Chapter Eight.

Tempest talks to me like a Father.

As I entered the hall, in which were already assembled most of my fellow “Sharpers,” the first idea which occurred to me was that Low Heath was not such a big place after all. I had expected to encounter the whole school, instead of some fifty boys of my own particular house, and it was a relief to me to find that, for the present at any rate, I was to blush before only a limited company.

The next thing that struck me was that these fellows evinced wonderfully little interest in my appearance; which, considering the active interest they had shown in me not long since, was quite a shock. I had made up my mind to be howled at and laughed out of countenance. Instead of which they contented themselves with a half-glance to see who the new-comer was, and then went on talking together as if nothing had happened.

The conceit was already sufficiently knocked out of me to enable me to take this indifference in good part. Possibly when my name was called reference would be made to my exhibition, which would make a few of them look twice at me; but for the present I was glad to be left alone.

At first I could distinguish nobody; but in a little I caught sight of Tempest’s head among the seniors of the house. He did not see me, nor did he appear to be looking out for me.

Suddenly some one called “Seats!” an order that was so promptly obeyed that it left me standing alone near the door at which I had entered.

“Seats—can’t you hear?” said some one near me. I made promptly for the first empty desk I could see. The youth at the end of the row had his back partly turned, and it was necessary to push vigorously past him to arrive at my destination.

“Look out, you mule!” said he; “you trod on my— Hullo, Sarah, how are you?” and a friendly kick on the shins helped me wonderfully on my way.

It was my old acquaintance of the railway carriage; and next to him was the small youth who had been so terribly concerned about my costume in the morning.

He put his feet up on the desk in front, and gave me the option of climbing over or crawling under. He was about three-quarters my size; but he had such an air of authority about him, that I hardly liked to suggest a third alternative, namely, that he should put down his feet and let me pass. So I climbed over, much to his indignation (which he expressed by sticking a nib into me as I passed).

“I say,” he began, “you’ll catch it. That’s not your desk.”

I was aware of that, and devoutly hoped the real owner would not arrive on the scene.

“If Tinker kotches you— Hullo, what have you done with your patent boots?”

“I’ve changed them,” said I; “but do you think Tinker’s coming?”

“We’ll keep him out if he does—”

Just then one of the seniors on the front form, who had been talking to Tempest, leant back, and said in a loud whisper to the boy at the end of the form in front of ours—

“White, see all the new kids have their gloves on properly.”

Gloves? I felt my teeth begin to chatter in my head.

Had I not flung my gloves along with my hat and boots into my trunk, thinking they would not be needed? I had considered them as part of Tempest’s little joke. But evidently I had made a fearful mistake. For the senior who had given the admonition was not Tempest at all, but his next neighbour; and the fact that it was not given to me but to a monitor made it clear that, however I had been humbugged over the other details of “form,” gloves were the order of the day for new boys at first call-over.

In a panic I rose and tried to go out, with the wild idea of rescuing my gloves from my trunk. But it was impossible to escape. Not only had my companion his feet up more uncompromisingly than ever, but my sudden movement called down upon me general remarks.

“Shut up! sit down, can’t you?” said my neighbour. “What are you up to?”

“My gloves—I’ve—I’ve left them upstairs.”

“Your what?”

“Gloves. I thought it was a mistake about new boys having to wear them, and didn’t bring them.”

The boy looked grave.

“Oh, you’ll catch it! You can’t go now. There’s Sharpe coming in. Haven’t you got any at all?”

“Only my ordinary gloves.”

“What colour?”

“Yellow.”

“Stick them on then.”

“But they’ve only two buttons.”

“Can’t be helped. You’re bound to catch it, but they’re better than nothing.”

So, in dire agitation, I drew on my new dog-skin gloves. The smiles of the boys near me I interpreted as a grim recognition that I had “shirked form” and did not know any better. I longed to explain that I did, and that I had not come to Low Heath as ignorant as they supposed. But it was impossible. Mr Sharpe was already in his place, and “register” had begun.

Register, a ceremony with which I was destined to become painfully familiar in time, consisted in the calling over of the names of all the boys in the house, in order of place, by the minor prefect, who took his stand at the side of the master’s desk for the purpose. Instead of answering “Here” or “Adsum,” in the usual way, the boy whose name was called stood in his place and held up his hand.

I had been so preoccupied with the lack of my six-button lavender gloves and the remarks of my two left-hand neighbours, that I had failed altogether to observe the boy on my right, who now quietly nudged me, and presented to my astonished gaze the serene and serious countenance of Dicky Brown.

“What have you got your gloves on for?” inquired he, as if he had seen me daily since we parted.

“It’s the form. Haven’t you got any? I say, you’ll get in a jolly row,” said I, quite delighted to be able to lord it a little over an inferior.

“Why—who told you?”

“Tempest.”

“Tempest’s a regular humbug. He tried to stuff me up by making me bring a cheese-cutter cap. But I wasn’t such a fool as I look.”

Alas! it was my turn to colour up. Had Dicky, I wondered, seen my square billycock?

At that moment Tempest’s name was called, and we saw our old Dux rise complacently in his seat and hold up his hand.

It was difficult to feel angry with him. He looked so cool and determined, his shoulders were so square, and the year that had elapsed since we met had added three good inches to his stature. It was a feather in a fellow’s cap to know Tempest, even if he did have his little joke at one’s expense now and then.

I came to the conclusion that Dicky and I must be the only two new boys in the house, for none of the numerous hands, grimy and otherwise, which went up were cased in anything but their native skin.

Presently the register clerk came to an end of his list, and I was beginning to congratulate both myself and Brown on our probable escape from detection when Mr Sharpe said—

“New boys, come forward.”

My left-hand neighbour interposed no obstruction now, as, followed by Dicky, I sidled out of my place and advanced along with five other youths to the front. I was conscious of smiles as I went past the desks, some of recognition of the late owner of the tan boots, some of appreciation of my blushes, and others, as I supposed, of the greenness which had led all my companions to commit the fatal error of not appearing in gloves, and of my error, though in a smaller degree, of appearing in bright yellow two-button goods instead of lavender of the regulation half-dozen.

I exchanged glances with Tempest, among others, who looked very serious, and was evidently chagrined that after all his kind trouble on my behalf I should now land myself in this dilemma. Good old Tempest! It wasn’t his fault.

“Answer to your—” began Mr Sharpe, when, suddenly catching sight of me, he said—

“Why, sir, what nonsense is this? What do you mean by wearing those gloves?”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I faltered, and felt that not a word of my speech was being lost by the assembled house; “I’ve left my lavender six-button gloves in my trunk.”

