The art of blackmail ...

Skip Ruggles of Study No. 4 at Felgate school considers himself an artist and makes a drawing. It’s of his form-master in cap and gown, brandishing a cane, and another figure bending over a desk. Skip has added the words in large capital letters OLD DONKEY CHARNE IN A WACKS.

A fellow pupil Edgar Reece gets hold of the drawing and hides it in his own study intending to use it in a blackmail attempt. Later, as the boys are changing into their kits for a football match ...

“Is Reece here?”

It was a sharp voice in the doorway. Every fellow in the changing-room looked round, startled. Why Mr. Charne, master of the Fourth, had come there, they had no idea – still less, why his expressive countenance was like a thundercloud.

“Here, sir!” said Reece.

Mr. Charne strode into the changing-room, with a crumpled paper in his left hand, a cane in his right, and on his brows, a frown compared with which the frightful, fearful, frantic frown of the Lord High Executioner might have seemed almost a smile.

“Reece!”

“Yes, sir!” faltered Reece. What was the matter with Charne he could not guess: but clearly he was the object of Charne’s wrath. And seldom, or never, had Charne been seen to look so wrathy. His pin-point eyes fairly glittered at Reece. Something, whatever it was, had evidently stirred his deepest ire. The whole crowd gazed on in uneasy silence.

“How dare you, Reece?” It came like thunder.

“What – what have I done, sir?” gasped the bewildered Reece.

“What have you done?” repeated Charne. “You have dared to caricature your form-master – you have dared to add an impertinent, an insulting, inscription to your impudent caricature – you have done this!”

He held up the crumpled paper in his left hand. Most of the juniors wondered what it was. It was Skip’s picture.

“This morning, Reece ....” the thunder rolled on. “This morning I caned you for having cigarettes in your possession. This afternoon, I decided to examine your study, Reece, and ascertain whether more were to be found there ...”

“None at all, sir!” gasped Reece, “I – I assure you, sir ...”

“Silence! I searched your study, Reece. I did not find cigarettes, as I fully expected to do. But I found – this!” Charne brandished the crumpled sheet, and Reece goggled at it. He had hidden that work of art with sedulous care, lest Skip’s chums should look for it. He had folded it, wrapped it in a handkerchief, stuffed it into the pocket of an old blazer, and crammed the blazer into a drawer of his desk, under a heap of papers. Charne, searching for cigarettes, had evidently been very thorough in his search. Charne was the man to leave no stone unturned. He had found no smokes. But he had found a disrespectful caricature of himself, with the happy inscription “OLD DONKEY CHARNE IN A WAX”. It was no wonder that he was going off at the deep end.

“Oh!” gasped Reece, “That – that’s not mine, sir.”

“What?” Charne fairly roared. “How dare you, Reece? This was in your desk – it was wrapped in a handkerchief bearing your initials – in the pocket of a blazer with your name on it! Not another word! Bend over and touch your toes, Reece.”

“But, sir, I – I – I ...” Reece babbled. “I – I – it wasn’t – I never ...”

“Bend over this instant.”

“But – but – but – I.”

“BEND OVER!”

Reece wished that he had not been in such a hurry to change. Football shorts were a poor defence against a swiping cane. Tom King and Dick Warren exchanged a look, as that cane rose and fell. The other fellows stared on. Whop! whop! whop! whop! whop! whop!

Six, as a rule, was the limit. But Charne was too deeply incensed, too intensely exasperated, to think about limits. The cane still rose and fell.

Whop! whop! whop! whop! whop! whop!

Luckily for Reece, Charne stopped when he had made it a dozen. He looked like going on. However, he stopped.

“Let that be a warning to you, Reece!” he thundered. And crumpling that work of art in his hand, and putting the cane under his arm, Charne strode out of the changing room.

 

Extracted from The Upper Hand, by Frank Richards,  Raymond Glendenning Book of Sport 1960. Available to download free-of-charge here.

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