Still William (24 page)

Mr Evelyn Courtnay, who was now lying at full length on the floor trying to look beneath the low sofa, felt suddenly something soft and warm and furry and purring rub itself hard against his
face. He sprang up with a yell and leapt upon the grand piano.

‘The brute!’ he screamed. ‘The brute! It
touched
me.’

The episode seemed to have driven him into a state closely bordering on lunacy.

William’s cat purred ingratiatingly at the foot of the grand piano.

‘CATCH THE MOUSE,’ SCREAMED MISS FELICIA. ‘GET DOWN AND CATCH THAT MOUSE.

‘Catch the mouse!’ screamed Miss Felicia Courtnay. ‘Get down and catch the mouse!’

‘I can’t while that brute’s in the room,’ screamed Mr Evelyn Courtnay from the grand piano. ‘I can’t – I tell you. I can’t bear ’em. It
touched
me!’

MR EVELYN COURTNAY SPRANG UP WITH A YELL AND LEAPT UPON THE GRAND PIANO. ‘THE BRUTE TOUCHED ME!’ HE SHOUTED.

‘You
coward
! I’m going to faint in a minute.’

‘So am I, I tell you. I can’t get down. It’s looking at me.’

‘I shall never forget this –
never
! You
brute
– you – you –
tyrant
—’

‘I shan’t either. Go away, you nasty beast, go
away
!’

At that moment two things happened. The mouse put its little whiskered head out of its retreat to reconnoitre and Terence, determined to make friends with this new and strange acquaintance,
leapt upon the grand piano on to the very top of Mr Evelyn Courtnay. Two screams rent the air – one a fine soprano, one a fine tenor.

‘I can see it. Oh, this will
kill
me!’

‘Get
down
, you brute. Get
down
!’

At this critical moment William entered like a deus ex machina. He swooped down upon the mouse before it realised what was happening, caught it by its tail and dropped it through the open
window. Then he picked up Terence and did the same with him. Miss Felicia Courtnay, tearful and trembling, descended from her chair and literally fell upon William’s neck.

‘Oh you
brave
boy!’ she sobbed. ‘You
brave
boy! What
should
I have done without you?’

‘I happened to see you through the window trying to catch the mouse,’ said William, looking at her with an inscrutable expression and wide innocent eyes, ‘an’ I
di’n’ want to disturb you by comin’ in myself so I just put the cat in an’ when I saw that wasn’t no good I jus’ come in myself.’

Mr Evelyn Courtnay had descended hastily from his grand piano and was smoothing his hair with both hands and glaring at William.

‘Thank the dear little boy, Evelyn,’ said Miss Felicia giving her nephew a cold glance. ‘I don’t know what I should have done without his protection. He practically saved
my life.’

Mr Evelyn Courtnay glared still more ferociously at William and muttered threateningly.

‘A little child rushing in where grown men fear to tread,’ misquoted Miss Felicia sententiously, still beaming fondly at William. ‘He must certainly stay to dinner after
that.’

Mr Evelyn Courtnay, to his fury, had to provide William with a large meal to which William did full justice, munching in silence except when Miss Felicia’s remarks demanded an answer. Miss
Felicia ignored her nephew and talked with fond and grateful affection to William only. It was William who volunteered the information that her nephew taught him science.

‘I hope he’s kind to you,’ said Miss Felicia.

William gave her a pathetic glance like one who wishes to avoid a dark and painful subject.

‘I – I expect he means to be,’ he said sadly.

William departed immediately after dinner. He seldom risked an anticlimax. He possessed the artistic instinct. Mr Evelyn Courtnay accompanied him to the door.

‘No need to talk of this, my boy,’ said Mr Courtnay with elaborate nonchalance.

William made no answer.

‘And no need to do those lines,’ said Mr Courtnay.

‘Thank you,’ said William. ‘Good night.’

He walked briskly down the road. He’d enjoyed the evening. Its only draw back was that he could never tell anyone about it. For William, with all his faults, was a sportsman.

But he’d scored! He’d scored! He’d scored!

And Old Stinks was coming back next week!

Unable to restrain his feelings, William turned head over heels in the road.

CHAPTER 13

I
t was William who bought the horn-rimmed spectacles. He bought them for sixpence from a boy who had bought them for a shilling from a boy to whose
dead aunt’s cousin’s grandfather they had belonged.

William was intensely proud of them. He wore them in school all the morning. They made everything look vague and blurred, but he bore that inconvenience gladly for the sake of the prestige they
lent him.

Ginger borrowed them for the afternoon and got all his sums wrong because he could not see the figures, but that was a trifling matter compared with the joy of wearing horn-rimmed spectacles.
Douglas bagged them for the next day and Henry for the day after that. William had many humble requests for the loan of them from other boys which he coldly refused. The horn-rimmed spectacles were
to be the badge of superiority of the Outlaws.

On the third day one of the masters who discovered that the horn-rimmed spectacles were the common property of William and his boon companions and were, optically speaking, unnecessary, forbade
their future appearance in school. The Outlaws then wore them in turn on the way to school and between lessons.

‘My father,’ said Douglas proudly, as he and William and Ginger strolled through the village together, ‘ ’s got a pair of spectacles an’s gotter wear ’em
always
.’

‘Not like these,’ objected William who was wearing the horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Not great thick ’uns like these.’

‘Well, anyway,’ said Ginger. ‘I’ve gotter aunt what’s got false teeth.’

‘That’s nothin’,’ said William. ‘False teeth isn’t like spectacles. They look just like ornery teeth. You can’t
see
they’re false
teeth.’

‘No, but you can
hear
’em,’ said Ginger. ‘They tick.’