Mr Sharpe’s mouth curled at the corner in a curious way, and a general titter greeted my explanation from the benches behind.

I was fully convinced now that, after all my care, the very solecism I had planned so carefully to avoid had tripped me up at last.

“Take them off at once, sir, and let me have no more of this foolishness. You are making a bad start. Were you not the boy I had to speak to in the hall this afternoon?”

“Yes, sir. I am sorry I kicked your shins. I hope I didn’t hurt much. I thought you were one of the boys.”

I am sure I meant no harm by it, but he seemed to regard this as a studied insult, and visited me with his wrath not only for it but for the smiles from the boys behind which accompanied it.

“What is this boy’s name?” he inquired severely, looking round.

I wondered who would answer the question; it was evidently not intended for me. It astonished me that Mr Sharpe should not apply at headquarters; I am sure I could have told him. “I think,” said a voice which I recognised as Tempest’s, “his name is Jones, sir.”

Think! Surely Tempest might have had a little more confidence than that.

“Perhaps you will see what you can make of him presently, Tempest. If he has any intelligence at all,” (nice, wasn’t it, for an exhibitioner?) “you may be able to make him understand some of the rules of the place. If not, I am afraid we shall have to put him down as a silly little boy, and bear with him accordingly. Go to your seat now, sir, and report yourself to Tempest after register.”

It was not a very dignified end to the interview. Still, I felt myself lucky to be handed over to the tender mercies of my old comrade, and retired to my place a puzzled but not an amused boy.

What perplexed me most was to notice that Brown and the other new boys who had no gloves at all, and did nothing but answer the questions put to them in the plainest possible way, not only passed muster, but received words of approval and encouragement from the master such as I would have given a great deal to have got myself. But such is life. The fellows who take the most pains and deserve most, get least; and the fellows who have least to boast of receive more than they expect.

I was glad when register was over and the time came for me to have an explanation with Tempest.

“Look here,” said the candid youth next to me, “you’d better sit up when you go to Tempest, I can let you know. He’s cock of our house this term, and he’s not over-tender with idiots, I can let you know.”

“What, has he been down on you?” I inquired meekly.

The only reply I got was a touch on the calf which made me exclaim “Oh!” rather more loudly than I should have chosen to do under ordinary circumstances. Luckily the general movement of the class somewhat deadened the sound, and if Mr Sharpe heard me, he did not consider it worth his while to deprive Tempest of the task of elucidating the reason of it.

I kept my man carefully in view, and followed him upstairs into a little study about the size of a commodious sentry box, with a window, book-case, sofa, table, chairs, and all the requirements of a single man of few needs. It seemed to me a delightful little sanctum; and for a moment I began to wonder whether, being an exhibitioner, I might not be entitled to one like it for myself—perhaps this was mine.

Tempest soon disabused me of that notion.

“Light the fire, and stick on my kettle, kid,” said he—they were the first words after more than a year—“and cut and get us a muffin from the shop.”

“I say,” said I, longing for rather more cordial a recognition, “I am jolly glad to see you again, Tempest.”

Just then another senior popped his head in.

“Have tea with me. Tempest? Come on, Wales is coming too.”

“Is Crofter coming?”

“No.”

“All right, I’m on; thanks, Pridgin. Blow that fire out, kid.”

“Is that kid your fag?”

“Not likely.”

“Is he all there? Sharpe seemed to doubt it.”

Tempest shrugged his shoulders.

“How soon? Ten minutes?”

“Yes—not longer.”

“Now, kid,” said Tempest, when we were left alone, “how long are you going to play the fool? Take your time; but let us know when you’ve done, that’s all.”

“Really, I’m not fooling; I know I ought to have had on the lavender—”

Tempest laughed. A jolly laugh it was, though it frequently preceded a licking.

“You mean to say you sucked in all that rot? I thought I’d just see how far you’d let yourself be humbugged; I’m sorry I didn’t tell you to stand on your head. I don’t doubt you’d have done it.”

I had painful reason to think he might be right.

“Why, even Dicky Brown was too old a bird for that sort of chaff,” said Tempest; “he twigged it at once—and he’s a day boy. Hand me that cane out of the cricket box, there’s a good fellow, and hold out your hand. Don’t yell; only muffs do that.”

“What?” I exclaimed, “am I to be licked, Dux?”

“Don’t call me Dux here. Yes, rather—three on each hand.”

“But Mr Sharpe only said—”

“Sharpe—what’s he got to do with it? Come on, look alive, or I shall be late for tea.”

I could barely be angry with him. He didn’t seem to be able to see the matter from my point of view at all, and was so genuinely friendly with it all.

“The third will be a hot one,” said he, as I held out my hand; “but I don’t want to break the cane—it’s a good one.”

The third was a hot one.

“Hurt you much?” said Tempest, carefully examining his weapon.

“Middling,” said I.

“Now the other hand. I suppose you’ve not got to know many chaps yet? Did you get any cricket in the vac.?”

“No,” said I, extending my left in a deprecating way.

“We did,” said he. “We were jolly near licking—”

“Ow!”

“Feel that much? Good cane, isn’t it? Now the other two will be easy.”

To do him justice they were, or would have been had they not fallen uncomfortably near the site of the first.

“Stick the cane back,” said he,—“and look here,” he added in the old friendly way which always captivated me, “if you’ll take any advice you’ll drop playing the fool. It may be funny, but it doesn’t pay. Fellows get bored by it.”

“But I really—”

“I know you can’t help it. Your best dodge is to lie low for a bit, and keep out of everybody’s way.”

“I never meant—”

“Of course you didn’t. You can’t help being an ass, but don’t swagger or brag about it. Go easy—and, by the way, whatever you do, forget you’re an exhibitioner. It’s not your fault, I know, but it’s a sort of thing to be lived down up here. Be nobody, that’s the rule! then you’ll worry through.”

“But you were an exhibitioner, Tempest,” I suggested, “weren’t you?”

“Yes, but I kept it dark. Do you know the chap who asked me to tea?”

“No.”

“He’s Pridgin—in the Eleven—makes beastly bad jokes, but not a bad chap. You’ll like fagging for him.”

“What—am I to fag?” said I, undergoing another shock. I had made quite sure exhibitioners were exempt from that indignity.

“There you go again. What did I tell you?” said Tempest, in tones of mild menace; “you’re putting it on again already. You’d better fish out that cane again, there’s a good chap.”

“Oh, please don’t—I didn’t mean, Tempest! All right, I’ll fag for him.”

