Then Miss Jones made a bad mistake.Wearied of the argument,wishing to continue the lesson,and hoping perhaps to please her tormentors,she said meekly:
"Well,if he really is good,perhaps--"
From that instant her doom was sealed.The children exchanged a glance of realisation.Jeremy smiled.The lesson was continued.What possessed Jeremy now?What possesses any child,naturally perhaps,of a kindly and even sentimental nature at the sight of something helpless and in its power?Is there any cruelty in after life like the cruelty of a small boy,and is there anything more powerful,more unreasoning,and more malicious than the calculating tortures that small children devise for those weaker than themselves?Jeremy was possessed with a new power.
It was something almost abstract in its manifestations;it was something indecent,sinister,secret,foreign to his whole nature felt by him now for the first time,unanalysed,of course,but belonging,had he known it,to that world of which afterwards he was often to catch glimpses,that world of shining white faces in dark streets,of muffled cries from shuttered windows,of muttered exclamations,half caught,half understood.He was never again to be quite free from the neighbourhood of that half-world;he would never be quite sure of his dominance of it until he died.
He had never felt anything like this power before.With the Jampot his relations had been quite simple;he had been rebellious,naughty,disobedient,and had been punished,and there was an end.
Now there was a game like tracking Red Indians in the prairie or tigers in the jungle.
He watched Miss Jones and discovered many things about her.He discovered that when she made mistakes in the things that she taught them she was afraid to confess to her mistakes,and so made them worse and worse.He discovered that she was very nervous,and that a sudden noise made her jump and turn white and put her hand to her heart.He discovered that she would punish him and then try to please him by saying he need not finish his punishment.He discovered that she would lose things,like her spectacles,her handkerchief,or her purse,and then be afraid to confess that she had lost them and endeavour to proceed without them.He discovered that she hated to hit him on the hand with a ruler (he scarcely felt the strokes).He discovered that when his mother or father was in the room she was terrified lest he should misbehave.
He discovered that she was despised by the servants,who quite openly insulted her.
All these things fed his sense of power.He did not consider her a human being at all;she was simply something upon which he could exercise his ingenuity and cleverness.Mary followed him in whatever he did;Helen pretended to be superior,but was not.Yes,Miss Jones was in the hands of her tormentors,and there was no escape for her.
Surely it must have been some outside power that drove Jeremy on.
The children called it "teasing Miss Jones,"and the aboriginal savagery in their behaviour was as unconscious as their daily speech or fashion of eating their food--some instinct inherited,perhaps,from the days when the gentleman with the biggest muscles extracted for his daily amusement the teeth and nails of his less happily muscular friends.
There were many games to be played with Miss Jones.She always began her morning with a fine show of authority,accumulated,perhaps,during hours of Spartan resolution whilst the rest of the household slept."To-morrow I'll see that they do what I tell them--""Now,children,"she would say,"I'm determined to stand no nonsense this morning.Get out your copy books."Five minutes later would begin:"Oh,Miss Jones,I can't write with this pencil.May I find a better one?"Granted permission,Mary's head and large spectacles would disappear inside the schoolroom cupboard.Soon Jeremy would say very politely:"Miss Jones,I think I know where it is.May I help her to find it?"Then Jeremy's head would disappear.There would follow giggles,whispers,again giggles;then from the cupboard a book tumbles,then another,then another.Then Miss Jones would say:"Now,Jeremy,come back to the table.You've had quite enough time--"interrupted by a perfect avalanche of books.Mary crying:
"Oh,Jeremy!"Jeremy crying:"I didn't;it was you!"Miss Jones:
"Now,children--"
Then Jeremy,very politely:
"Please,Miss Jones,may I help Mary to pick the books up?There are rather a lot."Then,both on their knees,more whispers and giggles.
Miss Jones,her voice trembling:"Children,I really insist--"And more books dropped,and more whispers and more protests,and so on ad infinitum.A beautiful game to be played all the morning.
Or there was the game of Not Hearing.Miss Jones would say:"And twice two are four."Mary would repeat loudly:"And twice two is five--""Four,Mary."
"Oh,I thought you said five."
And then a second later Jeremy would ask:
"Did you say four or five,Miss Jones?"
"I told Mary I said four--"
"Oh,I've written five--and now it's all wrong.Didn't you write five,Mary?""Yes,I've written five.You did say four,didn't you,Miss Jones?""Yes--yes.And three makes--"
"What did you say made five?"asked Jeremy.
"I didn't say five.I said four.Twice two."
"Is that as well as 'add three,'Miss Jones?I've got twice two,and then add three,and then twice two--""No,no.I was only telling Jeremy--"
"Please,Miss Jones,would you mind beginning again--"This is a very unpleasant game for a lady with neuralgia.