Boys -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Schools -- Fiction
Morrant slept in the same dormitory with Fowle, and that night the whole
room was woke up at some very late hour by the sound of Morrant taxing
Fowle. Fowle took a long time to realize what was being said, and when
he was awake enough to realize what Morrant was getting at, he showed
tremendous indignation, and asked what he had ever done that such a
charge should be brought against him, especially at such a time. He
reminded Morrant that they were of the same way of thinking in holy
affairs, and said he was extremely sick with Morrant, and thought
Morrant’s religion must be pretty rocky if it allowed him to wake a chap
up in the night and charge him with such a crime. In fact, Fowle went on
so that Morrant finally apologized rather humbly.
From that day forward began the extraordinary disappearance of coin in
general at Dunston’s. Shillings constantly went, and also half-crowns.
Gideon got very excited about it, and said watches must be kept and
traps set. There was evidently a big robbery going on, and Gideon said
if the chaps weren’t smart enough to catch the thief they deserved to
lose their tin. Certainly he never lost a penny himself. But, despite
tremendous precautions, money kept going in small sums. Ferrars was set
to watch in the pavilion, I remember, during a football match, and
Morrant himself, and even Butler once or twice, also watched. Some chaps
thought it was the ground-man; but as money also disappeared at school,
that showed it couldn’t be him. And then there was a theory that it
might be a charwoman who came from Merivale twice a week. I believe she
was a very good charwoman of her kind, and Ferrars, who is great about
helping the poor and so on, told me she was a very deserving woman with
a husband at home who drank, and children too numerous to mention. Which
Gideon remembered against the charwoman when the money began to go, and
it turned his suspicion towards her, because, as he said, with the state
of her home affairs, money must be a great temptation. So a watch was
set on her, and a curious thing happened.
Being small, I can get into a boot cupboard very easily, and I can also
breathe anywhere through a hole bored with a gimlet. This was done to
the door of the boot cupboard, and two other rather larger holes were
also made for my eyes. Mrs. Gouger, which was the charwoman’s name, had
to do a lot of work in this room--a large one leading out of the gym.
And there, on a certain half-holiday, I was watching her.
She worked jolly hard as far as I could say, and made a good deal of
dust, and a curious noise through her teeth when she scrubbed, which I
thought only men did when they washed horses; but there was nothing
suspicious, if you understand me. She didn’t touch a coat or anything,
though many were hanging against a wall; and the few caps about she
merely picked up and hung on the pegs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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