The White FeatherWodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
General
The White Feather
Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Children's stories; Schools -- Fiction
Bruce had been perfectly correct in his suspicions. Stanning's wrist
was no more sprained than his ankle. The advisability of manufacturing
an injury had come home to him very vividly on the Saturday morning
following the Ripton match, when he had read the brief report of that
painful episode in that week's number of the _Field_ in the school
library. In the list of the Ripton team appeared the name R. Peteiro.
He had heard a great deal about the dusky Riptonian when Drummond had
beaten him in the Feather-Weights the year before. Drummond had
returned from Aldershot on that occasion cheerful, but in an extremely
battered condition. His appearance as he limped about the field on
Sports Day had been heroic, and, in addition, a fine advertisement for
the punishing powers of the Ripton champion. It is true that at least
one of his injuries had been the work of a Pauline whom he had met in
the opening bout; but the great majority were presents from Ripton, and
Drummond had described the dusky one, in no uncertain terms, as a holy
terror.
These things had sunk into Stanning's mind. It had been generally
understood at Wrykyn that Peteiro had left school at Christmas. When
Stanning, through his study of the _Field_, discovered that the
redoubtable boxer had been one of the team against which he had played
at Ripton, and realised that, owing to Drummond's illness, it would
fall to him, if he won the House Competition, to meet this man of wrath
at Aldershot, he resolved on the instant that the most persuasive of
wild horses should not draw him to that military centre on the day of
the Public Schools Competition. The difficulty was that he particularly
wished to win the House Cup. Then it occurred to him that he could
combine the two things--win the competition and get injured while doing
so.
Accordingly, two days after the House Boxing he was observed to issue
from Appleby's with his left arm slung in a first fifteen scarf. He was
too astute to injure his right wrist. What happens to one's left wrist
at school is one's own private business. When one injures one's right
arm, and so incapacitates oneself for form work, the authorities begin
to make awkward investigations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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