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! HAVEit 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.
