William the Bad Read online

  ‘But you must talk about somethin’,’ persisted Ginger. ‘If you talk at all you’ve gotter talk about somethin’. You can’t help it.’

  ‘You talk about anythin’,’ said William. ‘Anythin’ at all. I can talk about anythin’. That’s why I’d make such a good leckcherer. You give me somethin’ to talk about an’ see if I can’t go on talkin’ about it for hours and hours.’

  The Outlaws were on their way home from school and Henry, struck by a sudden idea, stopped and slung his school satchel from his shoulders.

  ‘I’ve got my diction’ry here,’ he said. ‘I’ll open it jus’ anywhere an’ give you the first word I see to talk about.’

  ‘Well, and I jolly well bet I’ll be able to talk about it too,’ said William challengingly, ‘unless it’s in a foreign langwidge.’

  Henry opened his dictionary and read out slowly and doubtfully: ‘Epitome.’

  ‘That’s a foreign langwidge,’ said William very firmly and without hesitation.

  ‘What’s it doin’ in an English diction’ry, then?’ said Henry.

  ‘There’s lots of foreign words in the English diction’ry,’ said William; ‘they get put in by mistake.’

  ‘I bet it’s English,’ said Henry.

  ‘What does it say it means, then?’ said William.

  ‘Compendium . . . abridgment . . . summary,’ read out Henry stumblingly.

  ‘There!’ said William, triumphantly. ‘I told you so. They’re all foreign words! They’re French. Or else Latin.’

  Henry, convinced, shut the book and opened it again at random.

  ‘Civilisation,’ he read slowly.

  ‘I know what that means,’ said William. ‘It means bein’ different from savidges.’

  ‘Well, can you talk about it?’

  ‘Yes, I can. It’s all wrong—’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Civ— what you said. Being diff’rent from savidges. It’s all wrong.’

  ‘Why’s it wrong?’

  ‘That’s what I’m jus’ goin’ to tell you. It is wrong. School an’ lessons an’ such-like. Savidges didn’t have them.’

  ‘How d’you know they didn’t?’

  ‘’Cause there wasn’t anythin’ for them to learn. Euclid and Algebra hadn’t been born in those days.’

  ‘Well, they had to learn to tell the time by the sun an’ to scout each other.’

  ‘I wish you’d shut up int’ruptin’. They were born knowin’ those ’cause their fathers knew them.’

  ‘Well, my father knew Latin an’ I wasn’t born knowin’ it.’

  ‘If it was a real leckcher you’d’ve been chucked out by this time.’

  ‘All right. Come on. Chuck me out.’

  They met joyously in the middle of the road with Ginger and Douglas as seconds.

  William claimed that he had succeeded in ejecting the interrupter because at the end of the struggle Henry was in the ditch, but, as the effort of precipitating Henry into the ditch had precipitated William into it as well, the result was considered by the majority to be indecisive. But the battle had invigorated them and they continued scuffling in and out of the ditch purely in a spirit of goodwill till they came to William’s house—quite forgetting William’s incipient lecture.

  But William remembered it as soon as he entered his bedroom to perform his toilet before lunch. There he placed a glass of water upon his chair, and took up his position behind it. Then, flourishing his hair-brush in one hand the better to emphasise his points, he began with vehement facial contortions and wild gestures of both arms to lecture in dumb show. No words issued from his eloquently moving lips, but occasionally he stopped and raised the glass to them, then, reassuming his expressive grimaces and gestures, he continued his silent lecture. He moved his eyes about the room as he spoke, addressing now the towel-rail, now the window curtains, now the wardrobe, and finally his eyes rested upon his reflection in the dressing-table looking-glass. An interrupter. William addressed it sternly. It replied defiantly. William pointed a finger at it accusingly. It replied insolently by pointing a finger at William. With terrible determination written on his brow, William advanced upon it. A fierce battle took place in which it was evident from William’s actions that he first wrestled with his adversary, then got him on to the ground, then pummelled him mercilessly, and finally took him by the ear and led him unresisting from the room. He held the imaginary ear at first about the level of his own, and then suddenly reconstructing the scene, held up his hand as high as it would go, clearly indicating that his vanquished enemy was six feet or more in height. He flung him ruthlessly upon the landing, closed the door, returned to the space behind his chair that represented the platform, took a draught of water, and, after bowing acknowledgements to the applause with a deprecating smile, continued the lecture till again he caught sight of that aggressive interrupter in the dressing-table looking-glass, and stepped forth sternly to deal with him. Before the battle was half-way through, however, the lunch-bell rang and William, abandoning his rôle as lecturer, brushed his hair and washed his hands with perfunctory haste, and descended to the hall by way of the balusters. His elder brother greeted him as he entered the dining-room.

