The Clean HeartHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Science
The Clean Heart
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Authors -- Fiction; Happiness -- Fiction
Woe is Cupper! Cupper, for appreciation of this astounding sequel,
must be followed as, hand to face, from assistant-master to
Headmaster bellowing he goes. Blindly the stricken Cupper charges
through the study door, slips on the mat, and blindly charges
headlong into Mr. Pennyquick.
Then is the explosion that comes muffled to the listening schoolroom.
First Cupper, shot head first into Mr. Pennyquick's waistcoat, knows
that his head is lavishly anointed with strongly smelling medicine
which Mr. Pennyquick is pouring into a tumbler from a very large
medicine bottle labelled "Three Star (old);" next that his unwounded
cheek and ear have suffered an earthquake compared with which that
received by their fellows from Mr. Wriford was in the nature of a
caress; next that with a bottle and a broken glass he is rolling on
the floor; then, most horrible of all, that Mr. Pennyquick is
springing round the room bellowing: "WHERE CANE? WHERE CANE? WHERE
CANE?"
There is then a pandemonic struggle between Mr. Pennyquick, a
cupboard, a cataract of heterogeneous articles which pour out of it
upon him, and a bashful cane which refuses to emerge; and there is
finally on the part of Master Cupper a ghastly realisation of his
personal concern in this terrifying struggle and the part for which
he is cast on its termination. Invigorated thereby, up springs
Master Cupper, bawling, and plunges for the door, and simultaneously
out comes the cane, and on comes Mr. Pennyquick, bawling, and plunges
after him. Master Cupper takes three appalling cuts of the cane in
the embarrassment of getting through the doorway, two at each turn of
the passages, a shower in the death-trap offered by the open
playground, and comes galloping, a hand to each side of his face,
into the shuddering schoolroom, bawling: "Save me! Save me!" and
leading by the length of the cane Mr. Pennyquick, with flaming face
and streaming gown, who cuts at him with bellows of: "FLOG you! FLOG
you!"
The circuit of the schoolroom is thrice described with incredible
activity on the part of Cupper, and with enormous havoc of boys,
books, forms, and blackboards on the part of Mr. Pennyquick. The air
is filled with dust, impregnated with Three Star (old). Finally, and
with an exceeding bitter cry, Master Cupper hurls himself beneath a
desk where Mr. Pennyquick first ineffectually slashes at him, then
thrusts at him as with a bayonet, and then, to the great horror of
all, turns his attention to the room in general. Up and down the
rows of desks charges Mr. Pennyquick, hacking at crouching boys with
immense dexterity, right and left, forehand and backhand, as a
trooper among infantry; bellows "WORK UP! WORK UP!" with each slash,
and with a final cut and thrust at a boy endeavouring to conceal
himself behind a large wall map, and a final roar of "WORK UP!"
disappears in a whirlwind of streaming gown and flashing cane.
II
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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