THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

8

In that revival we associated certain other of the Sixth Form boys,

and notably one for whom our enterprise was to lay the foundations

of a career that has ended in the House of Lords, Arthur Cossington,

now Lord Paddockhurst. Cossington was at that time a rather heavy,

rather good-looking boy who was chiefly eminent in cricket, an

outsider even as we were and preoccupied no doubt, had we been

sufficiently detached to observe him, with private imaginings very

much of the same quality and spirit as our own. He was, we were

inclined to think, rather a sentimentalist, rather a poseur, he

affected a concise emphatic styl, played chess very well, betrayed

a belief in will-power, and earned Britten's secret hostility,

Britten being a sloven, by the invariable neatness of his collars

and ties. He came into our magazine with a vigour that we found

extremely surprising and unwelcome.

Britten and I had wanted to write. We had indeed figured our

project modestly as a manuscript magazine of satirical, liberal and

brilliant literature by which in some rather inexplicable way the

vague tumult of ideas that teemed within us was to find form and

expression; Cossington, it was manifest from the outset, wanted

neither to write nor writing, but a magazine. I remember the

inaugural meeting in Shoesmith major's study-we had had great

trouble in getting it together-and how effectually Cossington

bolted with the proposal.

"I think we fellows ought to run a magazine," said Cossington. "The

school used to have one. A school like this ought to have a

magazine."

"The last one died in '84," said Shoesmith from the hearthrug.

"Called the OBSERVER. Rot rather."

"Bad title," said Cossington.

"There was a TATLER before that," said Britten, sitting on the

writing table at the window that was closed to deaden the cries of

the Lower School at play, and clashing his boots together.

"We want something suggestive of City Merchants."

"CITY MERCHANDIZE," said Britten.

"Too fanciful. What of ARVONIAN? Richard Arvon was our founder,

and it seems almost a duty-"

"They call them all -usians or -onians," said Britten.

"I like CITY MERCHANDIZE," I said. "We could probably find a

quotation to suggest-oh! mixed good things."

Cossington regarded me abstractedly.

Don't want to put the accent on the City, do we?" said Shoesmith,

who had a feeling for county families, and Naylor supported him by a

murmur of approval.

"We ought to call it the ARVONIAN," decided Cossington, "and we

might very well have underneath, 'With which is incorporated the

OBSERVER.' That picks up the old traditions, makes an appeal to old

boys and all that, and it gives us something to print under the

title."

I still held out for CITY MERCHANDIZE, which had taken my fancy.

"Some of the chaps' people won't like it," said Naylor, "certain not

to. And it sounds Rum."

"Sounds Weird," said a boy who had not hitherto spoken.

"We aren't going to do anything Queer," said Shoesmith, pointedly

not looking at Britten.

The question of the title had manifestly gone against us. "Oh! HAVE

it ARVONIAN," I said.

"And next, what size shall we have?" said Cossington.

"Something like MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE-or LONGMANS'; LONGMANS' is

better because it has a whole page, not columns. It makes no end of

difference to one's effects."

"What effects?" asked Shoesmith abruptly.

"Oh! a pause or a white line or anything. You've got to write

closer for a double column. It's nuggetty. You can't get a swing

on your prose." I had discussed this thoroughly with Britten.

"If the fellows are going to write-" began Britten.

"We ought to keep off fine writing," said Shoesmith. "It's cheek.

I vote we don't have any."

"We sha'n't get any," said Cossington, and then as an olive branch

to me, "unless Remington does a bit. Or Britten. But it's no good

making too much space for it."

"We ought to be very careful about the writing," said Shoesmith.

"We don't want to give ourselves away."

"I vote we ask old Topham to see us through," said Naylor.

Britten groaned aloud and every one regarded him. "Greek epigrams

on the fellows' names," he said. " Small beer in ancient bottles.

Let's get a stuffed broody hen to SIT on the magazine."

"We might do worse than a Greek epigram," said Cossington. "One in

each number. It-it impresses parents and keeps up our classieal

tradition. And the masters CAN help. We don't want to antagonise

them. Of course-we've got to dcpartmentalise. Writing is only one

section of the thing. The ARVONIAN has to stand for the school.

There's questions of space and questions of expense. We can't turn

out a great chunk of printed prose like-like wet cold toast and

call it a magazine."

Britten writhed, appreciating the image.

"There's to be a section of sports. YOU must do that."

"I'm not going to do any fine writing," said Shoesmith.

"What you've got to do is just to list all the chaps and put a note

to their play:-'Naylor minor must pass more. Football isn't the

place for extreme individualism.' 'Ammersham shapes well as half-

back.' Things like that."

"I could do that all right," said Shoesmith, brightening and

manifestly hecoming pregnant with judgments.

"One great thing about a magazine of this sort," said Cossington,

"is to mention just as many names as you can in each number. It

keeps the interest alive. Chaps will turn it over looking for their

own little bit. Then it all lights up for them."

"Do you want any reports of matches?" Shoesmith broke from his

meditation.

"Rather. With comments."

"Naylor surpassed himself and negotiated the lemon safely home,"

said Shoesmith.

"Shut it," said Naylor modestly.

"Exactly," said Cossington. "That gives us three features,"

touching them off on his fingers, "Epigram, Literary Section,

Sports. Then we want a section to shove anything into, a joke, a

notice of anything that's going on. So on. Our Note Book."

"Oh, Hell!" said Britten, and clashed his boots, to the silent

disapproval of every one.

"Then we want an editorial."

"A WHAT?" cried Britten, with a note of real terror in his voice.

"Well, don't we? Unless we have our Note Book to begin on the front

page. It gives a scrappy effect to do that. We want something

manly and straightforward and a bit thoughtful, about Patriotism,

say, or ESPRIT DE CORPS, or After-Life."

I looked at Britten. Hitherto we had not considered Cossington

mattered very much in the world.

He went over us as a motor-car goes over a dog. There was a sort of

energy about him, a new sort of energy to us; we had never realised

that anything of the sort existed in the world. We were hopelessly

at a disadvantage. Almost instantly we had developed a clear and

detailed vision of a magazine made up of everything that was most

acceptable in the magazines that flourished in the adult world about

us, and had determined to make it a success. He had by a kind of

instinct, as it were, synthetically plagiarised every successful

magazine and breathed into this dusty mixture the breath of life.

He was elected at his own suggestion managing director, with the

earnest support of Shoesmith and Naylor, and conducted the magazine

so successfully and brilliantly that he even got a whole back page

of advertisements from the big sports shop in Holborn, and made the

printers pay at the same rate for a notice of certain books of their

own which they said they had inserted by inadvertency to fill up

space. The only literary contribution in the first number was a

column by Topham in faultless stereotyped English in depreciation of

some fancied evil called Utilitarian Studies and ending with that

noble old quotation:-

"To the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome."

And Flack crowded us out of number two with a bright little paper on

the "Humours of Cricket," and the Head himself was profusely

thoughtful all over the editorial under the heading of "The School

Chapel; and How it Seems to an Old Boy."

Britten and I found it difficult to express to each other with any

grace or precision what we felt about that magazine.