And, as Wellington did, I would charge at the end of the day.  One splendid way of charging, I thought, would be to die immediately.  That would be most effective.  How Fillet would prick up his ears on Monday morning when he heard the Head Master say to the school assembled in the Great Hall:  “Your prayers are asked for your schoolfellow, Rupert Ray, who is lying at the point of death.”  And on Tuesday, when he should say in a shaking voice:  “Your schoolfellow, Ray, died early this morning.  His passing was beautiful; and may my last moments be like his.”  And then there would be the Dead March.

Having no one to talk to, I drew out from among the crumbs and rubbish in my pockets a letter that had arrived from my mother that morning.  My young mother’s love for me was always of the extravagant kind, and the words with which she closed this letter were: 

“I do hope you are having a magnificent time and that everybody is fond of you and nice to you.  I must stop now, so good-bye, my darling little son, and God bless you.  With heaps of love from your ever devoted and affectionate Mother.”

It was funny that I had not even noticed those words when I hurriedly read them in the morning.  But now I found them strangely comforting, strangely satisfying.

A slap on the back awoke me from my reverie.  It was Doe.

“Come along, Rupert.  I know you didn’t do it.  Or, if you did, I don’t care.  We’re twins.”

“Go away.  You’ll get into a dreadful row if you’re caught talking to me.”

“I don’t care.  They won’t think any the worse of me, whatever they do.”

“Go away, I tell you.  Or, if you don’t, I shall have to, and I’m very comfortable here.”

“I shan’t.  And if you try to escape me I’ll follow you.”

“Oh, why can’t you go away?” I grumbled with something like a sob.  “Go away.  Go away.”

But Doe persisted.  In full view of the prefects he chatted gaily to me.  Once, as Radley passed, he slipped his arm into mine.  And when the master was out of hearing he asked: 

“I s’pose Radley knows you’re in Coventry?”

“Of course.  Everybody does.”

“Do you think he saw I had my arm in yours?”

“I should think so.  You made it pretty obvious.”

“I wonder what he thought.”

All this time the skin on my forehead seemed to tighten and my cheeks to tingle with warmth.  Towards evening my temples began to beat regularly.  At these symptoms I was rather thrilled than otherwise, for I felt there was a distinct prospect of my turning the tables on everybody by dying.

At preparation the boys, with that lust to punish to which a crowd is always susceptible, slid along the form to get as far from me as possible and to leave plenty of room for myself and my contamination.

In the dormitory no one spoke to me, but as I was getting into my pyjamas one of the dormitory prefects burst in and addressed a senior boy: