English fiction -- 20th century; English poetry -- 20th century; Short stories, English; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
The first Big Side Paper-chase, in blinding wet, was as vile as even
the groaning and bemired Beetle had prophesied. But Dick Four had
managed to run his own line when it skirted Bideford, and turned up at
the Lavatories half an hour late cherishing a movable tumour beneath
his sweater.
“Ingle-go-jang!” he chanted, and slipped out a warm but coy
land-tortoise.
“My Sacred Hat!” cried Stalky. “Brer Terrapin! Where you catchee? What
you makee-do _aveck_?”
This was Stalky’s notion of how they talked in _Uncle Remus_; and he
spake no other tongue for weeks.
“I don’t know yet; but I had to get him. ’Man with a barrow full of ’em
in Bridge Street. ’Gave me my choice for a bob. Leave him alone, you
owl! He won’t swim where you’ve been washing your filthy self! ‘_I_’m
right at home, my joy, my joy.’” Dick’s nose shone like Bardolph’s as
he bubbled in the bath.
Just before tea-time, he, “Pussy,” and Tertius broke in upon Number
Five, processionally, singing:
“Ingle-go-jang, my joy, my joy!
Ingle-go-jang, my joy!
I’m right at home, my joy, my joy!
Ingle-go-jang, my joy.”
Brer Terrapin, painted _or_ and _sable_--King’s House-colours--swung by
a neatly contrived belly-band from the end of a broken jumping-pole.
They thought rather well of taking him in to tea. They called at one or
two studies on the way, and were warmly welcomed; but when they reached
the still shut doors of the dining-hall (Richards, ex-Petty Officer, R.
N., was always unpunctual--but they needn’t have called him “Stinking
Jim”) the whole school shouted approval. After the meal, Brer Terrapin
was borne the round of the form-rooms from Number One to Number Twelve,
in an unbroken roar of homage.
“To-morrow,” Dick Four announced, “we’ll sacrifice to him. Fags in
blazin’ paper-baskets!” and with thundering “Ingle-go-jangs” the Idol
retired to its shrine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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