Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale

Billy Bunter’s Benefit
By Frank Richards
rubbed in. Some went into his nose, and some into his mouth, and Coker
gurgled horribly. There were yells of laughter as Coker grew blacker and
blacker.
His face was as black as the ace of spades. His ears, his neck, were
blackened in turn. The remnant of the soot was rubbed into his hair.
Coker did not, perhaps, look much like Othello: but he looked a great deal
like a Hottentot, and still more like a chimney-sweep.
“Think that will do, you fellows?” asked Smithy, surveying Coker with
great admiration when he had finished.
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“Ooooogh!” Coker spluttered soot, “I—I——I’ll— woooogh!”
“That will be a lesson to you, Coker,” chuckled Bob Cherry.
“The lessonfulness will be terrific, my esteemed idiotic Coker.”
“Ooooooooooogh!”
“Now kick him out!” said Wibley.
“Ha, ha, ha!”
The door was thrown open. Coker was bundled towards it, breathlessly
spluttering fury and soot.
“Leggo!” gurgled Coker. “Leggo! I—I can’t go like this—look at me—!”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“You young villains—.”
“Kick him out!”
“I tell you I can’t—!” shrieked Coker. The sooting was bad enough. But the
prospect of facing the school in that sooty state was worse. “Look here,
I’ve got to have a wash—you young scoundrels—oh, crumbs!”
Coker went whirling through the doorway into the passage. He sprawled
there, spluttering. The doorway was packed with grinning faces.
“Good-bye, Coker!”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
Coker sat up.
“You young villains! You—you-—you—I—I—I’ll—.”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
The door of the Rag slammed on Coker. He scrambled to his feet. He was
tempted to hurl open the door again, and charge back into the Rag. But
even Coker realised that he had had enough. It was borne in upon his mind
that what he chiefly needed was a wash before he was seen in his present
extraordinary state. With deep feelings, Coker postponed vengeance, and
turned away. A fat junior, coming down the passage, gave Coker a startled
blink through a big pair of spectacles, and uttered a howl of alarm.
“Oh, crikey! Who’s that? Help!”
Billy Bunter stayed only for one startled look at that wild-looking figure
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