Transcriber’s Note: This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Please consult the note at the end of this text for a discussion of any textual issues encountered in its preparation. THE HUMAN BOY BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS AUTHOR OF “CHILDREN OF THE MIST” “FOLLY AND FRESH AIR” ETC. [Illustration] HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON 1900 TO PHILLPOTTS “MINOR” AS A TRIFLING TRIBUTE OF FRATERNAL REGARD AND IN GREEN AND GRATEFUL MEMORY OF OUR HAPPY BOYHOOD CONTENTS PAGE THE ARTFULNESS OF STEGGLES 1 THE PROTEST OF THE WING DORMITORY 23 “FRECKLES” AND “FRENCHY” 47 CONCERNING CORKEY MINIMUS 69 THE PIEBALD RAT 94 BROWNE, BRADWELL, AND ME 115 GIDEON’S FRONT TOOTH 133 THE CHEMISTRY CLASS 150 DOCTOR DUNSTON’S HOWLER 171 MORRANT’S HALF-SOV 202 THE BUCKENEERS 226 The Human Boy The Artfulness of Steggles I I remember the very evening he came to Merivale. “Nubby” Tomkins had a cold on his chest, so Mathers and I stopped in from the half-hour “kick-about” in the playground before tea, being chums of Nubby’s. Whenever he gets a cold on the chest he thinks he is going to die, and this evening, sitting by the fire in the Fifth’s class-room, he roasted chestnuts for Mathers and me, and took a very gloomy view of his future life. “As you know,” he said, “I hate being out of doors excepting when I can lie about in hay. And to make me go out walking in all weathers, as they do here, is simply murder. I know what’ll be the end of it. I shall get bacilluses or microbes into some important part of me, and die. It’s like those books the Doctor reads to the kids on Sundays, with choir-boys in them. The little brutes sing like angels, and their voices go echoing to the top of cathedrals, and make people blub about in the pews. Then they get microbes on the chest, and kick. You know the only thing I can do is to sing; and I shall die as sure as mud.”