Tempest regarded first me, then the cricket box where the cane lay, doubtfully.

“I tell you he’s not half a bad chap. Bother it,” added he, picking up the cane, “I must do it, kid. Awfully sorry, but it would be low to let you off because I know you. Look alive. One, middling warm, on each hand, that’s all. Thanks.”

He was quite unnecessarily grateful. His idea of middling warm, I could not help thinking, was not very different from hot. And yet I felt I could stand it better from him than from most.

“Some chaps,” said he, after returning me the cane to put back in its place, “would say that this sort of thing pained them more than it does you. It didn’t me. I fancy you felt it more than I did. Anyhow, you’ll remember what I said, won’t you? Pridgin’s not half a bad chap.”

“If you want any one to fag for you. Tempest—”

I began.

“Oh, I’ve got one—a beauty—young Trimble; he sat next to you at register to-day. You’ll hit it off with him to a T. Talking of tea, by the way, it’s time we showed up at Pridgin’s. Come along, and I’ll introduce you.”

The reader may not believe it, but my interview with Tempest helped to knock the nonsense out of me more than any treatment I had yet undergone. It was not so much the caning (which, by the way, I afterwards discovered to be a wholly unauthorised proceeding on my old comrade’s part), but his plain advice, and the friendly way in which it was all given. It made me realise that he really meant to stick by me and pull me through my troubles, and the sense of his interest in me made up wonderfully for the loneliness which had been growing on me ever since I entered Low Heath that morning.

Pridgin, as became a member of the Eleven, received me with dignity quite devoid of curiosity. He informed Tempest that he considered it was playing it pretty low down on him to let an idiot like me loose on him. Still, times were bad, and one must put up with what one could get.

Whereat I had the good sense to grin appreciatively, and was thereupon permitted to boil my new master’s eggs and stand by the kettle until it was ready for the tea.

Chapter Nine.

Acquaintances, High and Low.

I was at first too much concerned in my important culinary occupations to bestow much attention on the company. It was only when the eggs were boiled and the teapot filled that I had leisure to make a few observations.

The host, Pridgin, my new master, was not a very formidable sort of person at first blush. True he was in the Eleven and a fine all-round athlete. True he was fairly well up in the Sixth, and one of the boys Low Heath was proud of. These things did not strike one in beholding him. What did strike one was his air of lazy humour, which seemed to regard life as a huge joke, if only one could summon up the energy to enjoy it. Pridgin did indeed enjoy his share of it, but one could not help feeling that, were he to choose, that share would be a great deal larger than it really was.

It was plain to see he was fond of Tempest; a weakness which reconciled me to him from the first. Tempest, however, seemed, if anything, to prefer the third member of the party present, who was in every way a contrast to his genial host.

Wales struck one as a far more imposing person than Pridgin, but not quite as attractive. He was dressed in what seemed to me the top of the fashion, and had the appearance of a youth who made a point of having everything of the best. He had the reputation, as I discovered afterwards, of possessing the most expensive bats and racquets, the best-bound books, the best-fitting clothes, of any one in Low Heath. It was also rumoured that he spent more than any boy in the town shops, and gave the most extravagant entertainments in his study. Fellows were a little shy of him for this very reason. He forced the pace in the matter of money, and there were only a few fellows who could stand it.

Tempest was not one of these, and yet he seemed very thick with Wales. It was certainly not for the sake of his money, for Tempest was one of those fellows who never care for a fellow for the same reason that any one else would. He had begun by being amused with Wales’s dandyism and extravagance, and had ended in encouraging him in them.

“I expect,” said Wales, as the three heroes sat discussing their tea, “we’re in for a pretty lively term, if it’s true what I hear, that Redwood is to be captain.”

“Why shouldn’t he be?” asked Pridgin; “he’s a hot man in the fields, as well as in classics.”

“My dear fellow, he’s a town-boy.”

“What of that?”

“What of that? First of all, the town-boys are most of them snobs. Sons of hard-up people who come to live at Low Heath so as to get them into the school cheap. Then they can’t possibly keep up with what goes on in school when they are away every evening.”

“There’s more in the second objection than the first,” said Tempest. “I don’t see why a fellow should be out of it because he’s poor. If so, I can cut my lucky here. But it does seem a swindle to stick a town-boy over all of us.”

“I don’t see it,” said Pridgin. “He’s one of us. The only difference is, he goes home to sleep instead of tucking up in a cubicle here. No, what seems to me the cool thing is this talk of a town-boys’ club, that brags it’s going to lick the school clubs into fits. I hope it’s not true, for if it is, we shall have to sit up, and I loathe sitting up.”

His guests laughed. It was notorious that Pridgin when he did bring himself to “sit up” was a person worth reckoning with.

“For the matter of that,” said Wales, “Redwood’s not likely to trouble himself much. He’ll take all the glory and do none of the work. The captain of Low Heath ought to have his hand in everything, and not let everything slide.”

“You’ll find Redwood can be awkward enough when he chooses. You can never tell how far he’ll let things go on. But when his back once gets up he’ll stiffen pretty hard.”

“All I can say is,” said Tempest, “if I’m to be cock of this house this term—and I’ve no right to be—”

“Yes, you have, old chap,” said Pridgin.

“You know you purposely ran for second place last term, so as to get out of the fag of cocking the house,” retorted his friend. “Anyhow, if I am to be cock, I mean to stand up for our rights, and see we’re not done out of them by town-boys, of all people.”

“Hear, hear,” said Pridgin; “stick up for your rights. I don’t exactly know what rights we’re got more than any other Low Heathens, but stick up for them certainly. Nothing like having a grievance, if you can only find one.”

“What do you say to Jarman for one?” said Wales.

The faces of all three clouded at the mention of this name.

“Ah, I’d forgotten about that. Is it true he’s to be a sort of general discipline master, and have the right of pulling up any fellow, senior or junior, without even saying a word to his house prefects?”

“He won’t do it here, if I can help,” said Tempest, with a frown.

“Well, have some more tea,” said Pridgin, “before you begin operations. Here, kid, make a fresh brew, sharp, and then cut.”

What I had heard had been quite enough to satisfy me that things were not running altogether smoothly at Low Heath, and that Tempest was not beginning his new duties as head of his house in the best of tempers. I confess I felt a little uneasy. For I knew my old chief’s impulsive, generous nature well enough to be sure that he might easily get himself into trouble for the sake of other people. His friends were evidently glad enough to let him fight their battles, but were not likely, at least so it seemed to me, to take much trouble to help him through with them.

I was wandering rather disconsolately down the passage when it occurred to me I did not know what I was expected to do or where I was expected to go.

