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قراءة كتاب A Dog with a Bad Name
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temper. A child in arms, if he knew the way, could get a rise out of Cad Jeffreys, and in these dull times that was something to be thankful for.
Forrester was perhaps the most expert of Jeffreys’ enemies. He worried the Cad not so much out of spite as because it amused him, and, like the nimble matador, he kept well out of reach of the bull all the time he was firing shots at him.
“Hullo, Jeff!” he called out, as the Cad approached. “Are you going to play in the match on Saturday?”
“No,” said Jeffreys.
“You’re not? Haven’t you got any old clothes to play in?”
Jeffreys’ brow darkened. He glanced down at his own shabby garments, and then at Scarfe’s neat suit.
“I’ve got flannels,” he said.
“Flannels! Why don’t you play, then? Do you think you won’t look well in flannels? He would, wouldn’t he, Scarfe?”
“I don’t see how he could look better than he does now,” replied Scarfe, looking at the figure before him. Then noticing the black looks on his enemy’s face, he added—
“Forrester and I were having a little practice at kicking, Jeff. You may as well join us, whether you play in the match or not.”
“Why, are you going to play?” asked Jeffreys, not heeding the invitation. “Frampton has no right to make us do it.”
“Why not? He’s head-master. Besides, you can get a doctor’s certificate if you like.”
“No, I can’t; I’m not ill.”
“Then you’ll have to play, of course. Everybody will, 
and you’d better come and practise with us now. Do you know how to play?”
“Of course I do,” said Jeffreys, “I’ve played at home.”
“All serene. Have a shot at the goal, then.”
The Cad’s experience of football at home must have been of a humble description, for his attempt at a kick now was a terrible fiasco. He missed the ball completely, and, losing his balance at the same time, fell heavily to the ground.
“Bravo!” cried Forrester, “I wish I’d learnt football at home; I couldn’t do that to save my life.”
“I slipped,” said Jeffreys, rising slowly to his feet, and flushing crimson.
“Did you?” said the irreverent youth. “I thought it was part of the play. Stand out of the way, though, while I take a shot.”
Before, however, Jeffreys could step aside, a neat and, for a wonder, accurate drop-kick from Forrester sent the ball violently against the side of the unwieldy senior’s head, knocking off his hat and nearly precipitating him a second time to the earth.
The storm fairly burst now. As the fleet-footed junior darted past him the other struck out wildly; but missing his blow, he seized the ball and gave a furious kick in the direction of the retreating enemy.
It was a fine drop-kick, and soared far over the head of its intended victim, straight between the goal posts, an undoubted and brilliant goal.
Forrester stopped his retreat to applaud, and Scarfe scornfully joined. “Awfully good,” said he; “you certainly must play on Saturday. We’ve nobody can kick like that.”
“I meant it to hit Forrester,” said Jeffreys, panting with his effort, and his lips nearly white with excitement.
“Would you like another shot?” called out the young gentleman in question.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, losing your temper like that,” said Scarfe bitterly. “Couldn’t you see he hit you by accident?”
“He did it on purpose,” said Jeffreys savagely.
“Nonsense. He was aiming at the goal and missed. You did the same thing yourself, only you aimed at him.”
“I wish I had hit him!” growled Jeffreys, glaring first at Scarfe, than at Forrester, and finally shambling off the ground.
“There’s a nice amiable lamb,” said Forrester, as he watched the retreating figure. “I’m sometimes half ashamed to bait him, he does get into such tantrums. But it’s awfully tempting.”
“You’d better keep out of his way the rest of the day,” said Scarfe.
“Oh, bless you, he’ll have worked it off in half an hour. What do you bet I don’t get him to do my Latin prose for me this afternoon?”
Forrester knew his man; and that afternoon, as if nothing had happened, the junior sat in the Cad’s study, eating some of the Cad’s bread and jam while the Cad wrote out the junior’s exercise for him.
Chapter Two.
A Football Tragedy.
The two days’ grace which Mr Frampton had almost reluctantly allowed before putting into execution his new rule of compulsory athletics told very much in his favour.
Bolsover, after the first shock, grew used to the idea and even resigned. After all, it would be a variety, and things were precious dull as they were. As to making a rule of it, that was absurd, and Frampton could hardly be serious when he talked of doing so. But on Saturday, if it was fine, and they felt in the humour—well, they would see about it.
With which condescending resolution they returned to their loafings and novels and secret cigarettes, and tried to forget all about Mr Frampton.
But Mr Frampton had no idea of being forgotten. He had the schoolmaster’s virtue of enthusiasm, but he lacked the schoolmaster’s virtue of patience. He hated the dry-rot like poison, and could not rest till he had ripped up every board and rafter that harboured it.
Any ordinary reformer would have been satisfied with the week’s work he had already accomplished. But Mr Frampton added yet another blow at the very heart of the dry-rot before the week was out.
On the day before the football match Bolsover was staggered, and, so to speak, struck all of a heap by the announcement that in future the school tuck-shop would be closed until after the dinner hour!
Fellows stared at one another with a sickly, incredulous smile when they first heard the grim announcement and wondered whether, after all, the new head-master was an escaped lunatic. A few gifted with more presence of mind than others bethought them of visiting the shop and of dispelling the hideous nightmare by optical demonstration.
Alas! the shutters were up. Mother Partridge was not at the receipt of custom, but instead, written in the bold, square hand of Mr Frampton himself, there confronted them the truculent notice, “The shop will for the future be open only before breakfast and after dinner.”
“Brutal!” gasped Farfield, as he read it. “Does he mean to starve us as well as drown us?”
“Hard lines for poor old Mother Partridge,” suggested Scarfe.
This cry took. There was somehow a lurking sense of shame which made it difficult for Bolsover to rise in arms on account of the injury done to itself. Money had been wasted, appetites had been lost, digestions had been ruined in that shop, and they knew it.
If you had put the question to any one of the boys who crowded down, hungry after their bath, to breakfast on the day of the football match, he would have told you that Frampton was as great a brute as ever, and that it was a big shame to make fellows play whether they liked it or not. For all that, he would tell you, he was going to play, much as he hated it, to avoid a row. And if you had pressed him further he would have confided to you that it was expected the School would beat the Sixth, and that he rather hoped, as he must play, he would get a chance at the ball before the match was over. From all which you might gather that Bolsover was reluctantly coming round to take an interest in the event.
“Fortune favours the brave,” said Mr Steele, one of his assistants, to the head-master at dinner-time. “You have conquered before you have struck, mighty Caesar.”
Mr Frampton smiled. He was flushed and