Pook at College

ONE

I don’t ask for gratitude, but they say in the trade that no author pampers and assists his readers like Pook does. Remember how, in Pook in Business, I showed you step by step how to make a fortune? Admittedly we came out of it with only £10,000—barely enough to keep one off National Assistance today, but a lot of loot then.

Banker Pook Confesses demonstrated in plain language how to raid a bank and help yourself to the cash reserve. In Bwana Pook—presupposing you hadn’t the gumption to make money in business or the nerve to steal it from a bank— I showed you how to marry it.

Thus you are probably sitting there right now in your ritzy penthouse overlooking the Thames, chuckling as you read—and you must be rich to afford a Pook Book at all nowadays—thinking to yourself if it hadn’t been for old Peter I should still be in that bedsitter in the Fulham Road. I wonder what he’s got in store for us this time so we can clean up some more.

Much of the advice was inserted for the benefit of the book trade, because they are a grand bunch of lads on the whole and I learned as a Freemason always to help my brothers in distress.

Today I shall tell you how to become a State egghead so you can come in out of the wet to earn a good living, impervious to those economic recessions essential to the British way of life. If you are careful with your spelling—‘I wants to join your Kollij of Nollij’ on the application form gives the Principal a bad impression at the outset—and play down your police record, you can take the course and become a nationalised nark quite painlessly without gas or drugs. In brief, they are so short of teachers that even I applied.

All of which makes you wonder how it is that I am penniless as I write yet another Pook Book—the eighth in this classic series—to try and raise the wind once more. Frankly, folks, money isn’t everything. There are things more important than the sordid accumulation of wealth and material possessions. The great philosophers tell us down the ages that the best things—the essentials which really count—are free. Birdsong, scenery, fresh air, starlight, friendship and love, for instance. Oddly enough it is this free love that is partly responsible for my being on hard times. Love and horses and cruises to faraway places with strange-sounding names—like Rio de Janeiro and Sandown Park.

Fortunately I hid £1,500 from the women and this is what I did with it. In a poor shopping area in Cudford—Slaughterhouse Street to be precise—stood a deserted sweetshop of the Victorian era. Its flaky paint, which had once been brown, surrounded those tiny windows our forefathers favoured as though they preferred to keep their business a secret. Over the top was a leaky set of three rooms reached by a spiral staircase for midgets. Working on the mine-detector principle, I sent my girl-friend Olga in first on her stiletto heels and that was the last I saw of her for some time.

Can you lift me out, Peter? I’ve hurt my ankle, she moaned quietly. Olga appeared to be standing in a muddy crater surrounded by splintered floorboards. Slipping the estate-agents’ key in my pocket I pulled her out like a rescuer on a frozen lake, because the entire ground floor was gripped with dry-rot.

You went through the floor, dear, I told her tenderly, massaging her filthy legs. What a blessing you are to me in this property racket.

When Olga had regained the use of her limbs again she modestly refused to mount the spiral staircase in front of me because of her mini-skirt, so I led the way upwards despite the risk. Luckily there was no sign of dry-rot upstairs, merely woodworm.

Let’s face facts, Peter, it’s a dump, Olga decided wearily, and in any case you’ll never do any trade in a dying slum like this area is.

I’m buying it just the same, dear. This is the first step towards Pook the Property King. How can I go to College and become a teacher if I don’t make myself independent for the two years when they don’t pay me anything?

How about me then?

You can go to College too, if that’s the way you want it.

No, silly. I mean us.

I’ve covered both of us—who else is there?

I meant about getting married, Peter.

Oh. Well, that’s what I’m getting at; we can’t do a thing without money—and this is the short cut. You’ll see.

I paid the executors of the deceased owner £650 for the freehold, then had a jobbing builder redecorate throughout. He completely renewed the floors downstairs, then in a single day his men ripped out the rotting shop-window and replaced it with a modern front. This consisted of one huge sheet of glass, flanked by a plate-glass door. The bill was £200, plus £100 for the decorating.

So you’ve cooked up a modern little shop in a depressed area, Olga commented. Now who’s fool enough to buy it?