I therefore ventured to accost a senior who was lounging about at the head of the stairs.

“If you please,” said I, “I’m a new boy—can you tell me where to go?”

The senior, a bland, good-looking sort of youth, surveyed me carefully and replied—

“To bed, I should say.”

“All right, thanks,” said I; “which way is that?”

He laughed pleasantly.

“What’s your name?”

“Thomas Jones.”

“You needn’t mind about the Thomas up here. Where have you come from?”

“Do you mean, where do I live, or where have I been just now?” I inquired, anxious to avoid any misunderstanding.

“Look here,” said he, “hadn’t you better take a seat, if you want to tell me all your family history? I’m sure it’s very interesting, but it’s rather late in the day to begin now. Where have you come from, not originally, but just now?”

I flushed up very much at this polite rebuke. Whatever made every one so anxious to assume that I was an ass?

“Pridgin’s,” said I. “I’m his fag, and he’s having a tea party.”

“Oh,” said the youth; “who’s there?”

“Only Tempest and Wales,” I replied, feeling more at my ease.

“No one else?”

“No,” I answered. Then, guessing he might have the same antipathies as Tempest, I volunteered—

“Crofter’s not asked.”

My companion opened his eyes. “Indeed—why?”

“I don’t know. Only I know Tempest wouldn’t have gone if he had been. Please which way do I go?”

“What objection has Tempest to Crofter?”

“I don’t know—I suppose he’s a beast. Tempest hates beasts.”

The boy laughed.

“He must be very fond of you,” said he.

“Yes,” said I, “we’re old chums; we were at Dangerfield together, and both got ex—”

There I was, after Tempest’s warning about keeping my exhibition dark.

“Both got what? Expelled?” inquired the senior, with interest.

“Well—yes,” said I, thinking that the best way of getting out of it. “It was this way—”

“Really, Jones, it’s getting late,” said the senior; “I’ve no doubt it’s an interesting story. There, go and inquire in the fourth room on the left. They’ll show you the way to bed.”

And he departed.

I was very sorry he had not given me time to explain the little matter at Dangerfield. It would be a pity for any one to get a wrong impression about it. Still, what a lucky escape I had had from blabbing about my exhibition! The fellow, too, seemed a nice sort of chap, and disposed to be friendly, so there was no harm done after all.

I could tell, long before I reached it, that the room which had been indicated to me as the place where I might get the information for which I thirsted was, to say the least, inhabited—for the noise which penetrated through the keyhole and the cracks of the door was appalling. Either, thought I, a free fight is going on within, or there is a steam engine at work, or the builders are shooting bricks through the window. I was mistaken. It was only five boys of about my age talking.

The silence which greeted my appearance was rather more formidable than the noise which had preceded it. In the midst of it, however, I observed the form of Master Trimble, also that of my travelling companion of the morning, and concluded therefore that I had come to the right place for information.

“Full up! cut!” was the cordial greeting of the company generally.

“Hullo, it’s Sarah!” cried my travelling companion. “What a lark! Collar him, you chaps. That’s the idiot I was telling about. He came down in the train with his ma—”

“She wasn’t,” said I; “she was no relation.”

A loud laugh greeted this disclaimer.

“Well, his nurse, or aunt, or washerwoman, or something.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“Shut up, and don’t tell crams.”

“It’s you who are telling crams,” said I, for the blood of the Joneses was getting up.

“Look here; do you mean to call me a crammer?” demanded the speaker, looking very imposing.

“If you say it again I will,” said I. “I tell you that woman had no more to do with me than you; there!”

It was a critical situation, and the key to it was in my accuser’s hands. If he insisted that the lady in question had anything to do with me, I was committed to call him a crammer. And if I called him a crammer, he was equally committed by all tradition to punch my head. And in the humour I was then in, he was not likely to do that without getting one back for himself.

“I know who it was,” suddenly cried Trimble; “of course! Tempest told me last term there was a young ass coming up who’d been at a girls’ school, and had got an exhibition or something. Of course this was his old school dame. Good old Sarah!”

At this terrific exposure the spirit leaked out of me. My tell-tale blushes confirmed what was true in the story, and my silence lent countenance to what was untrue. The delight of my tormentors was beyond words. They danced the “mulberry bush” round me, overwhelmed me with endearing expressions, offered me fans and smelling salts and cushions and hairpins, simulated hysterics and spasms, trod on my skirts, and conversed to me in shrill treble till I was sick of the business. Only one course was open to me. It was an unpleasant one, but on it depended, I felt, my future welfare at Low Heath.

I seized the nearest, who happened to be Master Trimble, and pulling him gently but firmly by the nose, demanded if girls generally treated him that way? He kicked vigorously, and ordered me to release the imprisoned member. I declined to do so until I had kicked back, and finally deposited him on the floor, amidst the laughter of his perfidious comrades, who told him it served him right, and that “Sarah” was evidently one too many for him.

This little protest stood me in good stead. It put an end to all direct aspersions on my sex, although it was a long while before I was destined to hear the last of delicate insinuations on the topic. And it advanced me very considerably in favour with the four whose noses I had not been fortunate enough to engage.

“Look here; stop fooling, you chaps,” said one of them, when in due time Master Trimble was permitted to regain his feet. “This new kid had better make up our sixth man here. No other faggery would be likely to take him, so we may as well.”

I concluded from this remark that the juniors of Mr Sharpe’s house were permitted to herd together in half dozens; and on the whole I was disposed rather to bear the ills I had than fly to others I knew not of.

“I don’t mind,” said I, “if you let me be.”

“Who wants to touch you with a pair of tongs? You may as well pull in with us, and help us kick the others. It’ll be a change after the girls’ school.”

“I wasn’t at a girls’ school,” said I, “I told you. All I did was to coach with one of the teachers.”

“About the same thing, I fancy,” said Trimble, blowing his outraged nose somewhat defiantly, “Sarah!”

“If you call me Sarah again,” said I hotly, “I’ll pull your nose again.”

“All right: Miss Jones, then.”

“No, not Miss; just Jones.”

“All serene, just Jones, then shut up; stick on your lavender gloves, and keep your hair on.”

There was a general laugh at this which vastly solaced the aggrieved Trimble, and encouraged him to refer jocularly to my late hat and boots, topics which I had not the spirit to resent.

As soon as these personal matters were disposed of, I was tacitly admitted as a member of the honourable faggery, and invited to express my opinion on a matter which had been engaging the attention of the fraternity before I arrived.

