My Name is Michael Sibley Read Online Free PDF

had many good times together, and Prosset was not always dominating.
    I think now that one of the incidents which played an important part occurred when on one occasion several of us—Prosset included—were travelling back to school in the same railway compartment. The others were chattering away about the holidays and what they had done and where they had been, the shows they had seen, and the parties and dances they had attended. I wasn’t joining in, because it so happened that during those particular holidays I had not done anything very interesting. Among the few virtues I possess—and in view of later events they must be counted few indeed—is an inability to elaborate incidents to show myself in a good light. If I relate some conversation in which I have taken part, I cannot even to this day alter the context to include smart replies I would have made had I thought of them in time.
    So I sat and listened, and when I was not listening I gazed out of the window into the gathering dusk. Opposite me, Prosset was talking to Collet, the son of a rich Yorkshire mine owner. The train drew into a station, and a man came along the platform wheeling a trolley with newspapers, magazines, chocolates, sweets, and cigarettes on it, for this was only a few years after the First World War and such commodities were common. I let down the window and bought a couple of bars of nut milk chocolate; one or two others followed my example, and we settled back into our seats and waited for the train to start. Then it happened. Prosset and Collet were talking about their tailors.
    “My man charged me six and a half for this,” said Collet, brushing some ash off his waistcoat, for we smoked like furnaces going back to school.
    “I paid eight,” said Prosset, “but that included an extra pair of trousers.”
    “What about dinner jackets?”
    Prosset hesitated. I guessed he hadn’t got one.
    “Ten,” he said briefly. Collet nodded. He looked at me. I could see him looking me up and down. Prosset followed suit. I knew what they were thinking. They had no need to tell me. I saw the words forming themselves in Prosset’s mind long before he spoke them, though I didn’t expect him to be so accurate.
    He said, in the lull in the conversation, in the lazy, arrogant drawl he sometimes adopted:
    “What about yours, Mike? Three guineas ready-made?”
    I nodded. Somebody sniggered.
    “Poor old Mike,” said Prosset.
    There was an awkward silence. I blushed scarlet and stared out on to the platform. The palms of my hands were damp and I was pressing my nails into them. The rough, hard-wearing tweed was chafing my neck. I could feel the skimped trousers clinging to my legs. The train drew out of the station and gathered speed. I gazed out of the window, ashamed and filled with bitterness against Prosset.
     
    Although I had secretly begun to hate Prosset, we still did everything together, Prosset, Trevelyan and I. We were still united, and therefore a force to be reckoned with in the House, though none of us was ever a prefect. I can see why Prosset was so popular and treated with respect. It was not only that he was well built and clean-looking, whereas I was bespectacled and pasty, it was also due to his high spirits; his energy and courage, too. Nobody ever challenged him in vain. Combat was the breath of life to him. Not merely physical combat, though when he was fighting or playing games he did it to the last ounce of his strength, but verbal tussles as well.
    We were all three of about the same seniority in the school, so we always sat together at the long dining tables; and if Prosset could find an excuse for an argument he would. He loved it. He would take anybody up on anything, challenge any statement for the sheer pleasure of the fight; and if all else failed he would pick an argument with me. If I declined the challenge, he would taunt me until I was stung to reply. Although he was not a bully physically, he was certainly one