I

I remember the very evening he came to Merivale. “Nubby” Tomkins had a cold on his chest, so Mathers and I stopped in from the half-hour “kick-about” in the playground before tea, being chums of Nubby’s. Whenever he gets a cold on the chest he thinks he is going to die, and this evening, sitting by the fire in the Fifth’s class-room, he roasted chestnuts for Mathers and me, and took a very gloomy view of his future life.

“As you know,” he said, “I hate being out of doors excepting when I can lie about in hay. And to make me go out walking in all weathers, as they do here, is simply murder. I know what’ll be the end of it. I shall get bacilluses or microbes into some important part of me, and die. It’s like those books the Doctor reads to the kids on Sundays, with choir-boys in them. The little brutes sing like angels, and their voices go echoing to the top of cathedrals, and make people blub about in the pews. Then they get microbes on the chest, and kick. You know the only thing I can do is to sing; and I shall die as sure as mud.”

Nubby was a corker at singing. He had all the solos in the chapel to himself, and people came miles to hear him.

“You won’t die,” said Mathers. “You don’t give your money away to the poor, or help blind people across roads, and all that. Your voice’ll crack, and you’ll live.”

“I wish it would,” said Nubby; “I should feel a lot safer.”

“Mine,” continued Mathers, “cracked when my mustache came.”

We looked at him as he patted it. Mathers was going next term. He had more mustache than, at least, two of the under-masters, and once he let Nubby stroke it, and Nubby said he could feel it distinctly under the hand.

“That’s what’s done it with M.,” said Nubby, looking at Mathers and opening another gloomy subject.

Mathers got redder, and began peeling a chestnut.

“I wish I was as certain as you,” he said.

“None of us can be certain,” I said; “but if your voice did go, Nubbs, you’d be out of the hunt for one.”

“I am,” declared Nubby. “Last time I had a cold in the throat she sent me a little bunch of grapes by Jane, and a packet of black currant lozenges; but this time, though the attack is on my chest, and I may die, she hasn’t sent a thing.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t know.”

“She does. I met her going into the library yesterday, and I doubled up and barked like a dog, and she never even said she was sorry. It lies between you two chaps now.”

“I believe you are going strongest just at present,” said Mathers, critically, to me. “You came off last Wednesday and kicked two goals on your own, and she said afterwards to Browne that she never saw you play a bigger game. Then that little beast--Browne, I mean--sniggered, and made that noise in his throat, like a sprung bat, and said he was quite glad he hadn’t kept you in. That’s how he shows M. what a gulf there is even between the Fifth and masters.”

“The bigger the gulf the better,” I said. “It would be rough on a decent worm to put it second to Browne. In my opinion even a Double-First would be nothing if he wore salmon-colored ties and elastic-sided boots; and Browne isn’t a Double-First by long chalks. He can only teach the kids, and his desk is well known to be crammed with cribs of every kind.”

In the matter of M., I may say at once that she was Milly, Doctor Denham’s youngest daughter--twelve and a half, fair, blue eyes, and jolly difficult to please. Somehow the Fifth always drew her most. The Sixth were feeble beggars at that time. Two of the ten wore spectacles, and one was going out to Africa as a missionary, and used to treat the Fifth’s class-room as a sort of training-ground for preaching and doing good. He was called Fulcher, and the spirit was willing in him, but the flesh was flabby. We used to assegai him with stumps, and pretend to scalp him and boil him and eat him. He said he should glory in martyrdom really; and Nubbs, who knows a good deal about eating, used to write recipes for cooking Fulcher, and post them to imaginary African kings. But I should think that to be merely eaten is not martyrdom, properly speaking. If it is, then everything we eat, down to periwinkles, must be martyrs; which is absurd, like Euclid says.

Well, it got to be a settled idea at Merivale that M. cared, in a sort of vague way, for either Nubby, or Mathers, or me, or all of us. The situation was too uncertain for anything like real jealousy among us; besides, we were chums, and had no objection to going shares in M.’s regard. At football Mathers and I fought like demons for Merivale and for M.’s good word; but any impression we might make was generally swept away in chapel by Nubby when Sunday came. He could sing, mind you. It was like cold water down your spine, and all from printed music. Besides, he could be ill, which gave him a pull over Mathers and me, who couldn’t. To look at, Nubby was nothing. He had big limbs, but they were soft as sausages. If you punched him he didn’t bruise yellow and afterwards black, but merely turned red and then white again. Mathers, besides being captain of the First Footer eleven, had nigger hair, that girls always go dotty about, and black eyes, and pretty nearly as much mustache as eyebrow. As for me, my biceps were the biggest in the lower school, which isn’t much, of course; but things like that tell with a girl.

Then it was that conversation turned on Steggles. He was a new boy, due that afternoon. Hardly had the name passed my lips when the door opened, and the Doctor’s head appeared. The next moment a chap followed him.

