Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale
Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale
Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong>Billy</strong> Bunter’s <strong>Benefit</strong><br />
<strong>By</strong> <strong>Frank</strong> <strong>Richards</strong><br />
Coker frowned, remembering Prout. Coker had many spots of trouble with<br />
Mr. Prout, the master of the Fifth.<br />
Only that morning Prout had rated Coker, before all the Fifth, for<br />
spelling “occiput” “oxyput.” Not, of course, that Coker was going to change<br />
his orthographical methods to please Prout. When a fellow knew best, he<br />
knew best, and that was that. Still, it was annoying.<br />
However, he dismissed Prout from mind as he caught the angry scowl on<br />
the face of Herbert Vernon-Smith. The “dirty little tick” was not only<br />
walking abroad in a state calculated to bring disgrace upon the school to<br />
which Horace Coker belonged: but he had the cheek to scowl at Coker—a<br />
mere junior of the Lower School, scowling at a senior—and that senior<br />
Coker of the Fifth!<br />
“I’ll speak to him,” said Coker, grimly.<br />
He stopped, and landed two large feet on Redclyffe Hill, “I say, what<br />
about the Arcade?” asked Potter. Potter did not want to be late for the<br />
picture, while Coker kicked up one of his innumerable shindies.<br />
“I say, keep on, you know,” added Greene.<br />
“I said I’d speak to him,” said Coker, coldly. “I generally mean what I say.<br />
You two keep on—I’ll catch you up easily enough—you look like crawling<br />
before you get to the top.”<br />
Potter and Greene kept on. It was true that they were finding the hill<br />
steep, and that Coker, with his powerful legs. would be able to overtake<br />
them easily enough. Still, Coker’s way of putting it was not tactful. Potter<br />
and Greene, as they pedalled onward and upward, wondered once more<br />
whether the Arcade and the feed were really worth Coker.<br />
They passed Vernon-Smith, who walked onward and downward towards<br />
Coker. Why Coker had dismounted, Vernon-Smith neither knew nor cared:<br />
it did not dawn on him for the moment that he was the object of Coker’s<br />
particular attention.<br />
But as he reached the spot where Coker stood with his hand on his bike,<br />
he was called to a halt.<br />
“Here, you dirty little tick!” exclaimed Coker, shifting himself and his bike<br />
to block Smithy’s further progress, “what does this mean, eh?”<br />
Vernon-Smith looked at him. He was in no mood to tolerate the lofty<br />
manners and customs of Coker of the Fifth. He was in a mood to give<br />
Coker, or anybody else, the sharpest edge of his tongue.<br />
“Talking to me, fathead?” he snapped.<br />
“I’m talking to you, and I don’t want any cheek,” said Coker, warningly.<br />
“What do you mean by going about out of gates looking like a tramp? Don’t<br />
you ever wash in the Remove? Never use a clothes-brush? What? Dirty<br />
little tick! If I were a prefect I’d turn you up and give you six for showing<br />
Page 18 of 161