Homoepathic Treatment: A School Story

In most of the houses of Wrykyn boys who had been at the school two years, and who were consequently in a sort of transition stage between fags and human beings, shared studies in couples. The fags ÒpiggedÓ in a body in a common room of their own.

This rule was pleasant enough, provided you got a study-companion of tastes and habits similar to your own. But it often happened that, once in your study, an apparently perfect individual developed some deadly trait, such as a dislike for ÒbrewingÓ or a taste for aesthetic furniture, and then life on the two-in-a-study system became troubled.

Liss and Buxton shared study eight at ApplebyÕs. For some time all went well. They had much in common with one another. It is true that they were not in the same form, which is what usually cements alliances of this sort, Liss being in the Upper Fourth and Buxton in the Lower Fifth.

But otherwise the understanding seemed perfect. Both did a moderate amount of work, and both were perfectly willing to stop at a momentÕs notice, in order to play stump cricket or ÒsoccerÓ in the passage. Liss collected stamps; so did Buxton. Buxton owned a Dr. GilesÕs crib to the play of ÒEuripides,Ó which the Upper Fourth were translating that term. Liss replied with a BohnÕs ÒLivy,Ó Book One. ÒLivy,Ó Book One, was what the Lower Fifth were murdering. In short, all Nature may be said to have been at first one vast substantial smile.

An ideal state of things, but one that was not destined to last.

Liss came back from school one afternoon, entered his study, and threw his books down on the table. Then he sniffed in a startled manner. The first sniff proving unsatisfactory, he encored himself. He was embarking on a third, when Buxton came in. It seemed to Liss that the aroma became stronger on his entry.