FUNNY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19454, 9 October 1926, Page 5 (Supplement)

FUNNY.

CHAPTER Vll.—Continued

BY ETHEL TURNER,

Owen had dodged back under a burly farmer's arm as suddenly and unexpectedly as lie had gone, remembering that his aunt had bidden him keep close to her side all the time. He heard every word of the speech, though nono of the group had any notion of it. Ho saw the dismayed faces of the beautiful girls. " I must get my ticket," said Alice. " 1 can't go back now, not for forty mothers' meetings. You must manage, some way—ho can't be left a day longer without some clothes —I'm ashamed foi the very servants to see him." And all this the boy heard as lie dipped and dodged beneath that farmer's arm; words—even a torrent of words—only tako a matter of seconds to pass the lips. But here was the up train signalled and tickets not taken; there was a wild rush to rectify matters. Cynthia, the lovelier of the two girls, addressed her new cousin lor the first time. " Quick," she said, touching his arm, *' are you a half or a whole? " A "whole," said Owen hoarsely, "but 1 idways pass for a half." "Take a whole. Cynthia," said Alice in extinguished voice. 'lbis was really the last straw —a whole first-class ticket for a boy liko this! All the way to London, Owen sat looking straight *in front, of him, his most solid expression on his face. Alice stared al him from time to time. Here he was, flashing through lovely country to London—to a London he had never yet seen, and he was not sufficiently interested to glance out of the window. Could 110 be half-witted ? " Owen," she said once, " why don't you look out at things ? Don't, you like scenery like this 1 At all events, it is different from your part of England." Owen glanced out politely. "Yes," he said. " T mean, yes, aunt.' But in three minutes lie was staring steadily at the opposite side of the carriage again. Ho was planning to jump out. of the train at the next stopping or even before the next stopping, and to run duo west across England until he came to his mother again. But then 110 remembered his mother v. as no longer due west; in fact, he had no clear idea at all where she was! He was plannig to dash away from bis aunt the moment they reached London, and run and run to the docks and leap on board a moving steamer and go to Australia or America, and make a fortune for his mother and sisters. He was planning to rush away in London and find the King or the Lord Mayor, and beg them to lend just enough money for himself and bis mother and sisters to live upon until he grew up and could earn enough to repay with interest. Oh, he knew all about interest! But at six in the. evening, wiien Alice stepped out at Belchester, he was still beside her, though hardly to be recognised in his new clothes. He had re membered Limpv and Lizzie in the drain beside the garage. He could not desert them. CHAPTER VIII. THE ACCOMPLISHMENT. So this was life, this calm, decorous river of existence on which one floated with hardly any initiative of one's own so able was the steering of Aunt Alice In the past (if one' had stopped to think of it in actual terms of life—which one never did) in the pAst, life had been like a turbulent little stream, dashing over 'boulders, twisting a way through dense undergrowth, dammed up for a time in a stagnant sort of pool, bursting out and dancing in the sunshine through a meadow, then forced underground again. Each of these charges Owen could hav? localised for you, pointing with a pencil at various places on the map of the county 0/ Lancashire—they had never gone from the countv. His father, Alfred Thistlewaite, had left school, and later Oxford, with a pronounced literary taint. Delicacy of body and a somewhat morbid temperament had kept him from active participation in sports, and he had filled up his leisure, first with omniverous reading, and then omniverous writing. Without any gift of originality, he was still an able phrase maker, and had a full enough mind to have plenty to say. When he left the university, he lived for a few years in London upon his mother's legacy flhen three times as large), supplemented by contributing articles and scholarly verses to the more thoughtful of the reviews. When he clutched for happiness suddenly at the twinkling-eyed young actress he was forty or more, with the maternal legacv encroached upon until it had shrunk one-third. Also the thoughtful reviews were tired of him; he had nothing fresh to say, and he said it more and more heavily as" the. green departed from bis life. He found employment in the ranks of a chain of newspapers that seemed able to give woik-—of a kind—to anyone who could write tolerable English. Even after 12 years this was the only permanent work he had, though he was moved about like a pawn on the chessboard of the company. Once be was appointed editor o.' a small trades journal, produced for a aluminium company, and Laura had to pack up her young family and remove at half a day's notice to Manchester that the next week's edition might be out in time, for market day. " That I—l should write such stuff," be cioancd, thinking of his early articles that had been—almost —sucesses. But, finding his little " Third-rate " actress looked wistful at the groan, ho kissed her reassuringly. " You were worth it," 110 only happiness T've ever tasted you gape, me. Do you think I'm whining after rny dried un brother* and their wives? Or my old life in London ? It smy pen whines, not I, girl. It hankers after sonnets, and has to put up with aluminium." Sometimes his work would be a long series of articles on popular science for one of the company's Sunday papers, and he was able to produce these anywhere—given a file of old not-popular science journals. And then Laura would pack up her babies and boxes and they would take a cottage in the almost-country —0.1 a common, perhaps—and Owen would be able to poke about in little ponds, and see a" rabbit run. and watch just how grass grew and how leaves unfolded on trees. These were the happy, dancing days of their stream of life before it turned sullenly underground again. Well, it seemed a broad, placid stream just, now, and the boy found himself quite unable to do anything but float just where and at what pace his aunt dictated. And so in a morning at the sound of the first gong he would roll out of the king's lted and stand by the bedside seeking for one second to recollect himself. And then he would at once plunge toward the bathroom to forget himself. His grey dressing gown, even though a " cutdown," was a much handsomer cut-down than any that Laura had been able to contrive for him, and he wore it with pleasure, genuinely glad to be savnig his relatives in this respect. Certainly he would have been happier still scampering along the corridor in his now handsome pyjamas, but Aunt, Alice had prescribed the dressing-gown and the dressing-gown it was. He would have his bath with a passion ntc sort of enjoyment—hot shower, cold fihowcr, hot plunge, cold plunge—-ho could not bear to w ,ste any one of them unless someone was actively tattooing on the door for him to hurry. lie would dress—also with a passionate sort of enjoyment. Not to have a patch behind or on his elbow, or a hole in his stockings or in the soles of his boots made him feel a man—fit to mix with anvono—to take part in anything. 110 used to swagger in front of the glass sometimes lost in admiration of himself. Not only had ho two of the sound tweed knickerboekor suits that every ether boy at the school wore, but be had a blue blazer and two pairs of cricketing flannels Also he had a black Eton suit with a

