Off The Cuff: True art lies in concealing art

The gateway to English Literature was unlocked for me by a charlatan. A rogue of a classmate, James Maloney. He wasn't the top student in English. Nor was I. Or, for that matter, Pete, Edwin and Jeffrey. The five of us were serial, short-sighted backbenchers, bent on having a good time to the exclusion of everything else, studies especially.

Our teachers aided and abetted, by banishing us from the classroom, and it was on one of those 'out of class' experiences that James said to me, if Miss Morris thinks I'm going to flunk English, she has no idea how much Shakespeare I know.

I think I gaped. James and Shakespeare? I said, so what do you know then about Shakespeare, and James rattled off Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once.

I was impressed, and pressed him for more such wisdoms, but James clamped his lower jaw. All he said was, ask me tomorrow. I passed on this startling experience to Pete, Edwin and Jeffrey, who were equally astonished at how little we knew James.

True to his word, the next day, James let slip, He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many. Your Shakespeare is truly an authority on fear and cowards, I said, to which James replied, that was not Shakespeare, that was Bacon.

And that is how, in the succeeding days, I heard about Wordsworth, Dryden, Pope and Emerson (Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.)

James dazzled me, Pete and Edwin, but his 'educated' air didn't wash with Jeffrey, who set out to learn the truth.

It didn't help that the two of them were trying to impress the same fair maiden. The rivalry was palpable. One day, some months later, Jeffrey cunningly got hold of one of James' letters addressed to the damsel of their dreams. We all read it, I'm ashamed to reveal.

We were all also impressed by that lovely quote James included, from Keats: I love you the more that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.

But Jeffrey did a terrible thing: he pretended he was the damsel and shot off a terse reply to James, with the attached quote from Groucho Marx: I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.

He showed me his handiwork, and I suddenly found myself floundering in a sea of confusion. Jeffrey, too? A closet literature fanatic? He shook his head and laughed when I taxed him. I cottoned on to James' little tricks a while ago, he said.

He took me to his home, to his room, where, on the wall hung a large calendar, each day boxed off, and in each box, below the date, was a quote from one of the literary greats of our time.

James has one on his wall too, said Jeffrey, adding, I got myself a calendar as soon as I realised what James was up to.

We checked the quote for the next day, and sure enough when we met in school, James found a gap in the conversation to say: Assume a virtue if you have it not.