Knight Without Armour Read Free

different family, and
Ainsley, to avoid mistakes, always signed his papers with a very large and
distinguishable ‘A.J.’ This became such a characteristic that he
began to be called ‘A.J.’ by his friends, and the initials
finally became an accepted nickname.
    In his third year he suddenly startled everybody by leading a minor
rebellion. There was a master at the school named Smalljohn who had a system
of discipline for which A.J. had gradually conceived an overmastering hatred.
The system was this: Smalljohn stood in front of the class, gold watch in
hand, and said, “If the boy who did so-and-so does not declare himself
within twenty-five seconds, I shall give the whole form an hour’s
detention.” One day, after confessing himself, under such threat of
vicarious doom, the author of some trivial misdeed, A.J. calmly informed his
fellows that it was the last time he ever intended to do such a thing.
Couldn’t they see that the system was not only unfair but perfectly
easy to break down if only they all tackled it the right way? And the right
way was for no one ever to confess; let them put up with a few
detentions—Smalljohn would soon get tired of it when he found his
system no longer worked. There are a few Barrowhurst men who will still
remember the quiet-voiced boy arguing his case with an emphasis all the more
astonishing because it was the first case he had ever been known to
argue.
    He carried the others with him enthusiastically, and the next day came the
test. He was whispering to a neighbour; Smalljohn heard and asked who it was.
Silence. Then: “If the person who whispered does not confess within
twenty-five seconds, the whole form will be detained for an hour.”
Silence. “Fifteen seconds more….Ten seconds…Five…Very well,
gentlemen, I will meet the form at half-past one in this room.”
    After that afternoon’s detention Smalljohn announced: “I am
sorry indeed that thirty-three of your number have had to suffer on behalf of
a certain thirty-fourth person, whose identity, I may say, I very strongly
suspect. I can assure him that I do not intend to let a coward escape, and I
am therefore grieved to say that until he owns up I shall be compelled to
repeat this detention every day.”
    It was nearing the time of house-matches and detentions were more than
usually tiresome. A.J. soon found his enemies active, and even his friends
inclined to be cool. After the third detention he was, in fact, rather
disgracefully bullied, and after the fourth he gave in and confessed. He had
expected Smalljohn to be very stern, and was far more terrified to find him
good-humoured. “Pangs of conscience, eh, Fothergill?” he queried,
and A.J. replied: “No, sir.”
    “No? That sounds rather defiant, doesn’t it?”
    A.J. did not answer, and Smalljohn, instead of getting into a temper,
positively beamed. “My dear Fothergill, I quite understand. You think
my system’s unfair, don’t you?—I have heard mysterious
rumours to that effect, anyhow. Well, my boy, I daresay you’re right.
It is unfair. It makes you see how impossible it is for you to be a sneak and
a coward—it brings out your better self—that better self which,
for some perverse reason, you were endeavouring to stifle. To a boy who is
really not half the bad fellow he tries to make out, my system is perhaps the
unfairest thing in the world…Well, you have been punished, I doubt
not—for apart from the still small voice, your comrades, I understand,
have somewhat cogently expressed their disapproval. In the circumstances,
then, I shall not punish you any further. And now stay and have some cocoa
with me.”
    “If you don’t mind, sir,” answered A.J. not very
coherently, “I’m afraid I must go. I’ve got a letter
’to finish—”
    “Oh, very well, then—some other evening. Goodnight.”
    And the next morning Smalljohn, whose worst crime was that he thought he
understood boys,