#1. The Pothunter & Other School Stories — P.G.Wodehouse

The Audience Seat

An English summer — basking in the shade of a tree that lies on the periphery of a cricket ground, and being a lazy spectator of a cricket match. The hostel lies on the other side of the ground. When the match is over, you travel with these kids to their hostel rooms, and listen to their conversations about a variety of topics — the new kids on the block, the poetry competition, the exams or the upcoming sports events. You may help yourselves with some biscuits while you do so. Or occasionally cycle to the countryside on a warm Saturday afternoon.

Excerpts

• The Pothunters — When Reade refuses to answer Barrett’s name at roll-call.

“Barrett did not know what to make of it. Curiosity urged him to ask for explanations. Dignity threw cold water on such a scheme. In the end dignity had the best of it.”

• Tales of St Austin’s

The Prize Poem

“Some quarter of a century before the period of which this story deals, a certain rich and misanthropic man was seized with a bright idea for perpetuating his memory after death, and at the same time harassing a certain section of mankind. So in his will he set aside a portion of his income to be spent on an annual prize for the best poem submitted by a member of the Sixth Form of St.Austin’s college, on a subject to be selected by the Headmaster. And, he added-one hears him chuckling to himself-every member of the form must compete. Then he died.”

Work

Scene: A Study

Dramatis Personae: Smith, Conscience, Mephistopheles

Enter Smith

He seats himself and opens a Thucydides.

Enter Conscience through ceiling and Mephistopheles through floor.

Conscience (with a kindly smile): Precisely what I was about to remark, my dear lad. A little Thucydides would be a very good thing. Thucydides, as you doubless know, was a very famous Athenian historian. Date?

Smith: Er-um-let me see.

Meph(Aside): Look in the introduction and pretend you did it by accident.

Smith (Having done so): 431 BC.

Conscience wipes away a tear.

Notes

Those notes, also, which are, alas! only too common nowadays, that deal with peculiarities of grammar, how supremely repulsive they are! It is impossible to glean any sense from them, as the Editor mixes up Nipperwick’s view with Sidgeley’s reasoning and Spreckendzedeutscheim’s surmise with Donnerrundblitzendorf’s conjecture in a way that seems to argue a thorough unsoundness of mind and morals, a cynical insanity combined with a blatant indecency.

He occasionally starts in a decent manner by giving one view as (1) and the next view as (2). So far everyone is happy and satisfied. The trouble commences when he has occasion to refer back to some former view, when he will say: ‘Thus we see (1) and (14) that’,etc. The unlucky student puts a finger on the page to keep the place, and hunts up view one. Having found this, and marked the spot with another finger, he proceeds to look up view fourteen. He places another finger on this, and reads on, as follows: ‘Zmpe, however maintains that Schrumpff (see 3) is practically insane, that Spleckzh (see 34) is only a little better, and that Rswkg (see 97 a (b) c3) is so far from being right that his view may be dismissed as readily as those of Xkryt (see 5x).’ At this point brain-fever sets in, the victim’s last coherent thought being a passionate wish for more fingers.