“We were thinking,” said my late travelling companion, whom his friends addressed as Langrish, “that it would be a score to get up a Philosophical Society in the school. What do you say?”

“What to do?” I ventured to ask.

“Oh, discussions, and picnics, and larks. What do you suppose we should do? There’s a senior club of the kind already. They go in for dry rot—science and history, and that sort of thing. Awful slow, and nobody knows what he’s talking about. I flatter myself we should.”

“We ought to draw up some rules, oughtn’t we?” said Trimble.

“Rather—forge ahead.”

Whereupon we crowded solemnly round the small table and put our heads together.

One of the party, by the way, answering to the name of Purkis, appeared to be the leading spirit, and made the most valuable suggestions.

“Rule 1,” dictated he, “That this club be called the Low Heathen Conversation Club.”

“Hold on,” said Trimble; “you’ve got club coming twice in the same sentence. Bad grammar.”

“Besides, I thought there was to be something about philosophy,” suggested Langrish.

“And keeping out the day cads,” said Warminster, another of the party.

“Of course, if you make the rule long enough,” said Purkis, with lofty contempt, “you can get something in it about the man in the moon.”

“But,” said I, thinking to make a little joke, just to show I had no ill-feeling, “we don’t want him in the club, do we?”

“No,” said Langrish, who had evidently been on the look-out for his chance; “no more do we want pretty Sarah’s washerwoman; do we, you chaps?”

I subsided gracefully. The time was not yet ripe, evidently, for me to assert myself.

“I tell you what,” said Warminster; “what’s the use of every one making each rule? Let old Purkis make the first, and I’ll make the second, and Langrish the third, and so on. It will be ever so much quicker, and give each chap a fair innings.”

It seemed a good idea, and as it allowed Purkis’s rule to stand unchallenged, he acquiesced.

So in due time the following wonderful code of rules was drawn up and adopted—

1. That this club be called the Low Heath Conversation Club. (Purkis.)

2. That the object of the club be and are periodical picnics and meetings for the discussion of philosophy, etcetera. (Warminster.)

There was some debate as to whether the ninth word should be “is” or “are.” But “are,” as agreeing with the plural, was carried by a large majority.

3. That each member bring his own grub, alias provisions. (Trimble.)

4. That no day boy be eligible on to the club. (Langrish.)

5. That any member breaking the rules is hereby expelled. (Coxhead.)

6. That the subscription be two shillings a term, payable in advance. (Jones.)

Warminster was anxious for consistency’s sake to add the words “and are” after “be,” but was overruled.

After which we honourably drew lots for the various posts of emolument and honour in connection with the club.

To my surprise I was drawn for president. At first I was disposed to disclaim the honour on account of my youth and inexperience. But my fellow-Philosophers assured me that was no excuse, and that my name would undoubtedly “draw.” I did not exactly see how, but they were probably better judges than I; and perhaps as an exhib—

No, I was bound to keep that dark. At any rate, it would be a nice thing to be able to write home to my mother, that on the day of my arrival I had been appointed president of the Philosophical Conversation Club, with a right to add the initials P.L.H.C.C. after my name. It sounded well, and would give me a better footing in Low Heath than my tan boots.

Langrish was drawn for treasurer, and Purkis for secretary; while, to obviate any cause for jealousy, Trimble was selected as auditor, Warminster as librarian, and Coxhead as registrar.

A levy of subscriptions was made forthwith by the treasurer, and the secretary was ordered to expend part of the amount in a handbill setting forth the object and personnel of the society, for distribution through the school. The auditor undertook to check the printer’s bill, the librarian to keep a copy of the document among the archives of the club, and the registrar to prepare a book for entering the names of the new members. Altogether it was a most businesslike proceeding, and one which reflected, as it seemed to me, great credit on the young life of Low Heath.

After this, a peremptory summons from the bell dismissed us precipitately to bed. I had the indignity of being conducted to my cubicle by Mrs Smiley, who had the bad taste to adjure me in the hearing of my comrades to behave myself like a good boy and go to sleep directly the lights were out. This was not altogether easy, for my cubicle happened to be between those of Trimble and Langrish, and the partitions were not particularly high. I was, indeed, allowed to undress and say my prayers without interference, which was more than I had hoped for. But no sooner was I in bed, and lights out, than I was favoured with all sorts of missiles pitched over the partitions on either side with extraordinary accuracy. A book from Langrish hit me on the ear, and a wet sponge from Trimble moistened my cheek. And when I sought shelter under the sheets, the butt-end of a fishing-rod in the ribs drew me from my hiding-place, and a clever cast with a hooked pin by Langrish relieved me of my outer covering altogether. The footsteps of the monitor on duty deprived me of the privilege of making an audible protest. All I could do was to send Trimble’s sponge quietly over to Langrish, and Langrish’s book across to Trimble, and, as well as I was able, recover my abstracted sheet with the aid of the rod. It took a long time, and laid me open to dire penalties for disturbing the public peace. But it had to be done, and fortunately for me a row at the other end of the room called the monitor away in the nick of time.

When he returned, all was still, and I was dreaming that Mr Evans was selling a pair of second-hand six-buttoned lavender gloves to my mother in the hall of Mr Sharpe’s house.

Chapter Eleven.

Cheap Advertising Extraordinary.

I spent a bad quarter of an hour that evening before bed-time in inditing a letter of “explanation” to Crofter. I had come to the conclusion this would be easier and safer than a personal interview, and that the sooner it was done the better. How to do it was another problem. To write a letter in the raggery was out of the question. I tried it, but failed miserably. For either my paper was twitched away from under my pen, or some one looked over my shoulder and pretended to read expressions of endearment which were not there, or some one got under the table and heaved it about tempestuously to the detriment of my handwriting, or some one drew skeleton figures of spider-legged bipeds on the margin of the paper. Worse still, it was evident every word I wrote would be common property, which I did not desire. I had therefore to abandon the attempt till later on; when, finding myself in Pridgin’s study, I ventured to inquire if I might write there.

Pridgin was good enough to express admiration of my cheek, but said if I spread one newspaper over his carpet and another over his table-cloth to catch the blots, and didn’t ask him how to spell any word of less than four letters, or borrow a stamp, I might.

All which I faithfully undertook to do, and sat down to my delicate task. It took me a long time, considering the result, and I was by no means satisfied with the performance when it was done.

“Dear Crofter,” I wrote; but that seemed too familiar, whereas “Dear Sir” from one schoolfellow to another was too formal. So I attempted my explanation in the “oblique oration”:—

“Jones iv. is sorry he accidentally told Crofter he was a beast yesterday. He did not know it was him when he saw him, or he would not have told him what Tempest said about him, which was quite unintentional. He also must explain that what he said about his being expelled was in consequence of a dog’s death, about which there was a misunderstanding. He hopes Crofter will not tell him he told him, as he would be very angry with him.”

