Free To You, Mr Chips by James Hilton

he added, in a whisper: 'Sir Thomas.'
    They all smiled at that; which was odd, Gerald thought, for there could really be no joke in calling the Candidate by his proper name. He went on: 'You see, the motor-car came straight at me--'
    'He says the motor-car charged straight into him!' shouted Aunt Flo, for Uncle Richard's benefit.
    'Let the boy tell his own story,' said the Candidate.
    That calmed them, and also, in a queer way, it gave Gerald calmness of his own. He continued: 'The motor-car came charging into me and knocked me over--'
    'Was it going fast?'
    'It was going  very  fast,' answered Gerald, and added raptly: 'Nearly as fast as the Scotch Express.'
    'He's all trains,' said Aunt Flo. 'Never thinks of anything else.'
    But the Candidate showed an increasing unwillingness to listen to her. 'So the motor-car was travelling fast,' he said to Gerald quietly, 'and I suppose you were knocked down because you couldn't get away in time. Is that it?'
    'Yes, sir--Sir Thomas.'
    'And what happened then?'
    'The motor-car stopped and two men got out and came up to me. One of them was wearing a blue badge.'
    'Beale!' cried Aunt Flo. 'Didn't I say so? Richard, he says one of them was Beale himself!'
    'Please go on,' said the Candidate.
    Gerald said after a pause: 'They picked me up and stared at me.'
    'Stared at you?'
    'Yes. That's what they did.'
    'And what after that?'
    What, indeed? Gerald could not, for the moment, remember just how everything had happened. But suddenly the answer came. 'They laughed,' he said.
    'They  what?'  asked the Candidate, leaning forward nearer to Gerald.
    'He says they jeered at him!' shouted Aunt Flo.
    'They laughed,' continued Gerald, with gathering confidence. 'And one of them said it was all my fault for being in the way. He hit me.' Pause. 'He hit me in the eye. I ran away then and they both chased me, but they couldn't catch me.' He sighed proudly. 'I ran too fast.'
    'Richard--Richard--just listen to that--would you believe it--he says they hit him!'
    'Wuff-wuff--my--goodness--wuff--just wait--scandalous--wuff--'
    'Tell me now,' said the Candidate, still quietly. 'You say one of the men hit you and gave you this black eye. You're sure he hit you?'
    'He hit me,' answered Gerald, with equal quietness,  'twice.'
     
    Gerald stayed in bed for several days after that, for it seemed that despite all the doctoring and hot bricks, he was destined to catch the thoroughly bad cold that he deserved. For a time his temperature was high--high enough to swing the hours along in an eager, throbbing trance, invaded by consciousness of strange things happening in the rooms below and in the streets outside. Voices and footsteps grew noisier and more continual, shouting and singing waved distantly over the rooftops. Aunt Flo brought him jellies and beef-tea, and Uncle Richard sometimes came up for a cheery word; but for the most part Gerald was left alone, while the rest of the house abandoned itself to some climax of activity. He could feel all that, as he lay huddled up under the bedclothes. But he was not unhappy to be left alone, because he felt the friendliness of the house like a warm animal all around him, something alive and breathing and lovely to be near. There had been nothing in his life like this before. He could not remember his father and mother (they had both died when he was a baby); and Aunt Lavinia, who usually took charge of him during the school holidays, lived in a dull, big house in a dull, small place where nothing ever happened--nothing, at any rate, like this magic of Browdley streets and Ulio's ice-cream and climbing right to the very top of Mickle.
    But the most wonderful thing of all had been when the Candidate bent over him and touched his forehead. As he lay feverishly in bed and thought of it, it all happened over again, but with more detail--with every possible detail.
    'Gerald Holloway, I owe everything to you. If that letter had been discovered . . .' And suddenly Gerald