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broad, white collar that ho found he was expected to put on every night foi dinner He stood a good deal in awe of himself in these, somewhut as if he were a bisl >.;j ; in chrysalis. 1 He would go down to breakfast and eat with a passionate sort of enjoyment. l<or the last year of his father's illness poor Laura had been compelled to cut the 1 breakfast of her growing family down to tea and bread and treacle, with butter as a luxury once or twice a week. Hero r ho had porridge made with milk, and eaten with cream, bacon and eggs—eggs 1 in the plural number—or fried soles or : kidneys on toast, or cold ham and. scrambled eggs, finishing up with toast and marmalade'and hot coffee. 110 had not believed such entirely satisfying food existed. ' So far so good. So far ho had been 1 happily solitary, even at his breakfast, for the school time-table mado it necessary [ for him to have this half an hour before the breakfast hour of the rest of the . family. To preserve the table, unruffled . for the family, Izzard used to serve him at a little table set in a bay window, carrying in all his requirements at one time on a large tray. The other meals of the day were dreaded by the boy, but this breakfast half-hour in the sunny bay remained for his life a happy memory. He tried to express much of this to his mother in an early letter. Darling old mum, —I hang my clothes up like you said. I've got bonser clothes now you'd die to see me. You ought to see the bathroom. I'm clean every single bit of the time nearly. You ought to see what I havo for brekker. Snifter. "'lour, loving son, Funny." Never a word about the rest of the day did he write, tho rest of the day through which he fought; silent for the most part and with a stubborn patience. He hated tho school. A sense of inferiority pursued him all the time; ho had known nothing of this class of boy in his Liver-' pool surroundings, this class of well setup, well-equipped lads from comfortable and luxurious homes In the Liverpool days he had himself been a leader, looked up to, loved, hated, and respected by gangs of small boys of his neighbourhood. Organised sport left him quite unenthusiastic; in fact, 110 considered the school games a waste of good time that he might have spent in profitable hunts in the woods or 011 the commons. In tho classes he was lamentably low. While the other lads had been ploughing with regularity through the prescribed subjects, he had been minding his little sisters, carefullv doing the famdy's shopping at the shops that sold things for a penny a pound less than the other shops, running to the post with his father's manuscripts or proofs, going to the bank with the infrequent cheques and bringing back, tightly buttoned up in his coat pocket', the bank notes that meant life to them' all. Or he would be helping with a removal—for ever helping with a removal; staining wide borders round the now looms to make a carpet " fit," hammering at a shelf from which his mother was going to hang cretonne curtains as a substitute for a wardrobe that had had to be sold to pay the carrier. Quito an expert lie was with a hammer before he was ten: quite an expert with burnt sienna ami size and tho necessity to keep brush marks the way of the grain of the flooring boards. Between these- duties he attended school --dozens of schools, leaving all of them, infinitely regretod by his mates. It mado a man of him; it called out qualities that would bo useful to hira all his life. J>ut at this new school he travelled down into lower and lower clases; it seemed to the masters that thov wouiJ never touch bottom with him and find a point where they might start a foundation.. He was put into a Latin form 1 nown as 111. A because he \vas found'to be able to repeat the fifth declension and say with accuracy the rule beam*} on the Ablative Absolute, and, indeed, he seemed t,o have a leaning to and a liking for Latin. But when it was discovered that he had missed the first and third de-' clensions altogether, and had the haziest of notions whether Amo was a conjugation or declension, they sent him down to bedrock—Class I. A—with little fellows or seven and eight.! Similarly with other subjects. After finding him with layers of advanced knowledge, imparted to 'him by his unfortunate father on a sub-strata of blankest ignorance, the masters in concert decided to let him begin with everything again. The boy was ashamed to look the bigger boys in tho face; he used to slink into his classes like a criminal. Tho bishop paid a visit of inquiry after a time. " How does lie shape?" he asked. " They regort him backward, I regret to say," answered the headmaster. "Intelligent?" asked the bishop anxiously. "Any sign of promise?" The headmaster temporised. He wrinkled his forehead, as was his habit in moments of difficulty, he moved his shaggy eyebrows in a characteristic way lie had. " Wooden-headed "—the actual expression of the boy's form master was a word he did not want to use, and yet he could think of 110 other.

