Curing the slacker
Ralph Reckness Cardew has defied Tom Merry, the junior captain at St. Tom’s school, and refused to attend games practice. Tom Merry cannot lose face and Cardew must be dealt with.
Now read on ...
It was some time after tea that there was a tramp of feet in the Fourth Form passage that stopped at Study No. 9. The door was thrown open and Tom Merry appeared. Behind him came Lowther, Blake, Talbot and D’Arcy. They were all looking serious. Tom Merry had a cricket-stump under his arm – and Cardew’s eyes glittered as he noticed it.
“Oh, you’re here, Cardew!” said Tom.
“Adsum!” said Cardew, as if he were answering to his
name at calling-over. But no-one smiled.
“You cut games practice today.”
“Guilty, my Lord.”
“Any excuse?”
“None.”
“Very well. The games committee have decided to give
you six. Bend over.”
Cardew rose to his feet, his eyes burning, though he
remained calm. A prefects’ beating would have humiliated the lofty spirit of
Ralph Reckness Cardew; but a beating from a party of juniors was ever so much
more humiliating. He could scarcely believe that Tom was in earnest.
“You hear?” said Tom quietly.
“I hear,” said Cardew mockingly. “But in this jolly
old instance, to hear is not to obey. Might a fellow request you to go and be
funny in some other study?”
“Put out a chair,” said Tom.
“Yaas wathah!”
“We’re sorry for this, Cardew,” said Talbot of the
Shell as he placed a chair in position. “But you’ve asked for it.”
Cardew breathed hard and deep.
“If you’re not satisfied with the line I’m takin’, Tom
Merry, I’m prepared to step into the gym and meet you with or without gloves,”
he said.
“I’ll meet you in the gym any time you please, and
knock some of the conceit out of you,” said Tom Merry calmly. “But just at
present you’re dealing not with me personally, but with the junior captain of
St. Jim’s, and you’re going to have six for failing to turn up for games
practice this afternoon.”
“I fancy not.”
“Put him over the chair!”
Cardew jumped back and put up his hands.
He was promptly collared and bent over the chair in a
suitable position for receiving “six.”
He struggled furiously.
In the passage Trimble’s fat chuckle was heard, and then
his excited shout: “Roll up, you fellows! Cardew’s getting six!”
There was a rush of feet, a buzz of voices and a
ripple of laughter. Cardew’s face burned with shame. He struggled madly in the
grasp of the representatives of the junior games committee, but he was held
face down over the chair in spite of his efforts. he shouted furiously to his
study-mates.
“Levison! Clive! Back me up you rotters!”
Levison and Clive did not stir.
“Back up, you cads!” yelled Cardew.
“You’re getting what you’ve asked for,” said Levison.
“You’re disgracing this study by slacking and frowsting, and that’s enough.
I’ve a jolly good mind to give you the six myself!”
“You rotter!”
Tom Merry handed the stump to Blake.
“Go ahead!”
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Cardew made one more struggle, and then remained
quiescent. The whacks were hefty ones, but no sound of pain came from his
tightly-closed lips.
Whack! Whack! Whack!
The six had been duly delivered, and every one of the
six rang through the study like a pistol-shot and echoed in the passage, where
a crowd of fellows listened.
“That’s done,” said Blake.
Ralph Reckness Cardew was released. He stood up, his
face white and his eyes burning.
Without a word to him Tom Merry & Co. left Study No.9.
Extracted from Cardew The Rebel, by Martin
Clifford (a.k.a Frank
Richards), The Gem, 24 November 1923. Available
to download free-of-charge here.
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