Decline and Fall

Mr. Sniggs, the Junior Dean, and Mr. Postlethwaite, the Domestic Bursar, sat alone in Mr. Sniggs’s room overlooking the garden quad at Scone College. From the rooms of Sir Alastair Digby-Vaine-Trumpington, two staircases away, came a confused roaring and breaking of glass. They alone of the senior members of Scone were at home that evening, for it was the night of the annual dinner of the Bollinger Club. The others were all scattered over Boar’s Hill and North Oxford at gay, contentious little parties, or at other senior common-rooms, or at the meetings of learned societies, for the annual Bollinger dinner is a difficult time for those in authority.

It is not accurate to call this an annual event, because quite often the Club is suspended for some years after each meeting. There is tradition behind the Bollinger; it numbers reigning kings among its past members. At the last dinner, three years ago, a fox had been brought in in a cage and stoned to death with champagne bottles. What an evening that had been! This was the first meeting since then, and from all over Europe old members had rallied for the occasion. For two days they had been pouring into Oxford: epileptic royalty from their villas of exile; uncouth peers from crumbling country seats; smooth young men of uncertain tastes from embassies and legations; illiterate lairds from wet granite hovels in the Highlands; ambitious young barristers and Conservative candidates torn from the London season and the indelicate advances of debutantes; all that was most sonorous of name and title was there for the beano.

Paul Pennyfeather was reading for the Church. It was his second year of uneventful residence at Scone. He had come there after a creditable career at a small public-school of ecclesiastical temper on the South Downs, where he had edited the magazine, been President of the Debating Society, and had, as his report said, “exercised a wholesome influence for good” in the House of which he was head boy. At home he lived in Onslow Square with his guardian, a prosperous solicitor who was proud of his progress and abysmally bored by his company. Both his parents had died in India at the time when he won the essay prize at his preparatory school. For two years he had lived within his allowance, aided by two valuable scholarships. He smoked three ounces of tobacco a week⁠—John Cotton, Medium⁠—and drank a pint and a half of beer a day, the half at luncheon and the pint at dinner, a meal he invariably ate in Hall. He had four friends, three of whom had been at school with him. None of the Bollinger Club had ever heard of Paul Pennyfeather, and he, oddly enough, had not heard of them.

Little suspecting the incalculable consequences that the evening was to have for him, he bicycled happily back from a meeting of the League of Nations Union. There had been a most interesting paper about plebiscites in Poland. He thought of smoking a pipe and reading another chapter of the Forsyte Saga before going to bed. He knocked at the gate, was admitted, put away his bicycle, and diffidently, as always, made his way across the quad towards his rooms.

Next day Paul went to Church and Gargoyle to interview Dr. Fagan. He had not long to wait. Dr. Fagan was already there interviewing the other candidates. After a few minutes Mr. Levy led Paul into the room, introduced him, and left them together.

“A most exhaustive interview,” said Dr. Fagan. “I am sure he was a very nice young man, but I could not make him understand a word I said. Can you hear me quite clearly?”

“Perfectly, thank you.”

“Good; then let us get to business.”

Paul eyed him shyly across the table. He was very tall and very old and very well dressed; he had sunken eyes and rather long white hair over jet-black eyebrows. His head was very long, and swayed lightly as he spoke; his voice had a thousand modulations, as though at some remote time he had taken lessons in elocution; the backs of his hands were hairy, and his fingers were crooked like claws.

“I understand you have had no previous experience?”

“No, sir, I am afraid not.”

“Well, of course, that is in many ways an advantage. One too easily acquires the professional tone and loses vision. But of course we must be practical. I am offering a salary of one hundred and twenty pounds, but only to a man with experience. I have a letter here from a young man who holds a diploma in forestry. He wants an extra ten pounds a year on the strength of it, but it is vision I need, Mr. Pennyfeather, not diplomas. I understand, too, that you left your University rather suddenly. Now⁠—why was that?”

This was the question that Paul had been dreading, and, true to his training, he had resolved upon honesty.

“I was sent down, sir, for indecent behaviour.”

Then a bell rang, and there was a terrific noise of whistling and scampering. The door opened, and a very short man of about thirty came into the Common Room. He had made a great deal of noise in coming because he had an artificial leg. He had a short red moustache, and was slightly bald.

“Hullo!” he said.

“Hullo!” said Paul.

“I’m Captain Grimes,” said the newcomer, and “Come in, you,” he added to someone outside.

Another boy came in.

“What do you mean,” said Grimes, “by whistling when I told you to stop?”

“Everyone else was whistling,” said the boy.

“What’s that got to do with it?” Grimes said.

“I should think it had a lot to do with it,” said the boy.

“Well, just you do a hundred lines, and next time, remember, I shall beat you,” said Grimes, “with this,” waving the walking stick.

“That wouldn’t hurt much,” said the boy, and went out.

“There’s no discipline in the place,” said Grimes, and then he went out too.

“I wonder whether I’m going to enjoy being a schoolmaster,” thought Paul.

Quite soon another and older man came into the room.

“You look a treat,” said Philbrick.

Next he saw the Medical Officer, who sat at a table covered with official forms.

“Name?” said the Doctor.

“Pennyfeather.”

“Have you at any time been detained in a mental home or similar institution? If so, give particulars.”

“I was at Scone College, Oxford, for two years,” said Paul.

The Doctor looked up for the first time. “Don’t you dare to make jokes here, my man,” he said, “or I’ll soon have you in the straightjacket in less than no time.”

“Sorry,” said Paul.

“Don’t speak to the Medical Officer unless to answer a question,” said the warder at his elbow.

“Sorry,” said Paul unconsciously, and was banged on the head.

“Suffering from consumption or any contagious disease?” asked the M.D.

“Not that I know of,” said Paul.

“That’s all,” said the Doctor. “I have certified you as capable of undergoing the usual descriptions of punishment as specified below, to wit, restraint of handcuffs, leg-chains, cross-irons, body-belt, canvas dress, close confinement, No. 1 diet, No. 2 diet, birch-rod, and cat-o’-nine-tails. Any complaints?”

“But must I have all these at once?” asked Paul, rather dismayed.

“You will if you ask impertinent questions. Look after that man, officer; he’s obviously a troublesome character.”