“Ah! there are some of the fellows by the fire,” said the Doctor. “Is that you, Tomkins? But I needn’t ask.”

“Yes, sir,” said Nubby, rising.

“You are ill-advised, Tomkins, to spend the greater part of your leisure sitting, as you do, almost upon the hob. A constitutional weakness is thereby increased. This is Steggles. You will have time for a little conversation before tea.”

The Doctor disappeared, and Steggles came slowly down the room with his hands in his pockets. There was nothing to indicate a new boy about him. He had red rims to his eyes and a spot or two on his face, chiefly near his nose and on his forehead; his hair was sandy, and he wore a gold watch-chain.

“You’re called Steggles, aren’t you?” said Nubby, who was an awfully civil chap in his manners.

“I am.”

“Well, I hope you’ll like Merivale.”

“Do you?”

“All right in summer-time when there’s hay. Hate it when I’m ill, which I am now.”

“What can you do?” asked Mathers in his abrupt way.

“I can draw,” said Steggles.

“What?”

“Devils.”

“Do one,” said Mathers.

He got a piece of Cambridge demi and a pen and ink. Then Steggles, evidently anxious to please, sat down, and did as good a devil as ever I saw. Nubby and I were greatly pleased.

“What else can you do?” said Mathers, as if such a power to draw devils wasn’t as much as you could expect from one chap.

“I can smoke.”

“Cigarettes? So can anybody.”

“No; a pipe.”

“Oh! where did you learn that?”

“At Harrow.”

Then Steggles started like a guilty thing and put his hand over his mouth--too late. A rumor we had heard was proved true.

“It would have been sure to get out, and I don’t care who knows it, for that matter,” said Steggles, defiantly. “I had to leave there because I didn’t know enough, and couldn’t get up higher in the school. I’m rather backward through not being properly taught. The teaching at Harrow’s simply cruel. Not but what I’ve taught myself a thing or two, mind you. I’m fifteen.”

He looked at us out of his red-rimmed eyes, and put me in mind of a ferret I’ve got at home. He might have been any age up to twenty, I thought.

“Can you play anything?” asked Mathers.

“The piano.”

Mathers shivered and Nubby grew excited.

“So can I. We’ll do duets,” he said.

“If you like,” said Steggles.

Then the tea-bell rang.

II

Whole books might be written about Steggles at Merivale. I heard Thompson say, after he had been there a week, that it wasn’t what he didn’t know had rendered it necessary for Steggles to leave Harrow, but what he did know. Certainly he had a great deal of general information about rum things. He got newspapers by post concerning sporting matters; he knew an immense deal about dogs and horses; and Nubbs, who was a judge, said his piano-playing surpassed his devil-drawing for sheer brilliance. Yet, with all these accomplishments, he only managed to get into the Fourth. As to his smoking, it was certainly wonderful. And he ate things afterwards to hide the smell. He had a genius for wriggling out of rows and for getting them up between other fellows. He loved to look on at fighting and knew all the proper rules. On the whole he was rather a beast, and, if it hadn’t been for Nubby, Mathers and I should have barred him. But all I’m going to tell about now is the hideous discovery of Steggles and M., and the thing that happened on the day of the match with Buckland Grammar School.

M. had been very queer for a fortnight--queer, I mean, with all three of us--which was unusual. Then, seeing how the cat had taken to jumping, I tackled her one morning going through the hall to the Doctor’s study.

“How d’you like Steggles?” I said.

“Very well. He’s clever,” she said.

“He’s fifteen,” I said; “he ought to know something if he’s ever going to. He’s only in the Fourth, anyway.”

“You’re jealous and so is Mathers,” she said.

“Jealous of a chap with ferret-eyes! Not likely,” I said.

“You are, though.”

“Not more than Nubbs and Mathers, anyway,” I said. “It’s off with the old friends and on with the new, I suppose.”

“Steggles knows how to treat a girl. You might learn manners from him, and so might the others,” she said.

“And also the piano, perhaps?”

“He plays beautifully.”

“Have you seen him play football?”

“No.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Football isn’t everything.”

“No, not since he came; I’ve noticed that.”

This bitter speech stung M., and her eyes jolly well flashed sparks.

“Nor singing either,” I went on. “Nubbs nearly burst himself last Sunday in chapel; and all the time you were watching Steggles making a rabbit with his pocket-handkerchief.”

“I’ll thank you not to interest yourself in me any more,” she said, “either in chapel or out of it.”

“All right. I dare say I shall still live,” I said. “Does that remark apply equally to Mathers and Nubby, or only to me?”

“To Mathers, yes,” she said. “He’s as bad as you are. Not to Nubbs.”

Then she went.

