THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, MAY 14, 1937
PALE BLUE NIGHTGOWN
"Oh, it was only a dream?” said Mr. Dofferty easily. "Why didn't you say so before, you silly boy?" His heart felt curiously lighter. He took his watch out of his waistcoat pocket. "You're right!" he exclaimed.
"It's time
we were both going home!" voice was quite genial.
His
"Oh, thank you, thank you very much, sir," cried Albert. "Good afternoon, Mr. Dofferty." The boy was already scampering off.
"Oh, by the way,'
* the head- master called after him. The boy turned. "Yes, sir?" he asked fearfully.
Mr. Dofferty
didn't say any- thing for a moment or two. He realised, in fact, he hadn't any- thing to
He was say.
merely aware that he didn't quite like the boy going off like that, as if he hadn't used the forbidden nick- name, as if he were innocent as the shorn lamb. Then he found his lips uttering a question con- cerning which his mind had no curiosity at all. For, after all, what interest wag it to Mr. Dofferty, headmaster, Mr. Doffer- ty, world-traveller, what dream a snivelling little elementary school- boy might dream?
"What did you dream about, Albert ?"
The boy's jaw fell. The faint flush of colour that had come up into his face went out completely. "Nothing," he muttered.
"Nonsense," said Mr. Dofferty. "You were dreaming about me, weren't you?" Then suddenly
..
.
Mr. Dofferty remembered how amused all the small boys had been while Albert Hewitt had been holding forth. He had been telling them his dream, of course, a dream about their headmaster. Mr. Dofferty blushed. It was in the last degree undignified for a person in his position to insist on ferreting out a small boy's dream, whatever the dream was about. But he could not bear the way the boy was lying to him. If the boy would only own up simply and honestly, they could go home, both of them. He was beginning to want his tea.
-
"Well, are you going to say something?" asked Mr. Dofferty.
The boy was as silent as a lump of wood.
Mr. Dofferty suddenly lost patience. "Very well, then. You will please come along with me." He strode forward towards the big door in the middle of the building. The boy hesitated for one moment. He looked round wildly. It was impossible to get away from those skinny legs. And there would be a to-morrow, and a to-morrow after that.
The sanctum was a room on the righthand side of the main cor- ridor. Mr. Dofferty took out his bunch of keys and unlocked door.
the
"This way!" he said frigidly. The boy followed. He knew the way well enough, there was faint smell in the air which turn- ed his stomach, as it had been turned once or twice before. Mr. Dofferty burned joss-sticks now and again, when his nostalgia for the East got him badly.
The headmaster
went over to
the table in the middle of the room and carefully removed two or three of his oriental knick- knacks, the soapstone Buddha he used as a paper-weight, the ivory handled Malay kris he used as a paper-knife, the heavy brass Chinese seal. He sat down in the space thus cleared and reached casually along the table for his
cane.
-
"Stand here," he ordered the boy. The boy came and stood be- side him. "What was your dream about?" The boy stood obdurate. "You're not going to tell me?”
he roared. "So, you're not going. to tell me?" He lifted the cane high in the air, ready to strike.
"I'll tell you!" the boy shouted suddenly. "Please
sir, I'll tell
you!"
Mr. Dofferty's face was as white as a table cloth, his lips were
his skinny body and only a wreath of daisies for headgear.
"Is that all?" he asked, with a deadly attempt at casualness.
Then the boy
gave tongue, with a voice so shrill and terrible that it seemed to pierce, the ear drums..
"That's' all!" he screamed. **I tell you that's all! I didn't dream nothing more! Nothing at all! Nothing!" The eyes glared. The jaw was so rigid that the words came through with the effect of ventriloquy. For the first time in the encounter Mr. Dofferty's intellectual interest was aroused.. He forgot his anger with the boy and his shame of himself. He was conscious only of an exceed- ing curiosity. What more was it the boy had dreamed, the terror of which made him a gibbering idiot? What on earth could it
Our Weekly Short Story
almost as white. then! Go on!"
"Very well
"I-I-dreamed—” the boy whimpered. "I-Idreamed that " Then he looked up be- seechingly. "I can't tell you, sir," he wailed.
"I think other.
you can," said the
The boy swallowed hard. "I dreamed in my dream, sir, you was wearing you was wear- ing-"
"Go on!"
long
"You were wearing a nightgown, sir. It was a silk one, sir, pale blue silk. And and " Again the words stuck in the boy's throat. The sweat poured down his cheeks. His fists shut and opened as if they were catching at something that eluded them.
Mr. Dofferty was not aware of the boy's discomfort. He was aware only of his own. He knew he had never been so ridiculous in all his life before. He had never so humiliated himself. His face was as red as a cock's comb. His ears blazed.
"Go on!" he said thickly. "Anything more?" He wanted to... get through with it, to get it be- 'hind him, to kick the stinking little brat into the gutter he came from.
"Yes, sir!" blubbered the boy. "You was
wearing a wreath of daisies round your forehead!"
"I see," whispered Mr. Dofferty, "I see!" But he did not mean that he himself saw. He meant that the small boys saw, the small boys who had laughed so up- roariously when Albert Hewitt had told them his dream. He saw with their eyes his own unspeak- able grotesqueness pale blue nightgown and wreath of daisies.
Why didn't the small boy get to hell out of it? What was the blob of dirt hanging about for? He must take himself in hand. He musn't let the boy realise how naked he had left him, shivering in the whistling blackness, with only a pale blue nightgown round
be? He licked his lips apprecia- tively. The whole thing really was extraordinarily interesting.
"Listen, Albert," he said coax- ingly. "Don't be frightened. I know you dreamed something more. I'd like to know what it is. Won't you tell me?”-
"Nothing more! I didn't dream nothing more!” The boy stamp- ed his feet.
(Continued from, Fage
assure you, you're going to tell me!" Mr. Dofferty said. "You might as well tell me now as later." He wasn't going to have the struggle start all over again. He was feeling completely worn out. The cane. had fallen to the. floor. He reached down and lift- ed it. He swished it through the air forebodingly. "Will you tell. me, Albert?" he asked once again.
The boy said nothing. "Will you tell me, Albert?" he repeated still again.
The boy still said nothing. Then the man's patience snap. ped. The cane went hissing into the air and came screaming down again. He did not know where it landed, on the boy's hands or his body or his face.
The boy did not know either. He knew nothing more, excepting that the whole world was a black- ness with a great wind roaring in. ît. Then at last the wind ceased roaring and there was light in the world again. He became aware that he was in the sanctum of Mr. Dofferty, his headmaster. He became aware of Mr. Dofferty's body extended interminably be- tween his own legs and the legs of the table. The Malay kris that Mr. Dofferty used as a paper knife stuck out from between his ribs.
The boy leaned forward, point- ing towards the ivory handle, where the blood gushed above the blade. "That's what I dreamed!" his lips went. "That's what I dreamed!"
“Equal to
fine liqueur
"I can tell
White Horse
blindfold! And to think that at one
time I used simply to ask for whisky-and-soda! White Horse is just like a fine liqueur!”
Sole Agents for S. China, JARDINE MATHESON & CO., LTD.