Tell England | Page 9

often expressed a wish that this divergence were
capable of remedy. It involved minor differences. For instance, while
Doe's eyes were brown, mine were blue; and while Doe's hair was very
fair, mine was a tedious drab that had once been gold. Moreover, in
place of my wide mouth, Doe possessed lips that were always parted
like those of a pretty girl. Indeed, if Archie Pennybet was the
handsomest of us three, it is certain that Edgar Gray Doe was the
prettiest.
We came to be discussing our looks this morning, because Pennybet,
having discovered that among other accomplishments he was a fine
ethnologist, was about to determine the race and tribe of each of us by
an examination of our features and colouring.
"I'm a Norman," he decided, and threw himself back on his chair,
putting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, as though that
were a comely Norman attitude, "a pure Norman, but I don't know how
my hair got so dark, and my eyes such a spiffing brown."
"What am I?" I interrupted, as introducing a subject of more immediate
interest.

"You, Ray? Oh, you're a Saxon. Your name's Rupert, you see, and
you've blue eyes and a fair skin, and all that rot."
I was quite satisfied with being a pure Saxon, and left Doe to his
examination.
"What am I?" he eagerly asked, offering his oval face and parted lips
for scrutiny.
"You? Oh, Saxon, with a dash of Southern blood. Brown eyes, you see,
and that sloppy milk-and-coffee skin. And there's a dash of Viking in
you--that's your fair hair. Adulterated Saxon you are."
At this Doe loudly protested that he was a pure Saxon, a perfect
Cornish Saxon from the banks of the Fal.
Penny always discouraged precocious criticism, so he replied:
"I'm not arguing with you, my child."
"_You?_ Who are you?"
Penny let his thumbs go further into his armholes, and assured us with
majestic suavity:
"I? I'm Me."
"No, you're not," snapped Doe. "You're not me. I'm me."
"Well, you're neither of you me," interrupted the third fool in the room.
"I'm me. So sucks!"
"Now you two boys," began our stately patron, "don't you begin
dictating to me. Once and for all, Doe is Doe, Ray is Ray, and I'm Me.
Why, by Jove! Doe-Ray-Me! It's a joke; and I'm a gifted person."
This discovery of the adaptability of our names was so startling that I
exclaimed:

"Good Lord! How mad!"
Penny only shrugged his shoulders, and generally plumed himself on
his little success. And Doe said:
"Has that only just dawned on you?"
"Observe," sneered Penny. "The Gray Doe is jealous. He would like the
fame of having made this fine jest. So he pretends he thought of it long
ago. He bags it."
"Not worth bagging," suggested Doe, who was pulling a lock of his
pale hair over his forehead, and trying with elevated eye-brows to
survey it critically. His feet were resting on a seat in front of him, and
his trousers were well pulled up, so as to show a certain tract of decent
sock. Penny scanned him as though his very appearance were
nauseating.
"Well, why did you bag it?"
"I didn't."
"I say, you're a bit of a liar, aren't you?"
"Well, if I'm a bit of a liar, you're a lot of one."
"My dear little boy," said Penny, with intent to hurt, "we all know the
reputation for lying you had at your last school."
As we had all been at Kensingtowe's Preparatory School together, I was
in a position to know that this was rather wild, and remonstrated with
him.
"I say, that's a bit sticky, isn't it?"
The nobility of my interference impressed me as I made it. Meanwhile
the angry blood mounted to Doe's face, but he carelessly replied:
"You show what a horrible liar you are by your last remark. I never

said your beastly idea was mine; and because you accused me of doing
so, and I said I didn't, you call me a liar: which is a dirty lie, if you like.
But of course one expects lies from you."
"That may be," rejoined Pennybet. "But you know you don't wash."
Doe parried this thrust with a sarcastic acquiescence.
"No, I know I don't--never did--don't believe in washing."
Now Penny was out to hurt. A mere youngster had presumed to argue
and be cheeky with him: and discipline must be maintained. To this end
there must be punishment; and punishment, to be effective, must hurt.
So he adopted a new line, and with his clever strategy strove to enlist
my support by deigning to couple my name with his.
"At any rate," he drawled, "Ray and I don't toady to Radley."
This poisonous little remark requires