Well, there it stood. When I told them Mathers seemed to think I needn’t have dragged him in, and Nubbs got clean above himself with hope, not seeing that he was really just as much out of it as us. Of course we chucked Steggles for good and all then, and told him what we thought of him. That was when he said something about only the brave deserving the fair, and Mathers made him sit down in a puddle for cheeking him in the playground. Steggles’s eyes looked like one of his own devils while he sat there, but he took it jolly quietly at the time. That got Nubby’s wool off though, because he supported Steggles, and things were, in fact, rather difficult all round till the day of the Buckland Grammar School match. Buckland was two miles from Merivale, and most of the team went by train; but Mathers and I, the day being fine, decided to walk; and at the last moment Nubbs asked if he might come with Steggles.

Out of consideration for Nubby we agreed, and the four of us started on a fine bright afternoon just after dinner. Mathers and I had our football things on, of course; Nubbs was dressed in his usual style, and Steggles, who used to get himself up tremendously on half-holidays, wore yellow spats over his boots, and a sort of white thing under his waistcoat, and gloves. We had rather more than half an hour’s walk before us, and hardly were we out of sight of Merivale when Steggles pulled out his pipe and lighted it.

III

The artfulness of Steggles properly begins here. He knew several things we didn’t. He knew, for instance, that M. was coming to the football match, that she was going to ride her bicycle over on the road by which we walked, that only the day before he had quarrelled with her, and that his position with regard to her was at that hour most risky. All these things Steggles well knew, and we didn’t. So he lighted his pipe with an air of long practice. The smell was fine, and he smacked his lips now and then.

“Nice pouch?” he said, handing me a velveteen pouch with his initials on it in green silk.

“I’ll bet a girl did that,” said Mathers.

“It’s a secret,” said Steggles, smiling to himself.

Then he asked very civily if we would care to join him, explaining that he generally kept a few spare pipes about him for friends.

“I would if it wasn’t for the match,” said Mathers.

“So would I,” I said.

“Well, my baccy might turn you fellows up. Perhaps you are wise,” declared Steggles, puffing away. Then he tried Nubby with a little cherry-wood pipe, and Nubbs thought a whiff or two wouldn’t hurt him and began rather nervously, but gathered courage as he went on.

“I heard my father say once that life without tobacco would be hell,” said Steggles; “and I agree with him.”

“So do I; it’s very soothing,” said Nubby.

Then Mathers burst out. He had been sulking ever since Steggles hinted that the contents of his velveteen pouch were too strong for us.

“If you think I funk your tobacco you’re wrong,” Mathers said. “I’ve smoked three parts of a cigar before to-day.”

“A chocolate one, perhaps?” said Steggles, but in such a humble, inquiring voice that Mathers couldn’t hit him.

“No, a tobacco one; and if you’ve got another pipe I’ll show you.”

“So will I,” I chimed in. Mathers’s lead was always good enough for me.

Steggles immediately lugged out two more pipes. He seemed to be stuffed with them.

“Get it well alight at the start,” he explained, handing a fusee.

“All right, all right, I know,” said Mathers. Soon we were at it like four chimneys, and Steggles praised us in such a way that we could take no offence.

“You’ve all smoked many a time and oft, I can see that,” he said.

Mathers spat about a good deal, and fancied tobacco was probably a fine steadier for the nerves before a football match; and Nubbs said he thought so too; and he also thought that after a little smoking one didn’t want to talk, but ought just to keep quiet and think of interesting things.

“It widens the mind,” said Steggles.

We tramped on rather silently for ten minutes till Nubbs spoke again. To our surprise his hopeful tone had changed, and we found he had turned a sort of putty-color, with blue lips. He said:

“I’ll overtake you fellows. I think I’ve got--I’ve got a bit of a sunstroke or something. It’ll pass off, no doubt.”

“Better not smoke any more,” said Steggles.

“It isn’t that, but I won’t, all the same. I’ll just dodge through that hole in the hedge and find some wild strawberries or hazel-nuts, or something.”

Seeing it was a frosty day in December Nubby’s statements looked wild. But he went. There was a hole in the hedge, with tree-roots trailing across it, and Nubbs crawled shakily through, like a wounded rabbit, into a place where a board was stuck up saying that people would be prosecuted according to law if they went there. But he didn’t seem to care, though it wasn’t a thing he would have done in cold blood. I saw Mathers grow uneasy in his mind.

“Wasn’t the pipe--eh?”

“No, no. This tobacco--why, a child could smoke it,” said Steggles. “You know what Nubbs is. It’s only an excuse to turn. He hates football and hates walking.”

We kept on again, and I began to feel a slight perspiration on my forehead and a weird sort of feeling everywhere. I had smoked about half the pipe.

“I sha’n’t go on with this now because of the match,” I said, hastily knocking out the remaining tobacco and handing his loathsome little clay back to Steggles.

