William Again by Richmal Crompton Read Free Book Online

you wish us to give up?’
    ‘Drink, ’ she answered dramatically.
    Mr Brown sat down heavily.
    ‘Drink! ’ he echoed.
    Mrs Brown gave a little scream.
    ‘Drink!’ she said. ‘But we’re both teetotallers.’
    It was the turn of the visitor to sit down heavily.
    ‘Surely,’ she said, ‘that boy did not deceive me!’
    ‘Madam,’ said that boy’s father bitterly, ‘it is more than probable.’
    When the visitor, protesting, apologising, expostulating, and still not quite convinced, had been escorted to the door and seen off the premises, Mr Brown turned grimly to his
wife.
    ‘Now,’ he said, ‘where is that boy?’
    But a long and energetic search of house and garden failed to reveal any traces of him. It was not till an hour later that William, inspired more by pangs of hunger than by pangs of conscience,
emerged from the boot cupboard in the kitchen and surrendered himself to justice.

 
    CHAPTER 4
    WILLIAM THE REFORMER
    W illiam’s regular attendance at church on Sunday mornings did not betoken any deeply religious feelings on his part. It was rather the result
of pressure from without, weekly applied and resisted by William with fresh indignation on each occasion. His church-going was a point on which his family insisted. It was not that they hoped that
any real improvement of William would result from it. As a matter of fact, it generally seemed to have the opposite effect upon him. But it meant that those of his family who did not go to church
had one morning at least in the sure knowledge that William’s strident voice could not dispel their Sabbath peace and calm, nor could William, with his curious genius for such things, spring
any awkward situation suddenly upon them, while those who went to church had the comfortable knowledge that William, cowed, and brushed, and washed, and encased in his hated best suit, and scowling
at the vicar from the front pew, could do little harm beside the strange scuffling with his feet that he seemed able to produce without even moving them. Moreover, they ‘knew where he
was’. It was something to ‘know where he was’.
    This Sunday the usual preliminaries took place.
    ‘I’m not going to church this morning,’ Robert happened to say, carrying a deck-chair into the garden.
    ‘An’ I’m not, either,’ said William, as he seized another chair. The would-be light finality of his tone did not deceive even himself.
    ‘You must go, dear,’ said his mother placidly. ‘You know you always do.’
    ‘Yes, but why me an’ not him?’ demanded William, pale with outrage. ‘Why him not go an’ me go?’
    Robert calmly stated his position.
    ‘If William’s not going to church, I’m going, and if William’s going to church, I’m not. All I want is peace.’
    ‘I shun’t make a noise if I stayed at home,’ said William in a tone of righteous indignation at the idea. ‘I’d jus’ sit qui’tly readin’. I
don’t feel like bein’ rough or anything like that. I’m not feelin’ well at all,’ he ended plaintively.
    Mr Brown came downstairs, top hatted and gloved.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.
    ‘William’s too ill to go to church,’ said Robert in an unfeeling tone of voice.
    William raised his healthy, ruddy countenance.
    ‘I’d like to go to church,’ he explained to his father. ‘I’m disappointed not to go. But I jus’ don’t feel well. I’m took ill sudden. I’d
jus’ like to go an’ lie down qui’tly – out of doors,’ he stipulated hastily. ‘I feel ’s if I went to church I might worry everybody with bein’ so ill. I
feel’ – his Pegasean imagination soared aloft on daring wings – ‘I feel ’s if I might die if I went to church this mornin’ feelin’ ’s ill as I do
now.’
    ‘If you’re as bad as that,’ Mr Brown said callously, as he brushed his coat, ‘I suppose you might as well die in church as anywhere.’
    This remark deprived William of the power of speech for some