David Blaize by E.F. Benson — Read

David returned from the station on Monday morning, where he had been permitted to go, in order to see his father off, in extremely good spirits, with his straw hat, trimmed with the school eleven colours, well back on his head, his hands in his pockets, where one caressed five distinct shillings, the other the travelling-carriage of the Monarch, while fragments of cheerful tunes came piercingly forth from the aperture caused by his broken tooth. The shape of this orifice no doubt had something to do with the deafening quality of his whistle, which went through the head of the hearer like the chirping of a canary in a circumscribed room, and when deeds of infamy, such as illicit feasts, were going on in the bushes at the far end of the second-club field, he was often suitably bribed to keep watch at the railings nearest the school buildings, for his whistle carried that distance quite easily.

There was therefore, when his melodies were heard, time to remove all traces of debauch before Dubs or any other incarnation of danger could arrive. So desirable, indeed, was the gift of a really resonant whistle that Ferrers had at one time begun operations on one of his own front teeth with the file on his nail-scissors in order to get a similar configuration, but increasing tenderness had made him desist before he had got far.