The Politeness of Princes | Page 4

labelled mixed biscuits, which he had noticed in Brodie's locker, was empty.
He thought he would go for a stroll. It would be beastly, of course, but not so beastly as sitting in the junior day-room.
It is just here that the tragedy begins to deepen.
Passing out of Seymour's gate he met Brooke, of Appleby's. Brooke wore an earnest, thoughtful expression.
"Hullo, Brooke," said Chapple, "where are you off to?"
It seemed that Brooke was off to the carpenter's shop. Hence the earnest, thoughtful expression. His mind was wrestling with certain pieces of wood which he proposed to fashion into photograph frames. There was always a steady demand in the school for photograph frames, and the gifted were in the habit of turning here and there an honest penny by means of them.
The artist soul is not always unfavourable to a gallery. Brooke said he didn't mind if Chapple came along, only he wasn't to go rotting about or anything. So Chapple went along.
Arrived at the carpenter's shop, Brooke was soon absorbed in his labours. Chapple watched him for a time with the interest of a brother-worker, for had he not tried to construct handy model steam-engines in his day? Indeed, yes. After a while, however, the _r?le_ of spectator began to pall. He wanted to do something. Wandering round the room he found a chisel, and upon the instant, in direct contravention of the treaty respecting rotting, he sat down and started carving his name on a smooth deal board which looked as if nobody wanted it. The pair worked on in silence, broken only by an occasional hard breath as the toil grew exciting. Chapple's tongue was out and performing mystic evolutions as he carved the letters. He felt inspired.
He was beginning the A when he was brought to earth again by the voice of Brooke.
"You are an idiot," said Brooke, complainingly. "That's my board, and now you've spoilt it."
Spoilt it! Chapple liked that! Spoilt it, if you please, when he had done a beautiful piece of carving on it!
"Well, it can't be helped now," said Brooke, philosophically. "I suppose it's not your fault you're such an ass. Anyhow, come on now. It's struck eight."
"It's what?" gasped Chapple.
"Struck eight. But it doesn't matter. Appleby never minds one being a bit late for breakfast."
"Oh," said Chapple. "Oh, doesn't he!"
* * * * *
Go into Seymour's at eight sharp any morning and look down the table, and you will see the face of G. M. Chapple--obscured every now and then, perhaps, by a coffee cup or a slice of bread and marmalade. He has not been late for three weeks. The spare room is now occupied by Postlethwaite, of the Upper Fourth, whose place in Milton's dormitory has been taken by Chapple. Milton is the head of the house, and stands alone among the house prefects for the strenuousness of his methods in dealing with his dormitory. Nothing in this world is certain, but it is highly improbable that Chapple will be late again. There are swagger-sticks.

SHIELDS' AND THE CRICKET CUP
The house cricket cup at Wrykyn has found itself on some strange mantelpieces in its time. New talent has a way of cropping up in the house matches. Tail-end men hit up fifties, and bowlers who have never taken a wicket before except at the nets go on fifth change, and dismiss first eleven experts with deliveries that bounce twice and shoot. So that nobody is greatly surprised in the ordinary run of things if the cup does not go to the favourites, or even to the second or third favourites. But one likes to draw the line. And Wrykyn drew it at Shields'. And yet, as we shall proceed to show, Shields' once won the cup, and that, too, in a year when Donaldson's had four first eleven men and Dexter's three.
Shields' occupied a unique position at the School. It was an absolutely inconspicuous house. There were other houses that were slack or wild or both, but the worst of these did something. Shields' never did anything. It never seemed to want to do anything. This may have been due in some degree to Mr. Shields. As the housemaster is, so the house is. He was the most inconspicuous master on the staff. He taught a minute form in the junior school, where earnest infants wrestled with somebody's handy book of easy Latin sentences, and depraved infants threw cunningly compounded ink-balls at one another and the ceiling. After school he would range the countryside with a pickle-bottle in search of polly woggles and other big game, which he subsequently transferred to slides and examined through a microscope till an advanced hour of the night. The curious part of the matter was that his house was never riotous. Perhaps he was looked on as