Full text of "Laughing Torso"

See other formats

AT    A    PUBLIC    SCHOOL
fact there was no end to the ancestors who came
over on that very overcrowded ship, the " May-
flower." She was what the Americans would de-
scribe as " dumb."
From here I went to Bath. This was very
different from my private school; there were a
hundred and fifty girls and I was delighted with
it: the girls complained bitterly that it was a
charity institution; the only advantage being that
we were not made to wear uniforms and be com-
pletely like workhouse inmates.
My first term I won the foreign languages prize
because I had had the verb " To be " and the verb
" To have " dinned into my head for two years. I
had no particular talent for languages. I drew
maps for a friend of mine and she did my arithmetic.
At Christmas I played the " Mad Hatter " in Alice
in Wonderland., and had a great success; the Arch-
deacon of Bath always sent his old top hats to the
school for theatricals, so I wore one. One day
during preparation someone handed me a copy of
Edward Lear's Nonsense Rhymes. I thought them so
funny and made such a disturbance that I was sent
out. A friend and I started to write a magazine
together, I doing the illustrations, having abandoned
writing. This was stopped as it was considered un-
conventional. Bath made me horribly ill and de-
pressed; I developed glands and had to stay at home
for a term.
My family were at Portsmouth waiting for the
return of my Father from South Africa and I was
sent to the Portsmouth School of Art.   This was in
•      '• • •    _ .13' '• _    -.".  •• -•• -:-.' ••'•'•;,;;•-: