Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale

Billy Bunter’s Benefit
By Frank Richards
“I haven’t seen you swotting over it.”
“Eh? Oh! No! I don’t need to swot, like you do, Peter.” Bunter tapped a
podgy forehead. “Brains, you know! That’s what does it.”
“Oh, my hat!”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“You can cackle,” said Bunter, disdainfully. “Wait till Quelch dishes out
the prize tomorrow! You’re not in it, Peter! Nor you, Linley! You couldn’t do
a paper as good as mine in a dozen lifetimes.”
“Thanks,” said Mark, with a chuckle.
“Well, I asked a fellow who knows, and he said so!” snorted Bunter. “That
prize is as good as in my trousers pocket. Quelch is going through the
papers now, and I don’t fancy he’ll bother much about the rest after
seeing mine. So yah!”
Billy Bunter rolled to an armchair, and deposited his fat person therein.
Evidently Bunter’s confidence was complete, and he regarded the Latin
prize as being as good as in his trousers pocket. The trifling circumstance
that the paper was not his own did not weigh on Bunter’s mind. Indeed, he
had almost forgotten that trifling circumstance by this time. Quelch
couldn’t know that it was Wharton’s paper, so that was all right! That it
was not Wharton’s paper, but had been written two thousand years ago by
P. Vergilius Maro, Bunter was as yet happily unaware. That was a discovery
he had yet to make!
There was a step in the passage. An angular figure appeared in the
doorway of the Rag.
Mr. Quelch looked in.
The buzz of voices and laughter died away. All the juniors in the Rag
looked at Mr. Quelch, and there was sudden silence. Quelch’s face, often
expressive, was extremely expressive now. His brows were knitted in a
frown that could only be described as terrific. Under his knitted brows
his gimlet-eyes glinted. They fairly flashed over the startled crowd in the
Rag.
The juniors waited for the thunder to roll! Evidently something had
happened to rouse Quelch’s deepest ire. They noticed that he had a paper
in his hand, and a cane under his arm. That cane, evidently, had been
brought there for use. They could only wonder who was going to be the
happy victim.
For a moment, Mr. Quelch surveyed the Rag in a dead silence.
Then he spoke.
“Is Bunter here?”
Which was a relief to every fellow except Billy Bunter,
Page 108 of 161