  ‘What on earth have you been doing upstairs? I thought you were coming through the ceiling.’

  ‘Me?’ said William blankly. ‘I’ve not been doin’ nothin’ but washin’ and brushin’ my hair.’

  ‘Well, you made enough noise about it, and not much to show for it, I must say.’

  William contented himself with a mental vision of himself lecturing in a large hall and descending from the platform to eject Robert from the front row for interrupting.

  On his way to afternoon school he met the other Outlaws as usual at the end of the road and they enlivened the journey by continuing the morning’s game. Henry opened his dictionary at random and gave William a subject to discourse upon. William, never at a loss (except in the case where he rejected words as foreign), discoursed and the others challenged his views till they were attacked by William as interrupters, and a series of lively scuffles ensued. It was an exciting and enjoyable game and might have continued indefinitely if, at the corner of the road that led to school, they hadn’t met—the little girl. She was a stranger to the neighbourhood. None of the Outlaws had ever seen her before. She was small and dainty, with dark eyes and a round, dimpled face. She was rather like Joan, the little girl next door, to whom William’s proud spirit had unbent as far as to enrol her as the only female member of the Outlaws, but who had now gone to boarding-school. William was not, on the whole, susceptible to feminine charm. Passing this little girl, he was conscious only of an overwhelming desire to talk to her. He wanted to talk to her about civilisation, and pianos and ostriches and sacks (a few of the subjects that Henry had found for him). He wanted to begin to talk to her now and to go on talking to her all afternoon. But she passed him with a look of cold disdain (his recent scuffles and frequent descents into the ditch had added nothing to his personal attractions), and at the same time Henry (the only one of the Outlaws who possessed a watch) informed them that they’d be late if they didn’t hurry, and they all began to run down the road to the school, trying to push each other into the ditch as they ran. But William’s thoughts were elsewhere, though he pushed and was pushed into the ditch with the others automatically as he ran. They were elsewhere all afternoon while he did sums about hours, days and weeks, and gave in the answers (wrong in any case) in pounds, shillings and pence. They were with the little girl. He wanted to talk to her about civilisation and pianos and ostriches and sacks. He wanted to say to her all the things (about civilisation and pianos and ostriches and sacks) that the others hadn’t let him say. He wanted to talk to her for hours and hours and hours. The memory of that look of cold disdain intrigued him. It was to William incredible and monstrous that anyone at all, much more SHE, should look on him like that. He longed to perform some striking deed of valour before her. In imagination he slew drago
ns for her, leapt from aeroplanes to trains for her, fought whole battalions of villains for her, climbed church steeples, and dived into shark-infested waters for her, while in reality he morosely added up six and four and three and two and made it come to forty-five . . .

  He was still thinking of the little girl when he reached home, after having been kept in to finish his sums.

  Before he performed his inadequate toilet preparatory to descending to the dining-room for tea, he again stood upon his imaginary platform behind his glass of water and addressed a hall full of people who listened to him spellbound. The little girl was in the front row. Interrupters as large as mountains rose to defy him. He wrestled with them and flung them out one after the other like ninepins. The whole room rose to applaud him. The little girl gazed up at him in rapt admiration. He bowed his acknowledgments, took a deep draught of water, and proceeded with the lecture till the tea-bell rang. Again his elder brother greeted him disapprovingly as he entered the dining-room.