" Ask us again in six months, bishop, ' ! ho said. " I've known very dull lads ' make good and even pass the brighter ones when once they settled down to things." The bishop sighed impatiently. " And sport ? " His own son—had lie had a son—would have been a keen athlete as he had been in his own schooldays. " N-n-no," said the headmaster, " not yet. Seems to actively dislike games." Again he wrinkled his forehead in a perturbed way and worked his eyebrows. The bishop left. The headmaster sent for Owen, drew a rather touching picture of his uncle's anxiety for his improvement, reminded him that he had now been two months in the school, and should be making good. " You owe it to your uncle to put your Lack into tilings, my lad," he said. Owen looked sullenly down. There was the trouble—he could*not put his back into things because the obligation he owed to his uncle arid anr.t weighed tl ai back down to the ground. But of course one could not tell a headmaster such a thing. " Is there anything on your mind, my lad ? " pursued l)t Oregon— 1 ' come, T'v'e got boys of my own—l know a boy often has unsuspected difficulties to contend with. Have you ? " Had he? A letter was in his pocket at the moment from the elder of his little sisters a child with flowing pen. " Oh, darling old Funny—can't you go arid save Mother? 1 saw Ena and she says Mother cries and cries and cries every night. And Ena says Aunt Isabella is horrid to thern, and she's always hinting they can't have a car now. And me and Hilda cry and cry at night 'cause we know Aunt Marian doesn't want ns and they can't have friends to sleep 'cause we've got the spare room. Oh, Funny, me and Jidda, are dying to see von do it and laugh at you. No one here does things to laugh at. Me and Hilda go up in the attic and we try and try, but we can't only Hilda a bit with one ear. Don't forget how to do it, will you, Funny?" "Have you anything on your mind, my boy?" persisted the Headmaster, used to reading hoy's faces and honestly anxious to bo of service if ho could, Owen looked at him heavily—then away from him. As if you could tell j a Headmaster of a little sister's letter that looked as if it were all blotted with tears! "No," ho said—'"*l mean, No, Sir." Tito Headmaster was a busy man —he could not wait all day for a confidence. "Well," he said,"try to cultivate a | more cheerful expression, Thistlowaite. You've got a hangdog air that I don't like to see on any of my boys. Can't you smile V And then an extraordinary thing happened. Owen thought of it afterwards

