Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale

Billy Bunter’s Benefit
By Frank Richards
CHAPTER XXXII
SPANKER
“BUNTER!”
It was very unusual for Mr. Quelch’s voice to pass unheeded in the
Remove form-room. But on this occasion it did.
Billy Bunter was deep in thought.
This rather unusual mental state brought a deep wrinkle to his fat brow,
and made him a little oblivious of lessons. Bunter was never a very
attentive pupil. Now he was more inattentive than ever.
They were doing history in the Remove in that lesson. Never had the
annals of his native land had less interest for the fat Owl. Bunter couldn’t
have cared less.
Bunter had, to his own satisfaction, solved his financial difficulty. He had
hit on a way of getting easy money—so easy, that he really wondered that
he had not thought of it before. All you had to do was to get a sure snip
from a man who knew, put your money on, and collect your winnings. Then
all was calm and bright.
But easy and simple as it was to collect cash by this method, there were
certain difficulties, when a fellow was at school. Unsympathetic beaks
were liable to whop a fellow who was caught at it. The Bounder took that
risk, in his sporting speculations, and Bunter was prepared to do the same,
little as he liked taking the risk of a whopping. But whereas Smithy was in
touch with a frowsy racing man outside the school, Bunter wasn’t. If
Bunter was going to collect quids at the rate of four to one on Spanker
after he had romped home, obviously Bunter had to be “on.” How was he
going to get “on”?
That little problem had to be solved without delay. It was Friday, and the
two-thirty was run at Wapshot on Saturday. Bunter, being in the happy
position of knowing the horse that was going to win, was extremely
anxious to be “on” in good time. It would be simply awful not to be “on”
when Spanker romped home!
In such circumstances, it was no wonder that Billy Bunter had neither
time nor inclination for lessons, Lessons, indeed, seemed to him a merely
frivolous interruption of more important matters.
Bunter’s stock of cash had been still further reduced during the past few
days. Only three pounds seven remained out of Mr. Parker’s seven guineas.
It could not be helped: for Bunter’s expected postal-order had still failed
to arrive, and a fellow had to eat. But four to one on Spanker would set all
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