“Why!” he said, “blessed if you haven’t gone the same color as Nubbs did! Don’t say you’ve got a sunstroke too?”

There was something in the voice of Steggles I didn’t much like, but I hardly felt equal to answering him then.

“You’re all right, anyway, aren’t you, Mathers?” he asked.

“Of course I am. What the dickens d’ you mean?”

“Nothing. Glad you like my baccy. There’s plenty of time for another pipe.”

“No there isn’t,” said Mathers. “I very much wish there was.”

We walked on a few yards farther.

“D’ you drink that rich, brown cod-liver oil, the same as Nubby?” asked Steggles of Mathers, suddenly. Mathers looked at him, and I knew how things were in a moment. For a moment my own sufferings were forgotten before the awful spectacle of the ruin of Mathers. He gave his pipe back quietly, took great gasps of air, mopped his forehead, and rolled his eyes about. Then he said:

“I’m not quite happy about Nubbs. You push on, and I’ll overtake you.”

“Hanged if you’re not queer too!” exclaimed Steggles. “Whoever would have thought that Three Castles--”

“Shut up,” said Mathers, hoarsely. “It was the boi--boiled beef at dinner.”

He spoke the words with an awful effort.

“So it was,” I said, feebly. “We never could stand it--either of us.”

“A steaming glass of hot grog is what you want,” said Steggles, sympathetically.

“Go!” gasped Mathers, who really looked horrid now; “go! or I’ll kick you, if it kills me to do it.”

“Blessed if you haven’t turned green, Mathers,” said Steggles. “You look as if you’d been buried and dug up again. I don’t say it unkindly, but it’s jolly curious.”

At the same moment ting! ting! went a bicycle bell; and there was Milly, looking fine.

“You’ll all be late,” she said.

We prayed she would hurry on and not observe us too narrowly. Then that beast, Steggles, made her stop.

“Look here,” he said, “it’s frightfully serious because of the match--these poor chaps are ill--just cast your eye at the colors they’ve gone. They worried me to let them try to smoke, and--”

“I’ll break your neck for this!” interrupted Mathers. Then he turned to M.

“If you’re a lady, if you ever cared an atom about us, please ride on round that corner. We’re ill--can’t you see it?”

“Yes, I can--anybody could. I’m sorry. But you won’t hurt Steggles if I go?” said M.

“No; I promise. Say we’re on the road and shall be there in ten--ten-- Go!”

M. took the hint and rode off, with Steggles frisking beside her, like the dog he was.

“Thank the Lord!” said Mathers. Then horrid things happened both to him and me.

We crawled to the match more dead than alive and found a crowd waiting, and Browne and several of the other masters. We were fully twenty minutes late. “This is very unsportsmanlike, the days being so short too!” Browne squeaked. Then we took off our coats and tottered into the field of play.

Of course Buckland Grammar School won. Our side would have done a long way better without us. I couldn’t take a pass or shoot for the life of me--it occupied all my time wrestling with nature, let alone the Bucklanders. And Mathers, who played back, was worse. The roughs “guyed” him, and asked him what he’d been drinking. If they’d asked him what he’d been smoking there might have been some sense in it. He told me afterwards that he often saw three footballs at one time when he tried to kick, and sometimes four, and the ball he kicked always turned out to be an apparition. Bradwell kept goal grandly too; but it was no good with Mathers like that, and he utterly ruined Ashby Major, the other back.

Nubbs had gone to bed when we got back, and the matron, knowing Nubbs had a tricky system, sent for Doctor Barnes. Nubbs, therefore, gave himself away.

M. never looked at any of us again, and she and Steggles undoubtedly became frightful pals; but the next term, just before Easter, I had the pleasure of writing a fine letter to Mathers, who had left Merivale, and was reading for six months with a private tutor before going to Cambridge. This is part of the letter:

“Dear Mathers,” I wrote, “you will be interested to know that Browne has come down on Steggles at last. I fancy Browne knew the Doctor was fairly sick of Steggles and wanted to be rid of him. In fact, I heard the Doctor call Steggles a canker-worm myself. Anyway, Browne blew up on the smoking, and Steggles will soon probably vanish, like the dew upon the fleece. M. cried a bit, I fancy, when she heard it, but Nubbs says she smiled at him two mornings afterwards coming out of chapel. Nubbs expects to crack (his voice) any day, but he hopes to get a definite understanding with M. before it happens. It’ll be too late after. Of course she never looks at me. She told Steggles, and he told me, that she could not possibly care for a person she had once seen the hue of a Liberty Art Fabric--meaning me. I scragged Steggles after he told me. But it is all over now. I believe he is to go into his father’s business--Steggles & Stote, Wine Merchants. M. is more beautiful than ever, though I’m afraid she’s got a bad disposition. To reflect on a fellow’s color at such a time as that was a bit rough.”