He was in Germany, visiting his home, when war broke out. He was popular while he was here, and made many friends. Those who knew him will be sorry to hear that he was killed last week, on the Western Front.”

He was a little pale when he sat down afterward, aware that he had done something unusual. He had consulted nobody about it, anyhow; no one else could be blamed. Later, outside the Chapel, he heard an argument:—

“On the Western Front, Chips said. Does that mean he was fighting for the Germans?”

“I suppose it does.”

“Seems funny, then, to read his name out with all the others. After all, he was an ENEMY.”

“Oh, just one of Chips’s ideas, I expect. The old boy still has ‘em.”

Chips, in his room again, was not displeased by the comment. Yes, he still had ‘em—those ideas of dignity and generosity that were becoming increasingly rare in a frantic world. And he thought: Brookfield will take them, too, from me; but it wouldn’t from anyone else.

Once, asked for his opinion of bayonet practice being carried on near the cricket pavilion, he answered, with that lazy, slightly asthmatic intonation that had been so often and so extravagantly imitated: “It seems—to me —umph—a very vulgar way of killing people.”

The yarn was passed on and joyously appreciated—how Chips had told some big brass hat from the War Office that bayonet fighting was vulgar. Just like Chips. And they found an adjective for him—an adjective just beginning to be used: he was pre-War.

CHAPTER 15

And once, on a night of full moonlight, the air-raid warning was given while Chips was taking his lower fourth in Latin. The guns began almost instantly, and, as there was plenty of shrapnel falling about outside, it seemed to Chips that they might just as well stay where they were, on the ground floor of School House. It was pretty solidly built and made as good a dugout as Brookfield could offer; and as for a direct hit, well, they could not expect to survive that, wherever they were.

So he went on with his Latin, speaking a little louder amid the reverberating crashes of the guns and the shrill whine of anti-aircraft shells. Some of the boys were nervous; few were able to be attentive. He said, gently: “It may possibly seem to you, Robertson—at this particular moment in the world’s history—umph—that the affairs of Caesar in Gaul some two thousand years ago—are— umph—of somewhat secondary importance—and that—umph —the irregular conjugation of the verb tollo is—umph— even less important still. But believe me—umph—my dear Robertson—that is not really the case.” Just then there came a particularly loud explosion—quite near. “You cannot—umph —judge the importance of things—umph—by the noise they make. Oh dear me, no.” A little chuckle. “And these things—umph —that have mattered—for thousands of years—are not going to be—snuffed out—because some stink merchant— in his laboratory—invents a new kind of mischief.” Titters of nervous laughter; for Buffles, the pale, lean, and medically unfit science master, was nicknamed the Stink Merchant. Another explosion—nearer still. “Let us—um—resume our work. If it is fate that we are soon to be—umph—interrupted, let us be found employing ourselves in something—umph—really appropriate. Is there anyone who will volunteer to construe?”

Maynard, chubby, dauntless, clever, and impudent, said: “I will, sir.”

“Very good. Turn to page forty and begin at the bottom line.”

The explosions still continued deafeningly; the whole building shook as if it were being lifted off its foundations. Maynard found the page, which was some way ahead, and began, shrilly:—

“Genus hoc erat pugnae—this was the kind of fight—quo se Germani exercuerant—in which the Germans busied themselves. Oh, sir, that’s good—that’s really very funny indeed, sir—one of your very best—”

Laughing began, and Chips added: “Well—umph—you can see —now—that these dead languages—umph—can come to life again—sometimes—eh? Eh?”

Afterward they learned that five bombs had fallen in and around Brookfield, the nearest of them just outside the School grounds. Nine persons had been killed.

The story was told, retold, embellished. “The dear old boy never turned a hair. Even found some old tag to illustrate what was going on. Something in Caesar about the way the Germans fought. You wouldn’t think there were things like that in Caesar, would you? And the way Chips laughed… you know the way he DOES laugh… the tears all running down his face… never seen him laugh so much…”

He was a legend.

With his old and tattered gown, his walk that was just beginning to break into a stumble, his mild eyes peering over the steel-rimmed spectacles, and his quaintly humorous sayings, Brookfield would not have had an atom of him different.

November 11, 1918.

News came through in the morning; a whole holiday was decreed for the School, and the kitchen staff were implored to provide as cheerful a spread as wartime rationing permitted.