"We say, 'Let them talk,'" persisted Rickie, "but I never did like letting people talk. We are right and they are wrong, but Iwish the thing could have been done more quietly. The headmaster does get so excited. He has given a gang of foolish people their opportunity. I don't like being branded as the day-boy's foe, when I think how much I would have given to be a day-boy myself.
My father found me a nuisance, and put me through the mill, and Ican never forget it particularly the evenings.""There's very little bullying here," said Agnes.
"There was very little bullying at my school. There was simply the atmosphere of unkindness, which no discipline can dispel. It's not what people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.""I don't understand."
"Physical pain doesn't hurt--at least not what I call hurt--if a man hits you by accident or play. But just a little tap, when you know it comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate each other: I remember it, and see it again. They can make strong isolated friendships, but of general good-fellowship they haven't a notion.""All I know is there's very little bullying here.""You see, the notion of good-fellowship develops late: you can just see its beginning here among the prefects: up at Cambridge it flourishes amazingly. That's why I pity people who don't go up to Cambridge: not because a University is smart, but because those are the magic years, and--with luck--you see up there what you couldn't see before and mayn't ever see again.
"Aren't these the magic years?" the lady demanded.
He laughed and hit at her. "I'm getting somewhat involved. But hear me, O Agnes, for I am practical. I approve of our public schools. Long may they, flourish. But I do not approve of the boarding-house system. It isn't an inevitable adjunct--""Good gracious me!" she shrieked. "Have you gone mad?""Silence, madam. Don't betray me to Herbert, or I'll give us the sack. But seriously, what is the good of, throwing boys so much together? Isn't it building their lives on a wrong basis? They don't understand each other. I wish they did, but they don't.
They don't realize that human beings are simply marvellous.
When they do, the whole of life changes, and you get the true thing. But don't pretend you've got it before you have.
Patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well, but masters a little forget that they must grow from sentiment. They cannot create one. Cannot-cannot--cannot. I never cared a straw for England until I cared for Englishmen, and boys can't love the school when they hate each other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now conclude my address. And most of it is copied out of Mr. Ansell."
The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He had been carried away on the flood of his old emotions. Cambridge and all that it meant had stood before him passionately clear, and beside it stood his mother and the sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he can salute his equals. He was ashamed, for he remembered his new resolution--to work without criticizing, to throw himself vigorously into the machine, not to mind if he was pinched now and then by the elaborate wheels.
"Mr. Ansell!" cried his wife, laughing somewhat shrilly. "Aha!
Now I understand. It's just the kind of thing poor Mr. Ansell would say. Well, I'm brutal. I believe it does Varden good to have his ears pulled now and then, and I don't care whether they pull them in play or not. Boys ought to rough it, or they never grow up into men, and your mother would have agreed with me. Oh yes; and you're all wrong about patriotism. It can, can, create a sentiment."She was unusually precise, and had followed his thoughts with an attention that was also unusual. He wondered whether she was not right, and regretted that she proceeded to say, "My dear boy, you mustn't talk these heresies inside Dunwood House! You sound just like one of that reactionary Jackson set, who want to fling the school back a hundred years and have nothing but day-boys all dressed anyhow.""The Jackson set have their points."
"You'd better join it."
"The Dunwood House set has its points." For Rickie suffered from the Primal Curse, which is not--as the Authorized Version suggests--the knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of good-and-evil.
"Then stick to the Dunwood House set."
"I do, and shall." Again he was ashamed. Why would he see the other side of things? He rebuked his soul, not unsuccessfully, and then they returned to the subject of Varden.
"I'm certain he suffers," said he, for she would do nothing but laugh. "Each boy who passes pulls his ears--very funny, no doubt;but every day they stick out more and get redder, and this afternoon, when he didn't know he was being watched, he was holding his head and moaning. I hate the look about his eyes.""I hate the whole boy. Nasty weedy thing."
"Well, I'm a nasty weedy thing, if it comes to that.""No, you aren't," she cried, kissing him. But he led her back to the subject. Could nothing be suggested? He drew up some new rules--alterations in the times of going to bed, and so on--the effect of which would be to provide fewer opportunities for the pulling of Varden's ears. The rules were submitted to Herbert, who sympathized with weakliness more than did his sister, and gave them his careful consideration. But unfortunately they collided with other rules, and on a closer examination he found that they also ran contrary to the fundamentals on which the government of Dunwood House was based. So nothing was done. Agnes was rather pleased, and took to teasing her husband about Varden.
At last he asked her to stop. He felt uneasy about the boy--almost superstitious. His first morning's work had brought sixty pounds a year to their hotel.