The Paper Chase Read Online Free

moment the intensity of his gaze held them. Then he ended, rather lamely: “Mrs Pont will be happy if you will drink coffee with her tonight. Now, shall we meet the boys and girls?”
    They met the boys and girls. Fourteen-year-old Maureen Gardner was producing what she called thought-paintings composed of bands of vivid colour moving in waves across a sheet. “Liberate the instinct for creation,” Pont said triumphantly. “And you see the result.” Well, better thought-paintings than theft, Applegate said to himself.
    Five boys were kicking a football about a meadow in a desultory way. Pont frowned a little at this. “Where did that ball come from?”
    “I brought it back with me,” said a boy with a squint. “Why shouldn’t I? We’re free to do as we like, aren’t we?”
    “Perfectly free, Arthur. If you would sooner kick a football about than do something constructive, that’s up to you.”
    “We can’t play a decent game. We’ve got no goal-posts.”
    “Build them, my dear boy. There is timber at the back of the woodshed.”
    “That stuff’s no good. Too thin,” said a long gangling boy.
    “Adaptation, Derek, adaptation. I can’t believe that human ingenuity would be unable to convert those pieces of timber into goalposts.” They went on. “Arthur is still inclined to be a trouble-maker, I’m afraid. He leads the others on to play football, an infantile reaction again. Ah, here comes our new student, John, with Hedda.”
    They met on the neglected tennis court. “This is John Deverell, the newest inhabitant,” Hedda said to Applegate and Montague. “John, here are two new teachers. You’ll be expected to call them Charles and Frank.”
    John Deverell was brown-faced, slight and rather elegant, perhaps sixteen years old. He showed even white teeth in an unembarrassed smile. “That is a little different from my school in Geneva. We had a teacher there who rapped our knuckles hard – with a ruler – when we forgot to call him ‘sir.’”
    “Shocking,” Pont commented briskly. Applegate expected him to add that rapping boys on the knuckles was an infantile reaction, but instead he went into his little talk about the cultural environment. Deverell listened with every appearance of attention. Hedda looked from one to the other of them with a frankly cynical expression.
    “I’m sure I’m going to enjoy myself here,” Deverell said composedly, and showed his teeth again.
    “There’s more to see.” Hedda and Deverell walked away round the side of the house together.
    Montague watched them with interest. “What do you do about the hydra-headed monster? Good old triple sec?”
    “Triple sec?” Pont was baffled.
    “Sex. What makes the world go round, you know. After all, Miss Pont – Hedda – is a pretty attractive matron. If I know anything about anything young Deverell was thinking she was just the type he’d like to tuck him up at night. Some of the other boys have reached the age of consent too, I should guess.”
    “It is a problem.” Pont stood out in the neglected garden, a nipping wind ruffling the white curls round the edges of his pink head. “Speaking personally, I have no objection to any kind of youthful sex play. But we must be practical. I may not approve of the laws of this country, but I have to abide by them. There are limits to what the law will allow.”
    “You mean it’s all right to advocate freedom as long as you don’t practise it?” Applegate suggested.
    “Something like that.” Pont did not seem to detect any irony in the remark.
    “Supposing there was some jiggery-pokery between a boy and a girl, would you get rid of them?” Montague asked.
    “It happens very rarely,” Pont said evasively. “At half-past eight, then, we shall look forward to seeing you for coffee.”

Chapter Six
    At seven o’clock a Brooker-Timla supper was served. It proved to be a hot meal of vegetarian food, all of which seemed to have been passed through a mincer. Oddly