Skoolsfor Skandal

DOWN WITH SKOOL (106 pp.)--Geoffrey Willans & Ronald Searle--Vanguard ($2.50).

THE FEMALE APPROACH (147 pp.)--Ronald Searle--Knopf ($3.50).

Nigel Molesworth, no weed, cad, dirty rotter or funk, is the curse of St. Custard's, or so he claims. St. Custard's is a very English boys' school, built by a madman in Gothic tempered by Byzantine, and run by a monstrous regiment of headmaster, masters and matrons, against all of whom Nigel is plotting revolution. He proclaims: "When we arrive in our helicopters we shall take over the skool and feed all with cream. FREE THE SLAVES.

WE LOOK TO THE DAY."

In his social outlook, Nigel recalls Peck's Bad Boy, while in some of his insights about adults, he might be a distant cousin of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. As created by British Humorist Geoffrey Willans and Cartoonist Ronald Searle, Molesworth could scarcely be more British, but Americans will still find him highly amusing, for the Boys' International cuts across all frontiers.

A Silencer for Kanes. Although Molesworth is built close to the ground, he can rise to most occasions. He knows the great world, as is shown by the Molesworth newsletter: "(a) russians are roters. (b) americans are swankpots. (c) the french are slack, (d) the germans are unspeakable, (e) the rest are as bad if not worse than the above, (f) the British are brave super and noble cheers cheers cheers. The only way for Peace is for all of them to dive into the sea and end it all." But he is at his best as a tactician in his own local revolution against the masters. Molesworth is succinct in a guide to "Kanes I Have Known" (e.g., "The 'Nonpliant' or

'Rigid' with silencer attachment to drown victims cries"). His favorite expletive--"Chiz!"--is subtly designed to sow distrust, and he is sly in his whispering campaign about the masters' carryings *on, although he wonders: "i ask you wot could any GURL see in a master?"

However, it must be admitted that Molesworth has some qualities potentially fatal to the revolutionary: a tendency to daydream (he sees himself as an armored knight refusing mercy to a kneeling headmaster) and a touch of defeatism. On the subject of how to get out of divinity instruction, for instance. Molesworth says: "You could try being let down into the class dressed as an angel. You then sa to the master Lo who are these cherubim and seraphim who are continually crying. He repli Form 3 B. You then sa Lo they are not angles but angels with the xception of peason who hav a face like a baboon. You must dismiss them and the master oba." But after this fine start, the plotter adds dispiritedly: "On the other hand he may sa Lo molesworth 200 lines. It is quite a good wheeze but probably would not work."

A Needle Full of Schweppes. From St. Custard's for boys to St. Trinian's for girls is just a long step down in depravity. St. Trinian's, another creation of Cartoonist Searle, has become an English establishment of renown. In The Female Approach, Searle gives U.S. readers a tour of that graduate institute for mayhem and skulduggery. While at St. Custard's, the boys are still plotting--often with small hope--at St. Trinian's the revolution is already here. The Terror is in full swing. Molesworth's elaborate ruses have been replaced by the stiletto, and the hopelessly outdated cane has given way to (at the very least) the horsewhip, but more often the knuckle-duster, the hand grenade and poison. Still, the old British code is upheld, as when an observant mistress, seeing two girls about to jab a third with a hypodermic, cries: "Fair play, St. Trinian's--use a clean needle."

Cartoonist Searle brews the same high-grade poison that is always on tap with Charles Addams, but with a strong admixture of a bubbly, Schweppes kind of fun. When the Belles of St. Trinian's and the Cubs of St. Custard's grow up, in Cartoonist Searle's pages, they are still far from ordinary human beings, but their schemes and aggressions become more subtle. One can still see Molesworth's soaring imagination in the dignified gentleman trying to smuggle a girl past the apartment-house doorman, and the St. Trinian stiletto, sublimated but no less deadly, is clearly in the hands of the young woman who coos: "I've met Stephen Spender, you know."

*A chiz is a swiz or swindle as any fule kno. --n. molesworth.

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