Magnet ‘Greyfriars Herald’ special flogging edition 2. How to face a flogging

There are several ways in which you can face a flogging. You can walk to the scaffold with a firm gate, so to speak; or you can be dragged there, shrilly protesting, by a couple of prefects. You can go to your fate with a cheery grin, or a face as long as a fiddle. You can squeal for mercy, or you can take your gruel with a stiff upper lip. – The second extract from the Greyfriars Herald special flogging edition: read online or download free-of-charge here.

How to face a flogging

By Billy Bunter

There are several ways in which you can face a flogging.

You can walk to the scaffold with a firm gate, so to speak; or you can be dragged there, shrilly protesting, by a couple of prefects. You can go to your fate with a cheery grin, or a face as long as a fiddle. You can squeal for mercy, or you can take your gruel with a stiff upper lip.

Whichever of these courses you adopt the result is the same. You’ve got to take the flogging.

Now, I am a fellow of very wide experience, so far as floggings are concerned.

On consulting my diary I find that in the course of my school career I have been publicly flogged seventy times, and privately flogged eighty-four times (I am not including any odd lickings I might receive in the Remove Form room.)

Let me say at once that a flogging has no terrors for me. I am what you might call a stoic. That is to say, I face all floggings with iron fortitude.

Let others squirm and squeal! Let others ball and bellow! Let others howl and holler! W. G. Bunter will always walk to his doom with an upright carriage, and croon to Gosling the porter, in dulcet tones.

“Take me on your shoulder, daddy, dear!”

Some fellows in the Remove Form are physical cowards. They have no courage.

Take Skinner, for instance. If Skinner is called upon to face a public flogging his face will turn pale as death, and his knees will knock together with fright. And when the birch comes down he fairly raises the roof with his screams.

Now, if any of my readers happen to be nervous of floggings, let them take their cue from me! Let them see how boldly I walk towards the platform where the Head and his birch are waiting for me. Let them mark my steady gate, and my fearless eyes.

A little will-power is all you need. Say to yourself, just before the birch comes down, “Not a murmur of pain shall escape my lips! I will be brave. I will be a Bunter!

When the ordeal is over, you can flick your fingers in the Head’s face as a sign of contempt. (I’ve never done this myself by the way; but I should like someone else to do it, just to see how the experiment works!) 

For more extracts from the Greyfriars Herald Special Flogging Number, click here

For more extracts from comics and story papers, click here

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