Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale

Billy Bunter’s Benefit
By Frank Richards
“No fear! If we raise the amount, we’ll see that it goes to Parker, of
course. After all, it’s up to fellows to help a lame dog over a stile,” argued
Bob.
“Hear, hear!” said Harry Wharton.
“Bunter’s had his chance, and chucked it away,” said Smithy. “It’s up to
him to help himself, if he wants help.”
“Well, he’s tried helping himself,” grinning Bob. “He pinched a paper from
this study, thinking it was a paper for the Latin prize—”
“Ha. ha, ha!”
“And he’s tried backing a winner that came in last—.”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“The less Bunter helps himself the better,” said Bob. “He will be trying to
hold up a bank next, at this rate. Look here, you fellows, let’s make this
show Bunter’s benefit, and see him through.”
Harry Wharton laughed.
“Let’s,” he said.
“I think it’s rot, old chap,” said Johnny Bull. “But I agree.”
“Same here,” said Frank Nugent.
“The samefulness is terrific,” agreed Hurree Jamset Ram Singh, with a
nod of his dusky head. “The esteemed and execrable Bunter deserves all
that is coming to him, but give every man his ridiculous deserts, and who
shall escape the whipfulness, as honourable Shakespeare remarkably
observes.”
“It’s rot,” said the Bounder.
“Now, look here, Smithy—.”
“But I agree, if you fellows do,” added Smithy.
“Good man!”
“You’re a blithering ass, Bob Cherry,” said Wibley.
“Thanks.”
“And a soft-hearted, soft-headed chump—.”
“Thanks again!”
“But I agreed, if you make a point of it,” conceded Wibley. “Bunter
doesn’t matter a boiled bean, so far as I can see, and if he gets sacked
for diddling Parker, who’s going to miss him? But—.”
“Exactly,” said Bob. “So we’re all agreed—it’s going to be Bunter’s Benefit!
Hands up for Bunter’s Benefit!”
Every hand in the study went up. Most of the members of the R.D.S.
probably agreed with Wibley’s view that William George Bunter did not
matter a boiled bean. But they all liked Bob Cherry, and were willing to
back him up. And Bunter, after all, was a Remove man, though no great
credit to the form. And it was certain that something awful would happen
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