Schoolboy news hound’s impertinent interview with the head

 Extracted from the Greyfriars Herald, the newspaper written and edited by boys at Greyfriars School and inserted in The Magnet, 9 July 1921 (available to download free-of-charge here.)

 

Impertinent Interviews

By Our Special representative

No 2 –The Headmaster (Dr. Locke)

I was about to take forty winks on my study sofa, when the door was thrown open, and a human whirlwind rushed in.

“You lazy slacker!” roared the editor of the Greyfriars Herald – for it was he. “You let me down last week with your ‘copy,’ and I suppose you think you’re going to play the same trick twice over! Well, you’re not! I’ve promised my readers that I shall keep you up to scratch.”

“Oh, help!”

“Yes, you’ll need help by the time I’ve finished with you! Up you get!”

So saying, the beast gripped me by the nape of the neck, and hauled me off the couch.

“I want you to go and interview the Head,” he said.

“The – the Head!” I gasped.

“Certainly!”

“But, he’s unapproachable!”

“Rats! It’ll be quite all right for you to visit him out of school hours. If you’re dubious about bursting into his study without warning, write him a chummy little note, something like this:

“My Dear old Bean – I propose to drop in and have a cup of tea with you this afternoon, also a friendly confab, with a view to describing the interview in the Greyfriars Herald. Shall we say five o’clock, old fruit?”

“Ass,” I snorted. “If I start addressing the Head as ‘old bean’ and ‘old fruit,’ I shall get my nose in a sling!”

The editor shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, you can choose your own method of obtaining the interview,” he said. “And if your article isn’t in my hands by tea-time you’ll be punched, pommelled, and publicly pulverised.

I confess that I had no stomach for the task which the editor had given me.

Interviewing headmasters is a delicate and dangerous operation. Personally, I’d just as soon interview a Bolshy.

But the job had to be done, for Harry Wharton was in grim earnest.

“All serene!” I growled. “You shall have my article in good time.”

“You’ll know what to expect if I don’t!” said the editor.

And he strode out of the study.

As soon as the chief had departed, I looked round for a bottle of resinous substance, which I always keep handy in case of emergency.

It was quite on the cards that the Head would cane me for what he considered my “cheek” in interviewing him, and, like a good scout, I meant to be prepared.

I rubbed the resinous substance into the palms of my hands, and gave a chuckle of satisfaction.

“The Head can lam me as hard as he likes,” I chortled,(but I shall hardly feel it!)”

I then made tracks for Dr. Locke’s study. As I passed along the corridor leading to the sacred apartment, I encountered a flying figure.

Skinner of the Remove swept past me, running at breakneck speed.

“What the thump____” I ejaculated.

But Skinner was gone.

I passed on to the Head’s study. The door as ajar, and I was aware of a great commotion within.

Bang, bang!

Crack, crack, crack!

It seemed as if a number of revolvers were being discharged in the study, and I peeped into the room with a sort of fearful fascination.

The scene which met my gaze was extraordinary.

The floor seemed to be alive with jumping crackers, which were leaping and spurting in all directions.

The crackers weren’t the only things that were jumping. The leaps which the startled Head was making would have turned a champion high-jumper green with envy.

Feverishly clutching the folds of his gown, the Head was prancing to and fro like a cat on hot bricks.

In spite of myself I could not refrain from laughing. I tried to bottle it, but in vain.

“Ha, ha, ha!”

“Boy!” thundered the Head, spinning round.

“Ho, ho, ho!”

“How dare you snigger at my discomfiture! How dare you, moreover, hurl lighted fireworks into my study!”

“Oh, crumbs! I – I_____”

“Such an outrage is altogether without precedent! I shall punish you most severely for this misdemeanour!”

I backed away in alarm.

“I – I wasn’t – I didn’t – I never_____” I faltered.

“Be silent, wretched boy! Step into my study, and I will deal with you as you deserve!”

I now knew, of course, what Skinner had been up to; but the laws of sneaking forbade me from giving him way. Besides, I had the resinous substance rubbed into my palms, so what was there to fear?

Pulling myself together, I stepped boldly into the Head’s study, with a do-your-worst expression on my face.

The last of the jumping crackers had spent itself by now, and the silence in the study was so intense that you could have heard a peppermint drop.

It was broken at length by the Head.

“Never, in the whole of my career, has such an unprovoked and unwarrantable attack been made against my person!” he thundered. “Do you realise, boy, the enormity of your conduct?”

I made no answer.

“I will endeavour to teach you that you cannot play such pranks with impunity!” the Head went on.

And, stepping to his cupboard, he produced a formidable-looking cane.

“Thank goodness I had that bottle of resin handy!” I reflected.

But alas! The resin availed me not, for the Head pointed to a chair, and requested me to place myself in a convenient position over it.

 I bit my lip with vexation, and my knees wobbled with fright.

Why had I not thought of barricading my “bags”?

“Get over!” commanded the Head tersely.

There was no help for it. I “got.”

The cane came down with stinging force, and I displayed my talents as a vocalist. I chanted a wild refrain, the chorus of which went something like this:

“Ow! Yow! Wo-wow-wow! Yarooooooh!”

And it was a very forlorn and dejected special representative who limped into the editor’s sanctum an hour later with his “copy.”

Picture credit: The Gem

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