“Done?” said Pridgin, who, comfortably ensconced in his easy-chair with his feet upon the window-ledge, was reading a comic paper.

“Yes, thanks,” said I, half terrified lest he should demand to read my not too lucid epistle.

“All right. Go and tell Crofter I want him, will you? Look alive, and then cut to bed.”

Here was a blow! I had been at all this labour in order to avoid the painful necessity of an interview with Crofter, and here I was as badly off as ever.

“Can’t you hear?” said Pridgin as I hesitated.

“If you please, Pridgin,” said I, resolved to take the bull by the horns, “I’m awfully sorry, but I don’t want Crofter to catch me. The fact is—”

Pridgin’s good-humoured reply was to shy a book at me, which I was fortunate enough to miss, but which Tempest, who entered the study at the moment, caught fairly on his forehead.

“Hullo! Are you and the kid playing catch?” said he. “Sorry to disturb you, really; but my fag’s skulking somewhere, and I want to borrow yours to take a message to Crofter.”

“Was it a plot, or what? I had far better have written in the faggery after all.”

“That was exactly the subject about which the kid and I were playing catch just now,” said Pridgin. “I asked him to go to Crofter too.”

“What, has he been sending you a billet-doux?” said Tempest.

“Well, yes. He seems to be sore I didn’t ask him to tea yesterday, and says he’s afraid some one has been libelling him, though how he knew I had any one here last night I can’t imagine.”

“That’s funny,” said Tempest; “he writes to me to say he is sorry I should take the trouble to call him a beast in public. He understands a fellow’s right to his private opinion, he says, and would be sorry not to be allowed his about me, but he thinks it imprudent to shout it out for every one to hear. Just his style.”

“I was going to send him word to ask him to come in and make himself a cup of tea out of my pot, just to show there was no ill-feeling,” said Pridgin.

“And I was going to say that I hope he won’t trouble to think better of me in private then I think of him in public. Though for the life of me I can’t imagine what he refers to.”

“The fact is. Tempest,” said Pridgin, putting his feet up on the window-ledge again, “it’s just as well to be above board with Crofter. He’s a slippery customer, and if he knows what we think of him, and we know what he thinks of us, we shall get on much better.”

“If he’d only give a chap a chance of a row with him,” said Tempest; “but he won’t. The more down on him you are, the more affectionate he is, and the sweeter he smiles. Ugh!”

“But who on earth has been blabbing to him?” said Pridgin; “not Wales?”

“Wales?” said Tempest; “rather not. He’s not that sort.”

“I don’t think he is,” said Pridgin; “and yet, old man—the fact is—I—”

“You don’t fancy Wales, I know.”

“Hardly that. I don’t mind him; but he’s more of a pull over you than he has over me. I can’t be bothered with his fashions. It’s too much grind. But you aren’t lazy like me, and—well—you know he runs you into a lot of expense. That picnic last term, for instance. We could have had quite a jolly day for half the cost. Chicken and ham’s all very well, but cold boiled eggs are just as good for keeping a chap going.”

“But Wales can’t stand things not being—”

“Dear!” said Pridgin. “Don’t flare up, old chap. You’ve got your work cut out for you this term, and can’t afford to spend all your time paying bills, even if you had the tin.”

“All very well for you who’ve let me in for cocking the house,” said Tempest, with a laugh. “Anyhow, you’ve a right to talk to me like a father. All the same, I fancy you’ve a little downer on old Wales. He’s a good sort of chap, and there’s nothing of the eel about him.”

“Which brings us back to Crofter,” said Pridgin. “Some one has told him that he’s not popular in this study, and he doesn’t like it. I wonder who our candid friend is.”

“It was me,” said I, coming out at last with my pent-up confession. “I’m awfully sorry, Tempest. It was this—”

“Take a seat,” said Tempest, putting me off in the identical way that Crofter had done yesterday. But I was not to be put off; I took a seat and continued—

“I met him and didn’t know who he was, and I mentioned that I’d come from here, and that a tea was going on, and that Crofter was out of it, and the reason was because Tempest thought him a beast. And—I’m awfully sorry, Tempest—I let out to him that we’d been expelled from Dangerfield, and I’d not the least idea it was him.”

“He,” suggested Pridgin.

“He; and I’ve just been writing to him to explain.”

“Rather a tough job, eh?” said Tempest.

“You may see the letter,” said I.

The two seniors read it with a gravity which scarcely seemed genuine.

“I think it may pass,” said Tempest, coming out at last with a laugh. “There are only about twelve ‘he’s’ and ‘him’s’ in it, and as it will be absolutely unintelligible it can’t possibly do harm.”

“If Crofter has the least sense of literary taste, he will frame it,” said Pridgin. “I trust no dogs’ deaths will occur here.”

My confusion was tempered by the relief I felt that they took my indiscretion in such good part, and saw only—what I failed to see myself—the humorous side of the incident.

I begged hard to be allowed to tear up my letter, but this they would by no means allow. On the contrary, I was compelled to address it and stamp it then and there, and place it in the post-box in the hall. Then, with compliments and good wishes, I was dismissed to bed, and left the two friends talking school politics.

I felt a good deal more humbled by the manner in which they had received my confession than if they had, as I had expected, roundly abused me. To be let down easy, as if I was barely responsible for my actions, was not conducive to my vanity; and if that was the object they had in view, it was amply attained. I went to bed on my second night at Low Heath with as little vanity in me as I could decently do with; and even that, as I lay awake for an hour or two, oozed away, and did not return till in a happy moment I fell asleep, and once more, and for a few unconscious hours, became a hero to myself.

The next morning I tumbled out of bed at the call of the bell in no very light-hearted way. First of all, Crofter would receive my letter; secondly, I had still got Redwood’s belt; thirdly, I had not done my preparation; and fourthly, I felt concerned about Tempest and his alliance with the expensive Wales. Strangely enough, this last trouble weighed on me most as I dressed.

Tempest, I knew, was not well off. But he was proud, and not the sort of fellow to shirk a thing on account of the cost. I could remember at Dangerfield his spending all his money at the beginning of the term on an absurdly expensive cricket bag, and having to go without spikes in his shoes because he could not afford a set. At Low Heath, where seniors were allowed to run up bills in certain shops, I was certain his ignorance about money matters, added to the friendly encouragements of an exquisite like Wales, would make it all the worse for him. Why, even I knew more about money than he did, and could reckon that if I brought thirteen shillings up at the beginning of the term, I should have just a shilling a week to bless myself with till break-up. Whereas he, I verily believe, would consider that he had thirteen shillings a week. And the worst of it was he would never let any one know how hard up he was, or tolerate any remarks, except from a privileged chum like Pridgin, on the subject.

