Thick as Thieves by Ruskin Bond

Author:Ruskin Bond [Bond, Ruskin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789351185796
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Here Comes Mr Oliver

Apart from being our Scoutmaster, Mr Oliver was also our maths teacher, a subject in which I some difficulty in obtaining pass marks. Sometimes I scraped through, usually I got something like 20 or 30 out of 100.

‘Failed again, Bond,’ Mr Oliver would say. ‘What will you do when you grow up?’

‘Become a Scoutmaster, sir.’

‘Scoutmasters don’t get paid. It’s an honorary job. But you could become a cook. That would suit you.’ He hadn’t forgotten our Scout camp, when I had cooked for the camp.

If Mr Oliver was in a good mood, he’d give me grace marks, passing me by a mark or two. He wasn’t a hard man, but he seldom smiled. He was very dark, thin, stooped (from a distance he looked like a question mark), and balding. He was about forty, still a bachelor, and it was said that he had been unlucky in love—that the girl he was going to marry had jilted him at the last moment, had run away with a sailor while he was waiting at the church, ready for the wedding ceremony. No wonder he always had such a sorrowful look.

Mr Oliver did have one inseparable companion—a Dachshund, a snappy little ‘sausage’ of a dog, who looked upon the human race and especially small boys with a certain disdain and hostility. We called him Hitler. He was impervious to overtures of friendship, and if you tried to pat or stroke him, he would do his best to bite your fingers—or your shin or ankle. However, he was devoted to Mr Oliver and followed him everywhere, except into the classroom; this our headmaster would not allow.

You remember the old nursery rhyme:

Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow,

And everywhere that Mary went

That lamb was sure to go.

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