Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale

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Billy Bunter’s Benefit By Frank Richards That, in itself, was no hardship. It was indeed a distinct relief not to hear Coker talking cricket, and explaining what an idiot Wingate was to keep him out of the first eleven. During the day, Potter and Greene had borne this estrangement with considerable fortitude. Coker maintained an attitude of lofty, distant dignity. Potter and Greene let him get on with it. But at tea-time matters had altered. At tea-time, Potter and Greene considered, it was time for Coker to come out of his sulks! “Hem!” said Potter, for the third time. Then Coker looked at him, coldly. “If you’ve got a cold, Potter, you’d better go and ask matron to give you something for it,” he said. “I haven’t got a cold, old chap.” “Then don’t keep on snorting about the study.” There was silence for a few minutes. Coker maintained loftly dignity, ignoring his former friends: or, as Potter and Greene looked at it, keeping up his sulks! They exchanged rather dismal glances. Then Potter took the plunge. “What about tea, Coker?” he asked. “Have you come up for tea?” asked Coker. with a manner that might have been evolved in the depths of a refrigerator. “Well, it’s tea-time,” said Greene. “What about it?” “I’m not stopping you, am I?” asked Coker. “Hem!” “Hem!” Coker was not exactly stopping them. Potter and Greene we’re at liberty to get on with tea in the study as soon as they liked—on their own resources. The snag was that their own resources were inadequate. “I’m going to tea in hall myself,” added Coker. “I don’t care to tea with fellows I am not speaking to. You can have the study.” He rose from the window-seat. “Oh, I say, old chap!” protested Greene. “We rather hoped you’d be giving us some tips about ‘Hamlet,’ over tea,” said Potter. “I hardly know what we shall make of the play unless you give us some coaching, Coker.” Coker paused. There was one thing about Coker that his friends liked. It was always easy to pull his leg. Often and often there was a rift in the lute in that study: but a spot of “soft sawder” generally sufficed to bring Coker round. Potter and Greene hopefully discerned signs of relenting in Coker’s rugged face. Page 90 of 161
Billy Bunter’s Benefit By Frank Richards “Well, that’s that,” admitted Coker, after some thought. “You fellows let me down, but I’m not the man to let anybody down, I hope. You let me down rottenly. You jolly well know you did. You can’t make out that you misunderstood. I told you plainly as any fellow could speak to back me up in rushing that mob of cheeky fags in the Rag. And you backed out.” “You see, old chap—,” murmured Potter. “I don’t,” said Coker. “You let me down! They got me, a whole crowd of them, and pinned me down and blacked my face—what are you grinning at, Potter?” “I—I wasn’t grinning, old chap—it—it was pretty thick, if you ask me, a crew of fags handling a Fifth-form man—.” “Too thick altogether,” agreed Greene. “I—I wonder sometimes what this school is coming to!” “Well, they did,” said Coker. He seemed to have forgotten his intention of keeping up icy reserve and lofty, distant dignity. The urge to talk, perhaps, was too strong for him! Anyhow he went on, “That young scoundrel Vernon-Smith said he would make me up as Othello—is that anything to laugh at, George Potter?” “Oh! No!” Potter turned a chuckle into a cough. “Far from it, old fellow! The cheek!” “And they hoofed me out, all black,” said Coker, in tones of deep and intense indignation. “And before I could get anywhere to get it off, that old ass Prout had to spot me, and take me for a nigger—an escaped lunatic—.” “Ha, ha, ha!” Potter and Greene did not mean to laugh. Obviously, it was injudicious to laugh. They did it involuntarily. Really, they could not help it. All Greyfriars had been laughing over Coker’s extraordinary escapade. It seemed funny to everybody but Coker. “Oh, laugh!” said Coker, sardonically. “I don’t mind! Funny, wasn’t it?—me with a black face, and that old goat Prout thinking it was a black man escaped from an asylum—awfully funny, I’ve no doubt! Do laugh! I don’t mind.” “Oh! No! You—you—see———.” “Not at all. You see—.” “He was going to take me to the Head,” said Coker. “After I’d explained, the old ass left Dr. Locke out of it. But he came down on me like a ton of bricks. He made out that I was to blame. Me! He said I was to blame for the whole thing—going into the junior day-room and rowing with the fags—that’s what he called it! You know Prout! I almost thought he was going to tell me to bend over! But he gave me a book!” Page 91 of 161
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