butler, whom we will call Boniface.
Everyone who knows school-boys knows that they have a trick of saying
things about those in authority over them, which really they do not the
least believe but which they make a bold pretence of believing. So in
the case of "Sticky" and Boniface. They were of much the same age, and
rather similar in appearance; wherefore we said that they were brothers;
that they had risen from a lowly station in the world, and had tossed up
which should be master and which butler; that "Sticky" had won the toss,
and that the disappointed Boniface held his brother in subjection by a
veiled threat that, if he were offended, he would reveal the whole story
to the world. This tradition seemed to present some elements of
unlikelihood, and yet it survived from generation to generation; for not
otherwise could we account for the palpable fact that the iron severity
which held all boy-flesh in awe melted into impotence when Boniface was
the offender.
The solution of the mystery was romantic. Dr. Butler, contrary to his
usual practice, was spending the Christmas holidays of 1876-7 at Harrow.
One day a stranger was announced, and opened the conversation by
saying--"I regret to tell you that your colleague, Mr. Sticktoright, is
dead. He died suddenly at Brighton, where he was spending the holidays.
I am his brother-in-law and executor, and, in compliance with his
instructions, I have to ask you to accompany me to his house." Those who
know the present Master of Trinity can picture the genuine grief with
which he received this notification. Mr. Sticktoright had been a master
when he was a boy at school, and a highly-respected colleague ever since
he became Head-master. That the bearer of the sad news should be
Sticktoright's brother-in-law seemed quite natural, for he must have
married a Miss Sticktoright; and the Head-master and the executor went
together to the dead man's house. There, after some unlocking of drawers
and opening of cabinets, they came upon a document to this effect: "In
case of my dying away from Harrow, this is to certify that on a certain
day, in a certain place, I married Mary Smith, sometime a housemaid in
my service, by whom I leave a family."
So there had really been much more foundation for our tradition than we
had ever dreamed, and Boniface had probably known the romantic history
of his master's life. The extraordinary part of the matter was that old
Sticktoright had always spent
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