To You, Mr Chips by James Hilton Read Free Book Online

practised being a postman, so he was overjoyed. If a house hadn't got a letter-box, then they would have to push the bill under the front door. It was all most important work, and they must wear their red rosettes all the time.
    So they went out with the bills and began along the Parade. How beautiful the Parade was in the lovely sunshine! Some people asked them inside the houses and gave them sweets and pennies, which only proved to Gerald that real life wasn't a bit like the silly make-believe of being at school. And some day, when he left Grayshott, there would be real life all the time. He was so busy knocking like a postman that he hardly spoke to Olive, except once, when a whistle in the distance reminded him to ask: 'Have you ever been faster than sixty miles an hour?'
    'We have a horse that can run as fast as that,' said Olive.
    'A horse as fast as a train?' echoed Gerald scornfully, but he was a little perturbed as well. He just answered, very off-hand: 'Oh, a racehorse--that doesn't count'--and let the conversation lapse.
    When they had finished giving out the bills they went back to Uncle Richard's, and there another odd thing happened. A very old lady was in the passage-way talking to Uncle Richard and Aunt Flo, and as Gerald and Olive came in she lifted her spotty veil and stared. 'Yours?' she said, and Aunt Flo shouted: 'She's asking who they belong to, Richard!' Uncle Richard answered: 'My nephew, this is--wuff-wuff--and this'--pointing to Olive--'is the Candidate's little girl.'
    That was the first time that Gerald ever heard of the Candidate.
     
    The Browdley by-election was what the newspapers called 'closely contested.' Sir Thomas Barton, a cotton magnate, was opposed by Mr. Courtenay Beale, a young London barrister with a superfluity of brains and bounce. Sir Thomas, wealthy, middle-aged, and a widower, liked to play the democrat on these occasions; and as, in any case, there were no good hotels in Browdley, he found it convenient to lodge with Uncle Richard during the campaign. In another sense, of course, he found it highly inconvenient; Number 2, The Parade, seemed a strange habitation after his baronial mansion a hundred miles away. In his own mind he saw Uncle Richard's house as 'just an ordinary small house in a row'--he totally failed to perceive the immense social significance of the front garden. And Uncle Richard himself he thought a decent, well-meaning fellow, with some local influence, no doubt--a retired tradesman, wasn't he?--something of the sort. His wife, too, a good woman--fortunately, too, a good cook. Everything spotlessly clean, of course. And no children--only a little boy staying with them, a nephew--very quiet--one hardly knew he was there. Useful, too, as a playmate for Olive.
    All this was remote from the world that Gerald lived in, and however much he probed it by questioning he could not really make it his own.
    'Uncle Richard, what is a Candidate?'
    'He wants to know who the Candidate is, Richard!'
    'Oho--taking an interest in politics already, eh? Wuff-wuff! Why, he's a Liberal--that's why we're trying to get him in.'
    'Get in where?'
    'He wants to know all about him, Richard, I do believe!'
    'You mean his name? Well, my boy, he's called Sir Thomas Barton. Do you know what "Sir" means?'
    This time it was Gerald's turn to shout. 'Yes, it means he's a knight.'
    'Right to a T, my boy. Knighted by the King--consequently is, you have to call him "Sir." Be careful of that, mind, if you should ever happen to meet him on the stairs.'
    All of which was tremendous confirmation of something that Gerald had long suspected--that he and Uncle Richard were real people, knowing real things. A knight, indeed! And on the stairs! That was how you were liable to meet knights, but no grown-up except Uncle Richard had ever seemed to realise it.
    'You see,' added Uncle Richard, pointing along the passage towards the always closed door of the front parlour, 'that's  his  room. Never you go making