The Elderbrook Brothers by Gerald Bullet

the earth? To what end or purpose? You don’t know? Come, come. That’s not possible, my boy. Such ignorance in a member of the Upper Fifth is inconceivable. Perhaps you consider the question too elementary to be worth your answering? Perhaps you disdain us, eh?’
    Felix tried again. ‘An imaginary line running round the earth, dividing the surface of the earth into two hemispheres.’
    â€˜Correct, but … Clifford, did I hear you prompting Elderbrook?’
    â€˜I don’t think so, sir.’
    â€˜Don’t prevaricate, sir. Either you did or you did not.’
    â€˜Excuse me, sir. I understood you to ask whether you heard me doing so, not whether I did so.’
    â€˜That piece of impudence will cost you an imposition, Clifford.’
    â€˜Thank you, sir. May I ask a question, sir?’ Clifford put up his hand, ceremonial preamble to asking a question. ‘Will you please tell us
why
the earth has to be divided into two hemispheres? I mean, sir, it’s awfully decent of the equator to take so much trouble. But will you tell us why?’
    The door of the classroom opened and a diversion was created by the entry of Mr Plover the drawing master. It was Mr Fletton’s whim always to refer to this colleague as ‘Mr Plover’, but the man himself was innocent of any such affectation: his Plover rhymed with glover. A long, lackadaisical, soft-speaking young man, he did not at all suggest or resemble the bird his namesake; and because he was unmagisterial his hour was one of the more welcome sessions of the week. Today he came carrying a soup basin which he had borrowed from the headmaster’s kitchen, and into this basin, from a bulging pocket, he heaped up a pyramid of acorns.
    â€˜There you are,’ he said. ‘There’s your model. See what you can make of it, double life-size.’ A hand shot up among the audience. ‘Yes, Dilston?’
    â€˜Please, sir! The prep!’
    After a pause for startled reflection Mr Plover said: ‘You’re quite right, Dilston. I left the books in the Common Room. Run along and fetch them, there’s a good chap.’
    The books in question were the drawing-books in which the active members of Mr Plover’s class had by his command drawn pictures ‘out of their own heads’ on the subject of the long summer vacation, just past. This for the day-boys was ‘homework’ and for the boarders ‘prep’.
    While the books were being fetched Clifford and Elderbrook went on with the interminable desultory conversation which Mr Fletton delighted to interrupt. A question that lightly engaged them was whether or not they should start a homemade magazine in rivalry with the official one. They would call it, Clifford said, The Gadfly, or perhaps The Wasp. Or perhaps it would be more fun to call it something solemn: the question was which would give the most annoyance to that awful little swot Prynne who, nominally, under the nose of authority, edited the
St Swithins Magazine
. Clifford seemed more concerned about the title of his journal than about what he should put in it: given the title, the rest would see to itself. But he did give a glance to the contents. ‘What will
you
dofor our mag?’ he asked Felix. ‘Tell you what, you do the serial.’ Turning to a new page of the exercise book in front of him he declaimed as he wrote the words down: ‘The Cruise of the So-and-So. Magnificent serial by F. Elderbrook.’ Felix was flattered by his sudden appointment, but hardly surprised. He thought it would be a good idea to have his serial illustrated by Pemrose, but he hesitated to make the suggestion because for one thing he didn’t know whether Clifford liked Pemrose and for another he was afraid lest Pemrose, given a footing in it, should make the whole enterprise his own and end by writing the serial as well as illustrating it.
    Pemrose was a day-boy and had got to St Swithins