As I say, one gets hard up very gradually, and the debts seem nothing in themselves; but when, owing to chaps bothering, you go into it all on paper you may often be much surprised to find how serious things are taken altogether.
What I found was that my pocket-money was absolutely all owed for about three terms in advance, and that Steggles, who lent me a shilling upon a thing called a mortgage, the mortgage being my bat, was not going to give up my bat, which was a spliced bat and cost eight shillings and sixpence. He said what with interest and one thing and another his shilling had gained six shillings more, and that if he didn't take the bat at once he would be out of pocket. So he took it, and he played with it in a match and got a cluck's egg, and I was jolly glad. Then the tuck-woman, who is allowed to come up to the playground after school with fruit and sweets and suchlike, was owed by me seven shillings and fourpence, and she wouldn't sell anything more to me, and asked me rather often to pay the money. I told her that all would be paid sooner or later, and she seemed inclined not to believe it. Other debts were one and six owed to Corkey minimus for a mouse that he said was going to have young mice, but it didn't, and he had consented to take ninepence owing to being mistaken. Tin Lin Chow, the Chinese boy, was owed four shillings and threepence for a charm. It was a good enough charm, made of ivory and carved into a very hideous face. All the same, it never had done me much good, for here I was bankrupted six months after buying it, and the charm itself not even paid for.
There was a lot of other small debts—some merely a question of pens and caterpillars; but they all mounted up, and so I felt something must be done, because being in such a beastly mess kept me awake a good deal at night thinking what to do.
Therefore I went to Gideon, who is a Jew, and very rich, and well known to lend money at interest. He is first in the whole school for arithmetic, and his father is a diamond merchant and a banker, and many other things that bring in enormous sums of money. Gideon has no side, and he is known to be absolutely fair and kind even to the smallest kids. So I went to him and I said—
"Please, Gideon, if it won't be troubling you, I should like to speak to you about my affairs. I am very hard up, in fact, and fellows are being rather beastly about money I owe them."
"I'm afraid I can't finance you, Bannister," said Gideon awfully kindly. "My money's all out at interest just now, and, as a matter of fact, I'm rather funky about some of it."
"I don't want you to finance me," I said; "and that would be jolly poor fun for you anyway, because I've got nothing, and never shall have in this world, as far as I can see. I only want you to advise me. I'm fourteen and three-quarters, and when I was twelve and a half my father got into pretty much the same mess that I'm in now; and he got out again with