As I joined my comrades in the faggery, in the fond hope of snatching a precious quarter of an hour for my neglected studies, I found great excitement and jubilation afoot. The printer had sent home the handbills of the Conversation Club.

“That ought to do our business,” said Langrish, flourishing one of the documents in my face.

I took it, and read it with mingled pride and concern. It ran as follows:—

Under the distinguished Patronage of the Nobility and Gentry of Low Heath:

A Philosophical Conversation Club has been started for conversation on Philosophy, Picnics, and Cross-country Runs. Meetings weekly; to be announced. Subscription: Two shillings in advance; every member to find himself. No town-boys or masters eligible. “Come in your hundreds!!! No questions asked. Evening dress or flannels. The Inaugural Picnic next week. Particulars on receipt of subscription. No connection with any other so-called club in Low Heath! For further particulars apply to the following:

Sarah Jones, Esquire, Pr.Ph.C.C, President.
Ted Langrish, Esquire, S.Ph.C.C, Secretary.
Wilfred Trimble, Esquire, T.Ph.C.C, Treasurer.
Jos. Warminster, Esquire, L.Ph.C.C, Librarian.
Tom Coxhead, Esquire, A.Ph.C.C, Auditor.
Michael Purkis, Esquire, R.Ph.C.C, Registrar.

P.S.—As the membership is strictly limited to 500, early application is advised. No eligible cash offer refused! Our motto is “Mens sano in corpore sanae.”

I naturally bridled up at the record of my own name.

“Look here,” said I; “you’ve stuck it down wrong again.”

“Awfully sorry,” said Langrish; “the printer chaps made a little slip over the Christian name, but all the rest seems right. It’s wonderful how sharp they are, isn’t it?”

“But you’re going to have it corrected, surely?” said I.

“Why, it would cost a frightful lot!” protested the company. “We might alter it in ink, but that would only call attention to it. Bless you, no one will notice it. They’ll put it down to a printer’s error.”

I was by no means satisfied, but their delight at the whole performance was so unbounded that it was impossible to be as angry as I felt.

“It’ll draw, and no mistake,” said Trimble, who had evidently never seen his name in print before. “Jolly well drawn up of you, Lang.”

“Oh,” said Langrish modestly, “when you know what you want to say, it’s easy enough to stick it down.”

“That’s why you stuck down ‘Sarah,’ I suppose,” said I, rather crossly.

“I never knew such a kid as you,” retorted Langrish; “you seem to fancy nobody can think of anything but you and your washerwoman.”

The conversation was drifting on to dangerous ground, and Warminster promptly changed the subject.

“The thing now will be to put the papers about. I vote we each take a batch and give them round.”

“We might shove them under the fellows’ doors,” said Coxhead.

“The best way will be to do it in Big Hall,” said the more practical Purkis. “One or two of us can easily get in ten minutes early, and stick one on every chap’s place.”

“But suppose you stick one on a day boy’s place?” I suggested.

“What’s the odds? the paper tells him he’s out of it,” replied Purkis.

It occurred to me that this would not cheer the day boy very much; still, on the whole, Purkis’s suggestion seemed the best.

“I tell you what,” said Langrish, “I beg to move and second that the President be authorised to stick round the papers.”

“I third and fourth that,” said Trimble.

“Carried unanimously,” said Langrish.

“Look here, one of you had better do it,” said I, feeling a little alarmed at this imposing honour; “you know the way better.”

“That’s where you’ve the pull,” said Purkis; “you’re a new kid, they won’t interfere with you. Big Hall’s at five, and you can easily slide in at a quarter to, and do the trick. Hullo, there’s bell.”

School that morning went uncomfortably for me. I escaped being “lagged” for my neglect of preparation, chiefly owing to the friendly prompting I received from Dicky Brown. But it was a time of anxiety and trepidation, and my nerves were somewhat strained before it was over.

The shock of the day, however, awaited me as I got outside on my way to the fields.

A small youth of my own size accosted me.

“I say, are you the new chap?”

“What new chap?”

“The new chap that Redwood told to fetch his belt.”

“Yes,” said I, turning a little pale.

“All right. You’ve got to go to him, sharp.”

“I tried to give it him back yesterday, really I did; but I was stopped,” said I. “Do you think I’ll get in a row?”

“I wouldn’t be in your shoes, that’s all I know,” remarked the messenger brutally. “It’ll be all the worse if you don’t cut.”

“Where is he?”

“In the captain’s room at the School House.”

I went off with my heart in my boots. And I had hoped so much to show up well to Redwood! It was all Jarman’s fault, and I wrote down yet another grudge against him in my mental book.

The captain was alone, and evidently expecting me, as he rose and came to meet me when I appeared.

“Here you are, then, youngster,” said he, in a tone which, if it meant a licking, was a very deceptive one.

“I’m very sorry,” said I; “I tried to bring the belt round yesterday evening, but—”

“Hang the belt!” said the captain. “That’s not what I want you for. Why didn’t you tell me what happened at home yesterday afternoon?”

Then it was another row altogether I was in for! What, I wondered, had I done! Surely he didn’t suspect me of having pushed his young sister into the water?

“I didn’t like, while the match was on. I didn’t know Mamie had tumbled in, or I would have stopped her.”

“But you fished her out?” he asked.

“I told Annie to take her and dry her,” said I, wondering where the blow was going to fall. “You see, she went upstairs for the belt, and it was when she had gone it happened. I don’t think it was her fault.”

To my amazement Redwood laughed and clapped me on the back.

“You young donkey, don’t you know you saved Mamie’s life, and I want to say ‘Thank you,’ to you?”

This unexpected dÉnouement alarmed me almost as much as my previous misgivings.

“Oh no, really I didn’t,” said I; “she was close to the edge.”

“Another inch or two and she would have been in six feet of water,” said he. Then, with a friendly laugh, he added—

“You may not have meant to save her life; but you did, and must take the consequences. My mother wants you to come to tea to-morrow. Call here for me after evening chapel, and we’ll go together. Good-bye now, and thanks, youngster.”