Within twelve days I sold the whole set-up to the only firm who could prosper in such a district—Sport of Kings Betting Shops Ltd. Sport of Kings, in the shape of one Dave Mitzer, paid me £1,950 to quit. Included in the price was a tin of Farotex for the roof after windy nights. Today the place must be worth every penny of £2,000.

This deal meant that I now had nearly enough cash for the main play. With the help of a loan from Olga I bought a huge house in Raymond Road, Cudford. It was probably the biggest terrace house the Victorians ever built, five floors of it including attics and basements—nearly 90 feet high from coal-hole to cowls—left by an old lady and sold to me by her delighted heirs for £2,600 freehold.

By combing the auctions and junk shops I furnished every room at an average cost of £20 a room. From the same sources I obtained nineteen gas-stoves and the same number of sinks, which my friend Alec and I installed in record time. Each room already had a gas-fire fitted, so we connected up to the gas-stoves, then tested for leaks.

I watched spellbound as Alec held a lighted match to the pipe joints in turn. If a blue flame appeared he said It works! then he would spread car-grease round the joint and re-test.

To drain so many sinks we ran six-inch pipes down the walls inside the house—from attics to basement—then painted the pipes to match the colour scheme of each room they passed through; that is to say, Sunshine Yellow. By advertising in the Cudford Echo, I let eighteen rooms at an average rental of £2 a week exclusive. The best room in the house—ground-floor front—I kept for myself. In four days every room was let, and as many people again turned away. Attics, basements and small back rooms fetched £1.10s. 0d. a piece; anything with a view of more than eight feet cost £2; best rooms cost a minimum of £2 10s. 0d. a week. Everybody had to pay in advance, grossing me £41 the first week—not a bad return on a modest outlay. Of course, I had to increase the rents later on as the cost of loving went up.

After the fly-by-nights and good-time girls had been weeded out, I learned that the best tenants were those on National Assistance because they had to prove payment of rent before they could draw the next instalment from the Board. In fact I usually specified in my adverts ‘National Assistance beneficiaries preferred.’ These good payers, known in the trade as Nashers, gradually furnished the apartments—or maisonettelets as I called them in the ads—to their own liking, and if they died or fled they usually left most of the junk behind, so the place virtually began to furnish and decorate itself.

At its peak, Pook Towers slept 73 souls, every one of them grateful to have such a home and fully paid up seven days in advance. None of these souls slumbered so happily as the soul in Room 5—me—as he slept the sleep that only security plus riches can bring. The only breath of scandal ever to pervade Pook Towers was caused by a lady in Room 16 who persistently smuggled her lover through the basement back door, up five flights of stairs to the left-hand rear attic by night. Despite gossip on the part of other tenants I took no action, because the lady in question was eighty-three and an exemplary payer.

Having solved the financial problems of life without working, I felt free at last to satisfy my cultural needs by entering the educational world of Cudford Secondary Modern School as an unqualified teacher. Unfortunately I did not always see eye to eye with the Headmaster, Dr Collins, as you may remember from Professor Pook. Nevertheless, he was kind enough to diagnose my chief defect for me—I knew practically nothing about kids. Now, it is extremely difficult to teach anywhere without having children present, and as far as I was concerned children were merely short adults who never buy a round in pubs.

Why don’t you pop down to the College of Education and get your diploma, Olga suggested one day, apparently under the impression that I wouldn’t be gone more than ten minutes and that I could obtain it along with the television licence. In actual fact I was gone two years.

So full were the Colleges that the sole vacancy open to me was the Dame May Boyle College for Women, up at Liddale. During my interview the Secretary told me that, owing to the unprecedented demand for teachers, I was to have the honour of being the first male student to enter the College since its inception. Although neither of us knew it at the time, I was also destined to be the last.

The Secretary handed me over to Dr Prunella Harcourt, who was to be my House Tutor. Dr Harcourt clipped her spectacles on her beak, the better to examine my papers. Very satisfactory, she grunted, scanning page 3. As you have considerable private means we shall not have to worry about obtaining a Grant for you, Mr Pook.

This news startled me badly. No Grant? But I thought it was like the Old Age Pension—everybody gets one.