with horror; ho was never sure what impelled him at. that moment—whether Ena's " don't forget how to do it" had made him suddenly fearful that lie might forget, or whether he was suddenly tempted of the devil at the sight of the Headmaster's nervously working brows. Suddenly one of his own eyebrows twitched and arched itself; one of his eyes winked; ho moved his ears—incredibly he moved his cars; be moved the top of his scalp; he twisted his mouth up one side of his faco until it almost joined forces with one wagging car. He brought his mouth back to a straight line, and mysteriously extended it until it grinned from ear to ear. The extreme funniness of the whole thing was lost on the headmaster. Here was an accomplishment that bad been acquired by almost unparalelled patience and practice, the accomplishment that had marvellously smoothed the path of nursing for his mother by keeping his little sisters quiet and amused when sleep was mercifully holding at bay their father's por- ! petual pain ; an accomplishment that made him an object of affectionate delight—a positive hero to his old mates in Liveran accomplishment that in the train had made a homesick child forget her sorrow—and the headmaster merely thought that in some way he himself, with his little mannerism of feebly moving his eyebrows, was being extravagently caricartured by this newcomer. "You insolent young bound!" !>e said, and struck him a blow on the cheek that sent , him staggering to the door. "Do that again and T'll thrash you within an inch of your life." A blind world—the blind and bitter world for a boy. CHAPTER IX. GIUZEL. Uiyra and Cynthia were far from being unkind to the little stranger who had been dropped so tincerimoniously into their midst. Neither of them could have been unkind —actively—to a fly, But in truth they both unconsciously regarded him rather as a (ly—a fly that buzzed clumsily in through some window that should not have been left open, and that must be suffered to remain, however much its presence disturbed and annoyed. But certainly they were not unkind. Quite often Thyra bought him a box of chocolates—possibly with the vague knowledge that flies love sugar; quite often Cynthia offered him a book. One day the latter apologised that the book was a mere Girl's Own Annual.. "But you can really find things to browse 011 in it," she . said. I'm not recommending the cookery or fencv-work articles, of course, but that stamp collecting series is quite good. And look, I've actually found my old stamp album—you

can have all the stamps in it if you liko." "No thanks," said Owen, "I don't like stamps." And only silently added the reason why. he did not like them,"they have rio wings or legs." "Well," persisted Cjv«(.hia, for indeed his air of dejection had penetrated her for the moment,"there are some articles on pressed seaweed in it. You might liko those—l remember I used to bo mad 011 collecting seaweed when I was your age, and we used to go to the Isle of Wight for tho holdays." A faint spark of interest showed in tho lad's eyo. < "Have you got your collection?" ho asked. But, no—Cynthia had to shako her head at this. Not yet did he know her mother, tho moment anything was discarded at Bishop's Place, Alice seized, it. You found it later in the Orphans' Homo, or tho Old Men's Retreat, or tho Village Lending Library. Many a time the Bishop's wife salved her conscience that sometimes pricked her reason of the multiplicity of her possessions, by hastily giving away the thirds for which her family seemed to have no further use. Besides, it helped to preserve that role of .austere dignity that gave tho house its subtle charm; none of the rooms were littered with outgrown or misfit belongings. The things that Thyra and Cynthia had owned in the past days were now scattered over the entire diocese. But the home field now made poor gleaning for another child. "I wish," said Cynthia, still uncomfortable at "tho fly's" dull aspect, "that Grizel had not hidden her keys. She has lots of things you might like. Come to think of it, 1 gave her a Boys' Own Annual myself last Christmas, and Thyra gave her the First and Second Jungle Books. You've read those, of course?" Of course he had not. As if a desperately poor child is able to come by expensive volumes like Boys' Own Annuals and Jungle Books! He shook bis head Ho did not even know that he had missed anything. "1 suppose Grizel's book cases are all locked?" persisted Cynthia ;"vou've tried them all, 1 expect, long before this?" He shook his head. " Let's go and have another try," said the girl, and laid down her sowing and jumped un from her seat and crossed the room to the door. "Coino on," she added a trifle impatiently, seeing that ho still stood listlessly where he had been standing. He followed her obediently up the truly beautiful staircase and along to the fifth door of the corridor. So this was Grizel's room. Not yet had he set a foot over its threshhold. Aunt Alice had said to him, or at least hinted to him—that Grizel's things must be respected; that it would be a cruel thing if tho thing's by which she set such store

