William The Conqueror by Richmal Crompton Read Free Book Online Page B

Certainly not William.
    It wasn’t as if there was any sense in French verbs. They had been deliberately invented by someone with a grudge against the race of boys – someone probably who’d
slipped on a concealed slide or got in the way of a snowball or foolishly come within the danger zone of a catapult. Anyway, whoever it was had devised a mean form of revenge by inventing French
verbs and, somehow or other, persuading schoolmasters to adopt them as one of their choicest tortures.
    ‘Well, I never will wanter use ’em,’ said William to his mother when she brought forward the time-honoured argument. ‘I don’t wanter talk to any French folks, an’ if they wanter talk to me they can learn English. English’s’s easy’s easy to talk. It’s silly havin’ other langwidges. I don’ see
why all the other countries shun’t learn English ’stead of us learnin’ other langwidges with no sense in ’em. English’s sense. ’
    This speech convinced him yet more firmly of the foolishness of wasting his precious hours of leisure on such futile study, so he devoted all his time and energy to the electric motor. There was
some sense in the electric motor. William spent a very happy evening.
    In the morning, however, things somehow seemed different. He lay in bed and considered the matter. There was no doubt that Mr Strong could make himself extremely disagreeable over French
verbs.
    William remembered that he had threatened to make himself more disagreeable than usual if William did not know them ‘next time’. This was ‘next time’ and William did not
know them. William had not even attempted to learn them. The threats of Mr Strong had seemed feeble, purposeless, contemptible things last night when the electric motor threw its glamour over the
whole world. This morning they didn’t. They seemed suddenly much more real than the electric motor.
    But surely it was possible to circumvent them. William was not the boy to give in weakly to any fate. He heard his mother’s door opening, and, assuming an expression of intense suffering,
called weakly, ‘Mother.’ Mrs Brown entered the room fully dressed.
    ‘Aren’t you up yet, William?’ she said. ‘Be quick or you’ll be late for school.’
    William intensified yet further his expression of suffering.
    ‘I don’ think I feel quite well enough to go to school this morning, mother, dear,’ he said faintly.
    Mrs Brown looked distressed. He had employed the ruse countless times before, but it never failed of its effect upon Mrs Brown. The only drawback was that Mr Brown, who was still about the
house, was of a less trustful and compassionate nature.
    Mrs Brown smoothed his pillow. ‘Poor little boy,’ she said tenderly, ‘where is the pain?’
    ‘All over,’ said William, playing for safety.
    ‘Dear! dear!’ said Mrs Brown, much perturbed, as she left the room. ‘I’ll just go and fetch the thermometer.’
    William disliked the thermometer. It was a soulless, unsympathetic thing. Sometimes, of course, a hot-water bottle, judiciously placed, would enlist its help, but that was not always easy to
arrange.
    To William’s dismay his father entered the room with the thermometer.
    ‘Well, William,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I hear you’re too ill to go to school. That’s a great pity, isn’t it. I’m sure it’s a great grief to
you?’
    William turned up his eyes. ‘Yes, father,’ he said dutifully and suspiciously.
    ‘Now where exactly is the pain and what sort of pain is it?’
    William knew from experience that descriptions of non-existent pains are full of pitfalls. By a masterstroke he avoided them.
    ‘It hurts me to talk,’ he said.
    ‘What sort of pain does it hurt you with?’ said his father brutally.
    William made some inarticulate noises, then closed his eyes with a moan of agony.
    ‘I’ll just step round and fetch the doctor,’ said Mr Brown, still quite cheerful.
    The doctor lived next door. William considered this a