washing-up and the other household tasks they do as fatigues when the better-behaved (that means the cleverer) ones are at football, I hear a good many things which I am not supposed to know.
Alec is a merry little boy. Although he is fifteen now, and has been with us for two years, he does not seem to grow at all. He has told me that when he is released he will go back to his old employment unless he can get into some racing stables and train for a jockey. There is no harm in this boy. Thieves can be as honest as anybody else along their own lines, and it is all nonsense for William to think that boys like these can be reformed, or that the world would be a better place if they were.
January 25
William is spending all his time at the end of the telephone while the search for the boys continues. He looks worried, as well he may, for it proves, upon investigation of the sleeping quarters (we do not call them dormitories here, lest these lads should get ideas beyond their station!), that the bars of F room have been filed through and that Arthur, who is in charge of this room, ought to have known what was happening.
William has interrogated a boy named Larry, and search is still being made for the files, but Larry has said that Piggy and Alec must have taken the files away with them, and he has declared that he knows nothing about the bars.
It is part of William's policy to accept the word of a boy until he can disprove it. When he has disproved it (which he usually manages to do) he has the boy punished. This system is open to two objections. It has undermined William's moral sense, which can never have been very robust, and it disproves any theories that William is a gentleman. William is not a gentleman. He does not even punish the boys himself. This is Arthur's part of the work. He is called the Second Master and most of the boys are in awe of him. It was very daring of Piggy and Alec to make their escape from Arthur's room.
January 26
I received a telegram this morning and have had to ask for special leave of absence. Aunt Flora is seriously ill.
January 27
I have spent most of yesterday and all of to-day at Aunt Flora's bedside. She is unconscious. It appears that she tumbled over her flannel petticoat when she was walking along the landing and hit her head against the bathroom door. She had refused to allow Eliza to dress her and, of course, had not managed the strings. Eliza says that it is a judgment upon Aunt Flora for being so contrary, but she (Eliza) seems, all the same, in good spirits, in spite of the extra work. She is thinking, no doubt, upon the little legacy which Aunt Flora, for decency's sake, is certain to have left her in the will. I do not in the least object to having my money depleted upon Eliza's account.
I find myself wondering (for there is little to do except sit and wait for the end) whether it will be in order to have Aunt Flora's hair washed after she is dead. I have been noticing that her parting is very grimy, and that her white hair is so tinged with dirt as to be rather shocking. I do not like to speak to Eliza about this, in case she should think that I was finding fault, for she is a touchy old thing and I should not care to offend her. Perhaps the dirt is partly the result of the fall, although it hardly looks like it.
January 28
Aunt Flora has recovered consciousness, and this, says the doctor, is the end. He had rather thought that she would never speak again, or recognise any of us, but she has wonderful rallying powers. I only hope that they will not prove too wonderful, for that would be too bitterly disappointing. Tom and Muriel arrived at ten this morning. They had travelled all night, they said, in order to be in at the death. At least, Tom said this, and was immediately hushed by Muriel, who thought it an unfortunate metaphor. It was certainly very clumsy, but what does that matter? It is true—or so I profoundly hope.
January 29
William rang me up on long distance—a pretty penny it cost, but I suppose he