Old Mole: Being the Surprising Adventures in England of Herbert Jocelyn Beenham, M.A., Sometime Sixth-Form Master at Thrigsby Grammar School in the County of LancasterCannan, Gilbert
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Old Mole: Being the Surprising Adventures in England of Herbert Jocelyn Beenham, M.A., Sometime Sixth-Form Master at Thrigsby Grammar School in the County of Lancaster
Cannan, Gilbert
England -- Fiction; Husband and wife -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Theater -- Fiction
He sat with a glow of satisfaction as he gazed at his hood and
mortar-board and thought of Panoukian. He was pleased with Panoukian.
He had "spotted" him in the Lower Third and rushed him up in two and a
half years to the Sixth. There had been an anxious three years during
which Panoukian had slacked, and taken to smoking, and been caught in
a café flirting (in a school cap) with a waitress, and had been
content with the superficial ease and brilliance with which he had
mastered the Greek and Latin classics and the rudiments of philosophy.
There had been a devastating term when Panoukian had taken to writing
poetry, and then things had gone from bad to worse until he (Beenham)
had lighted on the truth that Panoukian was stale and needed a fresh
point of attack. Then he had Panoukian to stay with him at Bigley and
turned him loose in French literature and, as a side issue, introduced
him to Eckermann's version of Goethe's conversation. The boy was most
keenly responsive to literature, and through these outside studies it
had been possible to lead him back to the realization that Homer,
Thucydides, Plato, Virgil and company had also produced literature and
that their works had only been masquerading as text-books. . . . The
fight was won, and F. J. Tibster of Balliol had written a most
gratifying letter of commendation of Panoukian's performance in the
examination. This had yielded the greatest satisfaction to Panoukian
_père_, and he had twice given Mr. Beenham lunch in the most expensive
restaurant of Thrigsby's new mammoth hotel, and now, when Panoukian
_fils_ was to leave the wing of his preceptor, had bidden him to meet
Mrs. Panoukian--an Irishwoman--and all the Miss Panoukians. The
railway journey from Bigley would be hot and unpleasant, and to reach
Bungsall it was necessary to pass through some of the most stifling
streets in Thrigsby. After the exhaustion of the summer term and the
examinations the schoolmaster found it hard to conquer his reluctance.
Only by thinking of the cool stream in the Highlands to which it was
his habit to fly on the day after Speech Day could he stiffen himself
to the effort of donning his dress clothes. (The Panoukians dressed in
the evening since their Arthur had been embraced by Balliol and taken
to the bosom of the Lady Dervorguilla.) He had a cold bath, and more
than ever clearly he thought of the brown water of the burn foaming
into white and creamy flecks over the rocks. How thoroughly, he
thought, he had this year earned his weeks of peace and solitude.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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