  ‘Good Lord! What on earth have you been doing upstairs again? You’ve brought a great lump of plaster down from the ceiling. Are you keeping an elephant up there, or what?’

  William gave him a dark look as in imagination he ejected him again from his lecture, sending him flying through the door and half-way down the flight of stairs that was just outside the lecture-room. Having thus disposed of Robert, he turned to his mother, prepared aggressively to defend at great length the state of his hair, face, hands, suit and boots. But instead of attacking these very assailable points his mother said:

  ‘I’ve had an invitation to tea for you to-morrow, William.’

  ‘Where?’ said William without enthusiasm.

  ‘Mrs. Stacey. She’s got a little niece staying with her.’

  William’s heart leapt. He was sure that it was the little girl. But without relaxing an atom of the severity of his expression he said:

  ‘I don’ want to go to tea with a girl.’

  ‘Oh, she’s got a little boy staying with her too, the son of an old school-friend, who’s convalescing after measles. He’s just about your age, I believe.’

  ‘Huh,’ said William shortly. The monosyllable expressed equal contempt for the boy, the girl, the tea-party, measles, and the world in general. Dreamily, mechanically, he stretched out for a bun. Dreamily, mechanically, he took a Gargantuan bite. In reality he was alone with the little girl. They were walking along a country lane. He was talking to her on every subject from beginning to end of Henry’s dictionary. She listened enraptured.

  But when he went to tea with her it was quite different. The boy was such a boy as William had never even imagined. He was tall and languorous. He spoke with an exaggeratedly refined accent and he talked of his travels in Italy and Switzerland and the South of France, of the theatres he had visited lately and the latest dances. And the little girl admired him. There was no doubt at all that the little girl admired him. She listened to him as in William’s dreams she had listened to William. In reality she ignored William completely after one disdainful glance that took in his shock of wiry hair, his unprepossessing features, and his stocky, unkempt-looking (even after an hour of Mrs. Brown’s ministrations) figure. William wasn’t used to being ignored and set to work at once to dispel any impression of nonentity that his appearance might have given her. He realised, of course, that physical means of asserting his supremacy would defeat their own purpose. He could have felled the languid youth to the ground with one stroke, but he was sufficiently versed in feminine psychology to realise that this would only have concentrated the little girl’s affection and concern still further upon the languid youth. He must attract her attention by other and more subtle means. If only she could hear him lecture . . .

  ‘Civilisation’s all wrong,’ he began firmly, ‘savidges didn’t go to school or learn Latin an’ they—’

  But she wasn’t listening to him. She was listening to Claude who was talking about Nice.

  ‘There’s topping bathing there,’ he was saying languidly, ‘and some jolly drives over the hills behind the town. Plenty going on in the town itself too.’

  She was gazing at him open-mouthed with admiration.

  William, warming to his theme, continued.

  ‘They din’t wear collars neither, nor have to keep themselves clean, nor go to church on Sundays. They did jus’ what they liked on Sundays. They din’t even have Sunday School. An’ they could go jus’ where they wanted without people chasin’ ’em out of woods and fields an’ such-like. An’ they could fight each other whenever they wanted to an’ it din’t matter if they got their clothes all messed up ’cause they din’t wear any an’ ’—

  But she wasn’t listening. His famous lecture on civilisation was falling on deaf ears.

  ‘The Charleston’s not a bit difficult,’ the languorous youth was saying, ‘but it’s getting a bit old-fashioned now.’

  And still the little girl was gazing at him with adoring eyes and listening to him enraptured.

  William was silent for a minute. It was quite evident that his lecture on civilisation was not striking enough to arrest her attention. He must lead up to it with more care. He must arrest her attention by some more dramatic means and then when he was sure of it, introduce his lecture on civilisation. He was certain that no one who heard his lecture on civilisation could fail to be impressed by it.

  ‘I never cared for the Blues,’ the languorous youth was saying.

