He once told me how many nibs his
uncle made in a year; luckily I have forgotten. Thousands,
probably. Every term that boy came back with a hundred of them;
one expected him to be very busy. After all, if you haven't the
brains or the inclination to work, it is something to have the
nibs. These nibs, however, were put to better uses. There is a
game you can play with them; you flick your nib against the other
boy's nib, and if a lucky shot puts the head of yours under his,
then a sharp tap capsizes him, and you have a hundred and one in
your collection. There is a good deal of strategy in the game
(whose finer points I have now forgotten), and I have no doubt
that they play it at the Admiralty in the off season. Another
game was to put a clean nib in your pen, place it lightly against
the cheek of a boy whose head was turned away from you, and then
call him suddenly. As Kipling says, we are the only really
humorous race. This boy's uncle died a year or two later and left
about ?80,000, but none of it to his nephew. Of course, he had
had the nibs every term. One mustn't forget that.
The nib I write this with is called the "Canadian Quill"; made, I
suppose, from some steel goose which flourishes across the seas,
and which Canadian housewives have to explain to their husbands
every Michaelmas. Well, it has seen me to the end of what I
wanted to say--if indeed I wanted to say anything.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25