Billy Bunter's Benefit By Frank Richards - Friardale

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!”
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