The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry Read Free Book Online

shuddering explosion of joy?
    That first dose is really what the experience is all about. From then on the trick is to keep the pipe alight with gentle, infrequent tuts and puffs on the stem; smaller cigarette-sized inhalations of smoke will follow until the remaining plug, which has acted as a filter for the tobacco above it, is so fouled and contaminated with tar and toxins that the pipe may be declared dead and ready for the cleaning, scraping and reaming routine to be undertaken all over again.
    I am at the steady puffing stage now, as content as any human on the planet – a self-fulfilling contentment that only a pipe can provide: pipe smokers look content, they know themselves to be a symbol of old-fashioned contentment and therefore they are content – when a loud skittering above my head jerks me up from the exercise book I am marking.
    Damn it to hell.
    It was just one little noise, like a mouse in the wainscotting. I can ignore it.
    But no, another sound, that unmistakable thud made by bare feet on floorboards.
    A wrathful tide engulfs me. I am now precisely as irate as I was content. Had I been less placidly, pipe-smokingly serene, I would not now be streaking up the stairs with such fury.
    ‘Philips! Of course. Who else? Right. Well. What did I say? I said the next culprit was going to be for the whack and I meant it. Dressing-gown and slippers, outside the staffroom.
Now!
’
    As I make my way downstairs ahead of him I realize the magnitude of what is about to happen. I threatened the whack, which at Cundall meant not the cane, or a ruler, or a slipper, but a plimsoll. I go into the staffroom. Pipe smoke hangs in rooms in a quite different manner to cigarette smoke. Heavy layers of it are wafted into corrugated waves by the draught of my entrance. I close the door. In a cupboard under the master’s pigeonholes I find the official small black gym shoe which I pick up and flex, bending it back on itself and letting it spring back.
    What have I done? If I fail to go through with the threatened beating then such authority as I have will be undermined and I will never be able to control the boys again. But how hard does one beat? Suppose I make him cry? Oh good lord.
    I pace up and down, slapping the sole of the gym shoe on to my palm hard, then harder and harder until it stings fiercely.
    A timid knock at the door.
    I clear my throat. ‘Enter.’
    Philips shuffles in. His face is set and serious. He is frightened. It is known that I have never administered the whack before, and I must suppose he cannot be certain that I will not be brutal. He seems to know the form better than I do, for he removes his dressing-gown and hangs it on a hook at the back of the door in a manner that suggests he has done this many times before.
    ‘I told you that whoever I caught mobbing about next was for the whack, didn’t I, Philips?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Why doesn’t he beg for mercy? Then at least I might be in a position to relent. Instead he stands there, fearful but maddeningly resolute, leaving me very few options.
    ‘Right. Well. Let’s get it over with then.’
    I have absolutely no idea how things should proceed at this point, but once again Philips leads the way. He approaches the leather armchair in front of the fire and bends over its arm, presenting his posterior in the approved fashion.
    Oh God. Oh hell.
    I swing my arm upwards and bring the gym shoe down.
    It connects.
    There is a silence.
    ‘There. Right. Well.’
    Philips twists his head round and shoots a look up at me. It is a look of complete shock. He is astounded.
    ‘Is that … is that it, sir?’
    ‘And let that be a lesson! When I say no messing around, I
mean
no messing around. Go on then, back to bed with you.’
    ‘Sir.’
    Barely concealing his smirk, Philips straightens, collects his dressing-gown and departs.
    The force with which the rubber sole of the gym shoe connected with his bottom would not have bruised a mosquito. If, instead of