  ‘I’m a leckcherer,’ announced William with startling abruptness, ‘I give leckchers to people. Roomfuls of ’em. Chuck ’em out when they start arguin’.’

  But neither of them paid the slightest attention to him.

  ‘They say,’ the languorous youth was saying, ‘that the polka’s coming back. I hope not. Ghastly affair.’

  William summoned his faculties again with an effort. There was evidently need for some yet more startling conversational opening.

  ‘I killed a lion once,’ he said in a loud voice.

  They took no notice of him.

  ‘Shot it straight through the heart jus’ as it was going to spring.’

  ‘The waltz,’ said the languorous youth, ‘is the only one of those old dances that’s any use and even it’s jolly rotten the way they used to dance it.’

  ‘Shot a whole crowd of elephants with one bullet once,’ went on William. ‘They were standing in a row an’ the bullet went straight through ’em one after the other an’ they all fell down on the top of each other.’

  William, determined to be heard, had raised his voice and the little girl became aware, apparently for the first time, that he was speaking. She turned to him and the look of adoration with which she had regarded the languorous youth changed to one of distaste.

  ‘I wish,’ she said distantly, ‘that you wouldn’t shout so.’

  So amazed was William at this treatment that he hardly spoke again till it was time to go home. Yet, so perverse is human nature, the plainly evinced dislike of the little girl had only increased her desirability in his eyes. He felt that his soul would know no rest till the little girl had looked at him as she now looked at the languorous youth and till he had expounded to her at full length the lecture on civilisation that was the star of his repertoire.

  As William was going home Mrs. Stacey asked him if he would come the next afternoon (a half-holiday), and take her two little visitors for a walk as he knew the country and they didn’t. William, with a show of reluctance that was merely formal, agreed and departed, leaving the languorous youth teaching the little girl a new and complicated step that he had lately learnt at his London dancing class.

  Most people would have regarded the situation as hopeless, but not William. William was of the stuff that never regards anything as hopeless.

  He was very thoughtful that evening and the next morning sought out Ginger. A long and confidential conversation took place between them. Ginger was at first too amazed and indignant for words. When he found words they were in th
e nature of firm and unqualified rejections of William’s plan.

  ‘I should jolly well think I won’t.’

  ‘No, I should jolly well think not.’

  ‘If you want someone to do that you can jolly well get someone else, not me.’

  It was only after a ball, a lump of putty, a set of cigarette cards and a treasured whistle had passed from William’s possession to Ginger’s that Ginger began to waver.

  ‘It’ll get me into an awful mess an’ I’ll get into an awful row as well,’ he still protested.

  ‘Well that whistle’s worth a shillin’,’ said William, ‘it’s the finest whistle I’ve ever had, I can jolly well tell you, and I wouldn’t give it to you ’cept for this.’

  Ginger considered the situation for a moment in silence. He had certainly coveted that whistle for a long time. He realised that the situation had its possibilities. With the air of one who comes to a momentous decision, he said:

  ‘All right. If you’ll give me your glass marble—the big one—and your catapult too—I will.’

  After a brief inward struggle, William agreed.

  The bargain was sealed.

  The next afternoon William called for the little girl and Claude to conduct them over the neighbouring countryside. The conversation followed pretty much the lines it had followed the day before except that Claude was now discussing the latest jazz music and that it was to his feats in life-saving that William vainly essayed to attract their attention.

  ‘I’ve got a saxophone,’ said Claude carelessly. ‘They cost a lot of money.’

  ‘Have you really?’ said the little girl admiringly.

  ‘I’ve saved ever so many people’s lives,’ said William.

  ‘Some of the jazz bands one hears on the wireless are rotten.’

  ‘Drownin’ mostly. Jus’ plunge in an’ drag ’em out.’

  ‘They have one person doing too many instruments. It makes it slow.’

  ‘I simply couldn’t count the people I’ve saved from drownin’.’

  ‘I’ve played in a jazz band myself.’

  ‘Oh, Claude, have you really?’