were broken or defaced by rough little boys while she was away at boarding school. He had never done more than cast a porfectly uninterested glance in as lie passed if the door happened to be open. Grizel's "things," he had no doubt whatever, would bo profoundly dull, things like the half-embroidered crepe de chine nightgowns or luncheon sets in "Richelieu work," or the knitted silk jumpers, or the crochet petticoats for orphan children which seemed to constitute the "things" to which Thyra and Cynthia devoted their leisure. He had never had the faintest inclination to go into Grizel's room and rampage among her "things." Aunt Alice need not have cautioned him. "Locked. Yes—every one of them," Cynthia said, trying door after door of a series of shallow glass-fronted cupboards that stretched across one end of the good-sized room. "Little monkey." "She needn't have," Owen said gruffly. I don't want to touch her old things." "Oh, good gracious, my dear boy, they're not locked up from you!" said Cynthia. "They're locked from Mother, so that she 'can't get to them, and tidy them, and give things away while Grizel's at school." For the first moment in the three months he had been at Bishop's Place Owen was pricked to a faint interest in Grizel. It would seem that she, too, had her troubles. "Did you ever see anything so funny as her cupboards?" Cynthia went 011. 'We havo an aunt who sends us five pounds each for a Christmas box, and last Christmas Grizol wouldn't tell any of us what she was geting with hers. At last one day a cart came to the door with all these glass-doored cupboards piled up in it.. There had been an auction salo in a confectioner's \shop down in town, and it seemed Grizel had got wind of it, and had attended it and bid for the things. She said she had had her eye on them for a long time, and had never bought sixpennyworth of chocolate thero without longing for the cupboards to keep her things in. She had had to bid ten pounds before they were knocked down to her, and she came flying homo to borrow from father the five pounds she would be sure to get from Aunt Margaret next Christmas. I shall never forget the look on the little monkey's face after she had arranged all her things in it and locked it. She held the key op and said : " There! Now, mother, I'll go to school for you if you like." The«point of light that had come into Owen's eyes seemed to spread; he looked almost animated. He pressed close up to tho glass cases. But then the bell -rang-—rang three times; twice closo together, and once after a pause. There was no doubt about the matter.

" I'll have to go," said Cynthia, a delicious happiness lighting up her blue eyes. " Yes, 1 wish she had not taken the keys. Yon see, she has several Boys' Own Annuals you could have borrowed. But I must go—l—wasn't that the bell ? It is probably a visitor." But Owen was looking at her quito imploringly. " While you're talking to Mr. Perdnau could t stay here, Cynthia ?" he said. " I don't want any aft'noon tea." " There aro muffins," Cynthia was muttering, " but none of the little angel cakes in the cake-ch.cst." She was at the door—cupboards, Grizel, troublesome (lies all swept out of her mind. She was going lightly along the corridor—she was meeting Izzard at the top of the stairs, Izzard come in search of her. She was saying things of greatest importance to him —in the blue tin behind the proper cake-chest thero were little angel cakes —little round white cakes, Izzard, put away. Let him get them out—and be sure to put them on the new doiley with raised flowers, that was in the left-hand top drawer of bis pantry. Owen realised that there was nothing in the world that he might not now do if ho listed. He firmly closed the door of Grizel's room, himself inside it. The room held a bed—but then one never as much as glanced at a bed, except to wish that as soon as sleeping requirements were over it could bo bundled out of the way to make room ( for cupboards. It held a wardrobe, with a plateglass mirror; ono barely glanced I at a wardrobe with a plateglass mirror, either, unless, indeed, there were extraneous drawers sub or super-imposed. But perhaps to any other eye than a schoolboy's the contents of this wardrobe might have been found a little, just a little, pathetic. For there hung the shortfrocks, " not wanted on the voyage " that rather sad school voyage which severs a child from the parents' immediate careLittle blue and pink and white and scarlet frocks, either too fine or not fino enough .for the requirements of a finishing school that had its own dress ideals. Thero was a wash-stand, with its corollary, a dressing-table. But Owen's eyes concerned themselves alone with the glass-fronted cupboards that had once furnished a cake and coniectionory shop. ' How often had he himself dreamed of tlio possession of such cupboards! Shelves and shelves and shelves running in orderly rows, protected by glass from dust, and from worse than dust, from the eternally moving fingers ■of women and children. Odd that for the last year or two the most actively pressing desire of his life had been for an undisturbed place for his finds —a place where lie might lay one beside the other, and sit in front of them and silently note, with his little microscope, faint shades of difference. (To be continued on Saturday no.rt.)