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Updated: June 22, 2025
He was playing a fifty up against a friendly but unskilful farmer at the 'Cow and Cornflower'. 'Better look out, he said, as his opponent effected a somewhat rustic stroke, 'you'll be cutting the cloth in a second. The farmer grunted, missed by inches, and retired, leaving the red ball in the jaws of the pocket, and Farnie with three to make to win.
If you'll pay me back four quid at the end of term, you shall have the two pounds. How does that strike you? It struck Farnie, as it would have struck most people, that if this was Monk's idea of strict business, there were the makings of no ordinary financier in him. But to get his two pounds he would have agreed to anything. And the end of term seemed a long way off.
'Right-ho! said Farnie cheerfully, and silence, broken only by the shrieking of the cab wheels, brooded once more over the cab. Then Gethryn, feeling that perhaps it would be a shame to jump too severely on a new boy on his first day at a large public school, began to think of something conciliatory to say. 'Look here, he said, 'you'll get on all right at Beckford, I expect.
Neither Monk nor Danvers was in his confidence in the matter. Billiards is not a cheap amusement. By the end of his sixth week Farnie was reduced to a single pound, a sum which, for one of his tastes, was practically poverty. And just at the moment when he was least able to bear up against it, Fate dealt him one of its nastiest blows.
Constant absence was likely in time to lead to a more or less thrilling interview with the captain of cricket, but a very occasional attendance was enough to stave off this disaster; and as for the sixpence, to a man of means like Farnie it was a mere nothing. It was a bad system, and it was a wonder, under the circumstances, how Beckford produced the elevens it did.
'I told you so, said Farnie to the cabman. 'You are a bally swindler, he added admiringly. 'Look 'ere, began the cabman, in a pained voice. 'Oh, dry up, said Farnie. 'Want a lift, Gethryn? The words were spoken not so much as from equal to equal as in a tone of airy patronage which made the Bishop's blood boil.
'Oh, I say, Norris, began Wilson nervously, 'can I speak to you for a minute? 'All right. Go ahead. After two false starts, Wilson at last managed to get the thread of his story. He did not mention Marriott's remarks on football subjects, but confined himself to the story of Farnie and the bicycle ride, as he had heard it from Gethryn on the second evening of the term.
Either he must expose Farnie, which he had resolved not to do, or he must refuse to explain his absence from the M.C.C. match, for by now there was not the smallest chance of his being able to get back in time for the visitors' innings. As he rode on he tried to imagine what would happen in consequence of that desertion, and he could not do it.
I worked off those schools in a year and a half. Having finished this piece of autobiography, he relapsed into silence, leaving Gethryn to recollect various tales he had heard of his grandfather's eccentricity. The silence lasted until the College was reached, when the matron took charge of Farnie, and Gethryn went off to tell Marriott of these strange happenings.
As for Farnie, he returned to the junior day-room whistling 'Down South' in a soft but cheerful key, and solidified his growing popularity with doles of food from a hamper which he had brought with him. In short, Farnie's first evening at Beckford had been quite a triumph. Estimating it roughly, it takes a new boy at a public school about a week to find his legs and shed his skin of newness.
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