CHAPTER VII

'IN BOUNDS'

Shops and shopkeepers-Yacht-building-School servants-
In bounds and out.

ONE cannot write about Westminster School life without enumerating the shops and shopkeepers.

The shops that were employed by the school were mostly in Great College Street and its neighbourhood. Almost opposite the arch from Great Dean's Yard, and at the corner of Bowling Street, was Mother Sutcliffe's, a tuck-shop (did we call them tuck-shops? I think not. Anyhow, she sold food, lollypops, etc.). Two bowwindows, with steps up and a door between, counters on each side, and cram full of home and half boarders and the small fry, it was not much frequented by the bigger boys. Sutcliffe himself seldom appeared; he was doorkeeper for Cox and Co., the army agents in Craig's Court, where I often saw him in later days, as they were my regimental agents. Passing down the street, you came to Martin's, shoemaker and footballmaker to the school. He was a cheery old fellow, with a round face and black whiskers, always with spectacles on the end of his nose, over which he looked as he talked to you, constantly at work with his two

hog-bristle needles; and a good workman he was, as is his son. I have had all my heavy shoes and shooting boots from Martin and Son from those days till now. His son follows in his footsteps, and well deserves this advertisement. Martin was the successor of Cobbler Foote, famous for the administration of strap-oil to unwary new-comers, who were sent to buy pennyworths of it and got it hot. I knew about that before I arrived, for my father had an oil-painting of Cobbler Foote with his strap ready in his hand. The next shop down the street was Ginger's, the school bookseller's, dating from 1806, or earlier, for I have a book-Sacred Exercises '-with Ginger's name as publisher, and date 1806, and a list of scholars dated 1788, sold by Godfree Ginger and others. It is now abolished. You entered up two or three steps, books on shelves all round, in sets according as they were required by the different forms, the counter on the right, and a stove in the middle of the shop, on which stood a saucer full of tepid water. The shop always smelt of glue and bookbinding in general.

Here each boy was served out with a 'dip'-i.e., a small glass bottle with a sponge inside soaked in ink ; a bundle of new quill pens (steel pens were never used); and a bundle of quarterns '-ruled paper about 8 or 9 inches square; also a 'fair-showing book '—a thin, sharp-edged book for copying out verses, etc., and a capital book for shying at short range. He also

received the form books that were told off for his form for that half, and the book of the Play if it was the last half of the year. Touching on 'fair-showing books

reminds me of an episode 'up Grant's.' I was then in the middle Chiswick.' Some of the inner Chiswick' were in the habit of half opening the door and heaving a big lexicon or other book into the midst of our evening amusements-cooking, cards, or whatever was going on. I resented this, and lay in wait with my 'fair-showing book' at the ready. One Hammond opened the door to bombard us. I at once threw my weapon, struck him on the nose, and broke it. I saw him once in after-life, and his nose had still a slight list to port (as sailors say); he had been in the front rank when noses were served out (as soldiers say). Hammond joined the 46th Regiment and served in the Crimea. Talking about the quill pens and quarterns, the juniors in College were always expected to have a supply of these ready when called for, and the minor candidates were always eager to buy up any that were left over at the end of the half. No one ever used a pen twice: you always broke its back, shied it at someone, and it was trodden under foot. Turning the corner into Barton Street, you came to dear old Mrs. Shotton's, another tuck-shop, but much more select as to its customers and the food supplied. There was a back-room-where 'the eight' ate their raw beefsteaks when in training—and there was a cozy little box between the fire and the front window where we small boys ate bread and cheese and pickles, generally onions, for which we dabbed in the plate, turn about, with two-pronged forks. The Stilton cheese, fourpence a plate, was always a complete round off the cheese, or red

cheese threepence a plate, and pickles twopence, enough for two. The Derby cakes were delicious, round, flat, and crisp, with plums; then there were most excellent jam open tarts, some of them apricot, some strawberry or raspberry; Queen cakes in heart shape, and all manner of good things. She was a dear, roundabout old lady, and made all these things herself.

Further down the street, also on the right-hand side, was Mother Vickers's circulating library, mostly novels, old, dog-eared, and torn, which were much patronized. Her son was a painter, and was employed to paint up names in the school.

Returning to College Street, there were no more shops, only houses on the right, and the old Abbey wall built by Abbot Litlington, in the fourteenth century, on your left, running from Dean's Yard arch to the far end of College gardens, with entrances by the close-shut back-doors to Rigaud's, Grant's, the under-master's house, and College sanatorium. Beyond College gardens were some mews; here the father

of

my great friend Bankes had his stables, the house being at Poets' Corner. In these stables Bankes and I established a workshop, or rather, a boat-building yard, from whence were turned out two first-class yachts, a revenue cutter—to be the property of Bankes; I forget its name—and a narrow-bowed, two-masted lugger called the Sea-horse-for me. Both were hewn out of the solid block. There was a shop near Temple Bar, to which we made constant visits, 'skipping up town,' to buy miniature blocks, dead-eyes, anchors, and other

yacht furniture, beautifully made, and small as you pleased. Masts and spars were supplied from Studlands, near Poole, where Bankes's people lived. He was well up in rigging, etc., and my father at that time had a yacht, the Merlin, R.Y.S., and I spent my summer holidays at Cowes or on board of her, so the rigging was all correct. At the foot of College Street is Abingdon Street; here, with its back to the river and the marble works, was Boyd the baker's, where hot buns and rolls were to be bought; and further on, past the Chequers public-house, was the way down to the Barges, our landing-place for the river, and beyond that, the then-unfinished mass of the Victoria Tower and the Houses of Parliament.

The pavement on the opposite side of Abingdon Street was sacred to the Sixth Form; it was cheek for any boy not in the Sixth to walk upon it. Poets' Corner was our boundary in this direction, Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament being included; but in the other direction, towards the horse-ferry, and in at the back of College Street, towards St. John's Church, there were no fixed bounds. There were two places in Bowling Street connected with the school. One the tailor's shop; the tailor's name was Staines, and I can remember the men sitting on the table, with legs crossed, stitching away, in a steaming atmosphere, the result of hot irons and damping processes.

The other place was Wright's, a small, quiet publichouse; this was on the left hand, near the tailor's. We were not allowed to go there, but, nevertheless, the