The Gold Bat | Page 7

"is Sir Eustace Briggs."
"Who's Sir Eustace Briggs?"
O'Hara explained, in a rich brogue, that Sir Eustace was Mayor of
Wrykyn, a keen politician, and a hater of the Irish nation, judging by
his letters and speeches.
They went into Trevor's study. Clowes was occupying the window in
his usual manner.
"Hullo, O'Hara," he said, "there is an air of quiet satisfaction about you
that seems to show that you've been ragging Dexter. Have you?"
"Oh, that was only this morning at breakfast. The best rag was in
French," replied O'Hara, who then proceeded to explain in detail the
methods he had employed to embitter the existence of the hapless
Gallic exile with whom he had come in contact. It was that gentleman's

custom to sit on a certain desk while conducting the lesson. This desk
chanced to be O'Hara's. On the principle that a man may do what he
likes with his own, he had entered the room privily in the dinner-hour,
and removed the screws from his desk, with the result that for the first
half-hour of the lesson the class had been occupied in excavating M.
Gandinois from the ruins. That gentleman's first act on regaining his
equilibrium had been to send O'Hara out of the room, and O'Hara, who
had foreseen this emergency, had spent a very pleasant half-hour in the
passage with some mixed chocolates and a copy of Mr Hornung's
Amateur Cracksman. It was his notion of a cheerful and instructive
French lesson.
"What were you talking about when you came in?" asked Clowes.
"Who's been slanging Ireland, O'Hara?"
"The man Briggs."
"What are you going to do about it? Aren't you going to take any
steps?"
"Is it steps?" said O'Hara, warmly, "and haven't we----"
He stopped.
"Well?"
"Ye know," he said, seriously, "ye mustn't let it go any further. I shall
get sacked if it's found out. An' so will Moriarty, too."
"Why?" asked Trevor, looking up from the tea-pot he was filling, "what
on earth have you been doing?"
"Wouldn't it be rather a cheery idea," suggested Clowes, "if you began
at the beginning."
"Well, ye see," O'Hara began, "it was this way. The first I heard of it
was from Dexter. He was trying to score off me as usual, an' he said,
'Have ye seen the paper this morning, O'Hara?' I said, no, I had not.

Then he said, 'Ah,' he said, 'ye should look at it. There's something
there that ye'll find interesting.' I said, 'Yes, sir?' in me respectful way.
'Yes,' said he, 'the Irish members have been making their customary
disturbances in the House. Why is it, O'Hara,' he said, 'that Irishmen are
always thrusting themselves forward and making disturbances for
purposes of self-advertisement?' 'Why, indeed, sir?' said I, not knowing
what else to say, and after that the conversation ceased."
"Go on," said Clowes.
"After breakfast Moriarty came to me with a paper, and showed me
what they had been saying about the Irish. There was a letter from the
man Briggs on the subject. 'A very sensible and temperate letter from
Sir Eustace Briggs', they called it, but bedad! if that was a temperate
letter, I should like to know what an intemperate one is. Well, we read
it through, and Moriarty said to me, 'Can we let this stay as it is?' And I
said, 'No. We can't.' 'Well,' said Moriarty to me, 'what are we to do
about it? I should like to tar and feather the man,' he said. 'We can't do
that,' I said, 'but why not tar and feather his statue?' I said. So we
thought we would. Ye know where the statue is, I suppose? It's in the
recreation ground just across the river."
"I know the place," said Clowes. "Go on. This is ripping. I always
knew you were pretty mad, but this sounds as if it were going to beat
all previous records."
"Have ye seen the baths this term," continued O'Hara, "since they
shifted Dexter's house into them? The beds are in two long rows along
each wall. Moriarty's and mine are the last two at the end farthest from
the door."
"Just under the gallery," said Trevor. "I see."
"That's it. Well, at half-past ten sharp every night Dexter sees that we're
all in, locks the door, and goes off to sleep at the Old Man's, and we
don't see him again till breakfast. He turns the gas off from outside. At
half-past seven the next morning, Smith"--Smith was one of the school
porters--"unlocks the door and calls us, and we go over to the Hall to

breakfast."
"Well?"
"Well, directly everybody was asleep last night--it wasn't till after one,
as there was a rag on--Moriarty and I got up, dressed, and climbed up
into the gallery.