‘Well, anyway,’ said Douglas, ‘my cousin knows a man what’s gotter false eye. It stays still while the other looks about.’

‘Well,’ said William determined not to be outdone, ‘my father knows a man what’s gotter false leg.’

‘I think I remember once hearin’,’ said Ginger somewhat vaguely, ‘ ’bout a man with all false arms an’ legs an’ only his body real.’

‘That’s nothin’,’ said William giving rein to his glorious imagination. ‘I once heard of a man with a false body an’ only legs an’ arms reel.’

His companions’ united yell of derision intimated to him that he had overstepped the bounds of credulity, and, adjusting his horn-rimmed spectacles with a careless flourish, he continued
unperturbed: ‘Or I might have dreamed about him. I don’
quite
remember which.’

‘I bet you
dreamed
about him,’ said Ginger indignantly. ‘I bet it isn’t
possible
. How’d his stomach work ’f he hadn’t gotter real
one?’

‘An’ I bet it
is
possible,’ said William stoutly. ‘It’d work with machinery an’ wheels an’ springs an’ things same as a clock works
an’ he’d hafter wind it up every mornin’.’

The other Outlaws were impressed by William’s tone of certainty.

‘Well,’ said Ginger guardedly, ‘I don’ say it isn’t
possible
. I only say it isn’t
prob’le.’

The vast knowledge of the resources of the English language displayed by this remark vaguely depressed the others, and they dropped the subject hastily.

‘I can walk like a man with a false leg,’ said William, and he began to walk along, swinging one stiff leg with a flourish.

‘Well, I can click my teeth ’s if they was false,’ said Ginger, and proceeded to bite the air vigorously.

‘I bet I can look ’s if I had a glass eye,’ said Douglas, making valiant if unsuccessful efforts to keep one eye still and roll the other.

They walked on in silence, each of them wholly and frowningly absorbed in his task, William limping stiffly, Ginger clicking valiantly, and Douglas rolling his eyes.

A little short-sighted man who met them stopped still and stared in amazement.

‘Dear me!’ he said.

‘I’ve gotter false leg,’ William condescended to explain, ‘and
he
,’ indicating Douglas, ‘ ’s gotter glass eye, an’
he’s
got
false teeth.’

‘Dear me!’ gasped the little old man. ‘How very extraordinary!’

They left him staring after them . . .

Douglas, wildly cross-eyed, set off at the turning to his home. He was labouring under the delusion that he had at last acquired the knack of keeping one eye still while he rolled the other,
though William and Ginger informed him repeatedly that he was mistaken.

‘They’re
both
movin’.’

‘They’re
not
, I tell you. One’s keepin’ still. I can feel it keepin’ still.’

‘Well, we can
see
it, can’t we? We oughter know.’

‘I don’ care what you can
see
. I know what I
do
, don’ I? It’s
my
eye an’ I move it an’
I
oughter be able to tell when I’m
not
movin’ it . . . So
there
!’

He rolled both eyes at them fiercely as he departed.

William and Ginger went on together, stumping and clicking with great determination. Suddenly they both stopped.

On the footpath just outside a door that opened straight on to the street, stood a bath-chair. In it were a rug and a scarf.

‘Here’s my bath-chair,’ said William. ‘ ’S tirin’ walkin’ like this with a false leg all the time.’

He sat down in the chair with such a jerk that his hornrimmed spectacles fell off. Though it was somewhat of a relief to see the world clearly, he missed the air of distinction that he imagined
they imparted to him and, picking them up, adjusted them carefully on his nose. The sensation of being the possessor of both horn-rimmed spectacles and a false leg had been a proud and happy one.
He wrapped the rug around his knees.

‘You’d better push me a bit,’ he said to Ginger. ‘ ’S not tirin’ havin’ false teeth. You oughter be the one to push.’

But Ginger, unlike William, was not quite lost in his rple.

‘It’s not our bath-chair. Someone’ll be comin’ out an’ makin’ a fuss if we start playin’ with it. Besides,’ with some indignation, ‘how
d’you know havin’ false teeth isn’t tirin’? Ever tried ’em? An’ let me
tell
you clickin’
is
tirin’. It’s makin’ my jaws
ache somethin’ terrible.’

‘Oh, come on!’ said William impatiently. ‘Do stop talkin’ about your false teeth. Anyway it couldn’t rest your
jaws
ridin’ in a
chair
, could it?
A
chair
couldn’t rest your jaw
or
your teeth, could it? Well, it
could
rest my false leg an’, anyway, we’ll only go a bit an’ whosever it is won’t
miss it before we bring it back, an’ anyway I don’t suppose they mind lendin’ it to help a pore ole man with a false leg an’ another with false teeth.’

‘Not much helpin’
me
pushin’
you
!’ said Ginger bitterly.

‘Your false teeth seems to be makin’ you very grumpy!’ said William severely. ‘Oh, come on! They’ll be comin’ out soon.’

Ginger began to push the bath-chair at first reluctantly, but finally warmed to his task. He tore along at a breakneck speed. William’s face was wreathed in blissful smiles. He held the
precious horn-rimmed spectacles in place with one hand and with the other clutched on to the side of the bath-chair, which swayed wildly as Ginger pursued his lightning and uneven way. They stopped
for breath at the end of the street.

‘You’re a jolly good pusher!’ said William.

Praise from William was rare. Ginger, in spite of his breathlessness, looked pleased.

‘Oh, that’s nothin’,’ he said modestly. ‘I could do it ten times as fast as that. I’m a bit tired of false teeth though. I’m goin’ to stop
clickin’ for a bit.’