Sandel by Angus Stewart

Author:Angus Stewart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Juvenile Fiction, General, Fiction
Publisher: Hutchinson
Published: 1968-02-14T13:00:00+00:00

It's semi-Tones!

And calls for diatonic!'

David released him.

'D.i.r.e. t.o.n.i.c, I suppose. Witty,' Tony said, panting. 'You're madder than Schumann.'

Inwardly David checked. Bruce, he thought.

Tony filled his lungs threateningly. 'Shall I do a bit of Frauenliebe und Leben?'

'No!' David made a grab to cover his mouth. 'Spare me lieder in bed.'

'Leda wouldn't have you in bed,' Tony said. 'Only swans.' Even at its smuggest his smile was tolerable. Imperiously, he elbowed David in the ribs. 'Rogers, I've been thinking. With you schizoid as Schumann, and me brilliant without complications

'Yes, Tonimus.'

'Shut up ... without complications, we ought to ...'

'Tonimus.'

'... to find the pun about Sandels sandals. But I'm more concerned,' Tony still breathed heavily, his new concentration becoming fierce, 'about those cathedral drips - Christ Church. Some of them have started to wear shorts and suits of that greasy, drab man-made fibre stuff. The rot has set in. It lowers the tone of the university.'

Profoundly David nodded. 'The Times, Tonimus.'

'Yes, I will write.' Tony reached out for his superior shorts. 'I'll expect a cheque for these.' He held up the rent flannel. 'Or d'you want me to ask Miss Poole to mend them?'

'The boiler,' David said.

'They'd never mend well enough to wear,' Tony said, grudgingly.

David was irritated. 'You must bloody well learn to lose some things sometimes, you vain nit.'

'If they were sewn up you could do it again.'

'And if you consciously prepare for that sort of contingency you're revolting - and I opt out.'

'Oh, so? Ho-hum!'

They were silent for some moments.

'The glass,' David said. 'Put my slippers on your feet.'

Chapter 27

Somehow the school worked. Behind the functioning of the choir, whose members marched out two or even three times daily, the school carried on with an improvisation that was only a little less competent than David's jazz band. Education happened. David, moving from class to class largely as the muddled head of Jones directed him, went with it. 'Ex and ducere, Rogers,' Tony said to him one day. 'It means to lead out. Your job is to capture the imagination of those drips. There's not much hope for them ... but you'd better get on with it.' 'Prig,' David said: but he proceeded to lead out with enlightenment. The problem was what to do with the precipitate. Mediaeval noblemen, he learnt from a contemporary of Hunter's, wore soft leather bots with clocks on top of them; while von Manz, after some desperate concentration with a dictionary, informed him that Mercedes had good engines, but the Rolls-Royce the better carcass, Well, why not? As it stood the English language dealt dully with inanimate bodies. From one of the smallest boys he discovered that Oliver Twist was the creation of Dick Chickens.

At the beginning of the second week of term Tony announced his resignation from the choir. The move was accomplished by the simple expedient of calling upon the college organist Sir Vernon Bull and explaining to the astonished man that he proposed to choose his own time for going out to pasture, and that though there was as yet no necessity, he

felt it would better suit his dignity to do so now.

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