Oh dear me no. The Grant from the Ministry of Education is only for those without other income. You are one of the lucky people who are not in need of State aid.

How many others have you like me then, ma’am?

None. What a distinction for you, Mr Pook; the first male student in our College, and now the first without financial assistance. Double congratulations. In fact, the size of your income may necessitate your paying towards the cost of your education.

Pay! No Grant and pay! I was beginning to panic. Look, ma’am, I have a friend in need to whom I can make my income over while I’m at College. That’ll make me a pauper like the others and entitle me to a Grant. I felt I could trust Olga to the extent of setting her up with forty odd pounds a week, to be saved till I came out qualified. Even then my mind received a picture of Olga emigrating with my best friend, Eddie Flaxmon, on the proceeds.

That would be highly irregular and not to be countenanced by the Authorities, Mr Pook. Nevertheless, I shall do my best to persuade them that you do not have to pay for the course. We shall accept you for the September intake and Miss Peabody will arrange your accommodation here. Take this list of books and clothes you will require for your studies and games. Now let me welcome you officially to the Dame May Boyle College for Women and show you the door.

Miss Peabody, thin spinster of this parish, led me to a room situated between the sick-bay and the Female Dormitory. It wasn’t a room really, being a cosy cubicle of thick curtains heavily draped to observe the proprieties. Normally, of course, men are not allowed in this wing, Miss Peabody explained archly, but in order to give you time to find suitable lodgings during the present scarcity of accommodation, the Principal has agreed that you may sleep in here next to the sick-bay. Naturally, we expect from a male Mature Student the highest standard of moral behaviour, and under no circumstances may you pass beyond that red curtain ahead.

That’s the harem, I guess, ma’am.

Please do not introduce such terms here, Mr Pook, even in a spirit of levity. Unfortunately, our young ladies of this generation are not all as chaste as we were in my day. In fact, some are so forward as to look with unseemly interest on anything in trousers.

You’re not suggesting I shall be safer without my trousers on, ma’am? In any case they will have nothing to fear from me; I have completely overcome it by almost monk-like self-discipline and arduous study.

Mr Pook, I merely wish to forewarn you, not enter into a reprehensible discussion about your mode of dress. However, should you experience any difficulty with the young ladies of this wing, kindly inform me immediately.

Where do you sleep, ma’am? I inquired shrewdly.

My cubicle is at the far end of the wing.

So if I need you in the night I shall have to pass through the dormitory.

Miss Peabody blushed unaccountably. Under no circumstances must you do that, Mr Pook. Instead I shall come to you.

You mean we can fix it up beforehand?

Fix what up beforehand, pray?

Our midnight tryst.

I don’t know if we are talking at cross purposes, Mr Pook, but if you need me, all you have to do is send a girl to fetch me.

How can I get a girl at that time of night, ma’am?

There will be one in the cubicle next to yours, of course. Petula Lloyd is a most reliable young lady and I shall instruct her to come to my cubicle immediately you want me.

How will she know, ma’am? I can hardly creep through the curtains and tell her I need Miss Peabody at once. She may misconstrue my motive.

On no account are you to enter her cubicle. Call softly and she will come.

Into my cubicle?

No, idiot—into mine, of course.

Then what will happen, ma’am?

I shall come to you, naturally.

So where will Petula go?

That is beside the point, Mr Pook. The whole object of the exercise is to enable you to summon me at the first hint of hanky-panky without passing through the girls’ dormitory.

Which way will you go if you don’t come through the dormitory, ma’am? If there’s another way wouldn’t it be quicker for me to come to you?

Not me—you!

Oh, I see, ma’am. But what happens if Petula is causing the hanky-panky? Communication breaks down immediately.

Rest assured that will not occur. Miss Lloyd is completely trustworthy—when you meet her you will understand why. That is the reason she has been placed next to you. All you need to do is alert her, then leave the hanky-panky to me.

Surely you won’t be up to anything, Miss Peabody?

"You really have the most extraordinary mental block when it comes to following a simple conversation, Mr Pook. On the contrary, I am the person who has to try her