I could hardly tell if I was on my head or my heels as I walked back. It had never occurred to me till now that I had done anything out of the common in fishing Miss Mamie out of her muddy bath. Indeed, I still felt I was getting credit I did not deserve, and blushed to myself. As to the invitation for to-morrow, that seemed to me a burst of glory quite past my present comprehension, and I resolved to treasure it as a secret in my own bosom until at least I had made sure it was not a dream.

Before then, however, I had less pleasant work on hand. My comrades did not fail to remind me several times during the afternoon of my “promise,” as they called it, to distribute the Conversation Club circulars in Great Hall, and adjured me not to run it too fine. The consequence was that, at a quarter to five, I was convoyed, with the bundle of papers under my arm, to the door of the dining-hall, and gently shoved inside, with all retreat cut off until my task was done.

Some of the servants who were laying the tables objected to my presence, but on my explaining I had been sent to do it, they allowed me without interruption to lay a copy of the precious document on each of the five hundred plates. I had barely concluded this arduous duty when the bell commenced to ring, and the fellows in twos and threes began to drop in. It was all I could do to affect unconsciousness, as from a modest retreat near the door I marked the effect of the announcement on Low Heath generally. At first there was a note of surprise; then, as one after another read on, a titter, and finally a general laugh, which was only checked by the entrance of the masters and the call to grace.

I had—being a stranger to the place—distributed my favours among the masters quite as liberally as among the boys, and presently, with horror, perceived Dr England rise in his place with his copy in his hand.

“Whew!” whistled Langrish, “there’s a row on, I fancy.”

“Serve you right if there is,” said Trimble. “Why ever did you put them on that table?”

“How was I to know?” groaned I.

“What boy,” said the doctor, when silence prevailed, “what boy has been putting this foolish paper round the hall?”

Oh dear! How I wished I was safe at home!

“Please, sir, I did,” said I, rising meekly in my place.

“Your name?”

“Jones iv., please, sir.”

“Then come at once, Jones iv., and collect them again, every one, and write out two hundred lines. Let dinner proceed now.”

If the object of the promoters of the Philosophical Conversation Club had been cheap advertisement, they must have been amply gratified. Hercules never performed any labour equal to mine that afternoon. The masters handed me up their copies gravely and reproachfully; but the Low Heathens generally made sport of my misery. Scarcely one in ten would part with his rare broadside, and those who did made it manifest that they had the contents by heart. The unfortunate “misprint” of my Christian name, moreover, was the occasion for much ribald comment.

When, finally, I reached the quarters of my own particular comrades, I received more kicks than papers. They were unkind enough to say I had mulled the whole thing, and to promise me untold penalties when they got me in the privacy of the faggery.

At last, when the pudding was almost vanishing, I sat down to my hard-earned meal. But it mattered little, for I could have eaten nothing.

Be that as it may, the Philosophical Conversation Club was able to boast that afternoon that it had attracted the attention and interest of every member of the school, from the headmaster down to the junior fag. And few school clubs can boast as much as that!

Chapter Twelve.

A Committee of Ways and Means.

“Where are you going?” demanded the faggery next afternoon, as I tried to desert them after afternoon chapel. “To take up your lines to England?”

I should have preferred that they had not asked me the question, but having asked it I felt bound to answer.

“No; I’m going to tea at a fellow’s.”

“Who? The washerwoman’s?”

“No; to Redwood’s.”

I tried to pronounce the name with the unconcern of a man who is in daily communion with heroes, but I fear I betrayed my emotion. At least, their laughter made me think so.

I was instantly greeted with all sorts of mock salutations and obeisances, and, whether I liked it or not, rushed off to the faggery to be tidied up. It was in vain I struggled, and explained that Redwood was waiting for me. They would not be put off.

“You must wash your face for the credit of the Ph.C.C,” said Langrish.

“And put on a clean shirt for the credit of your wash—”

Here by a frantic effort I broke loose and made off, followed by the pack in full cry, with shouts of—

“Stop thief!”

“Welsher?”

“Clear the course!” “Hurry up for tea there!” and other exclamations of a similar nature.

It was not certainly a very dignified way of accepting a friend’s invitation; still, it would have been worse had I remained in their clutches.

As it was, I only just made the schoolhouse door before Warminster and Coxhead were up to me, and presented myself to my host painfully out of breath and red in the face.

“Been having a trot over?” said he, with a nod.

“Yes, a little,” I gasped.

“I’m ready; come along.”

My heart sunk within me, as, on reaching the door, I saw my five comrades, all apparently by accident, hovering round to see me go out. They did their best, and very successfully too, to stare me out of countenance, and encourage my blushes by allusions to “Sarah” and my tin sleeve-links, and the smudges on my face, and by cries of “shrimps” and “muffins,” and other awkward allusions.

Redwood, as became the cock of the school, affected not to hear their ribald remarks, though he must have caught a word or two, and inquired,—

“Been playing football since you came?”

“No, not yet,” said I, painfully aware that Trimble and Langrish were walking behind us critically; “that is, yes, a little.”

I was glad when we reached the big gates, and were able to shake off the enemy, who continued audible comments till I was out of earshot, and finally went off on some new quest.

At Number 3, Bridge Street, I found myself, much to my discomfort, quite a hero. Mrs Redwood, a gentle-looking lady, kissed me effusively, so did little Miss Gwen, who having once begun could scarcely be prevailed upon to leave off. The servants smiled approvingly, as did a lady visitor, who shook me by the hand. The only person who did not appear to rejoice to see me was the heroine of the occasion, Miss Mamie, who declined altogether to kiss me, and added I was a naughty big boy to spoil her nice sash, and ought to be sent to bed.

To her mother’s protests and brother’s encouragement she was quite obdurate. No; she hated me, she said, for spoiling her nice sash, and wild horses would not draw from her a contrary declaration.

After which we were summoned to tea, and I was consoled for this base ingratitude by plum jam and “sally-lunn” and sultana cake and other delicacies, which only a schoolboy, well on in the term, knows how fully to appreciate.

The talk was limited; first because I made it a rule not to talk with my mouth full, and secondly, because, had that difficulty been removed, I had nothing to say. Redwood, fine fellow that he was, did not try to pump me, and the ladies, who kept up most of the talk, most conveniently worded their observations in such a form as not to call for a reply.

After tea, however, I did find myself talking to Mrs Redwood about my mother, and presently to Redwood about Dangerfield and my previous acquaintance with Tempest and Brown.

“Brown iii. is a town-boy,” said the captain. “I wish we’d had him in. Is he a member of your wonderful club, by the way?”

I blushed. Of course Redwood had seen that fatal document yesterday!

“Ah—well, you know, that is only for chaps in the school.”

“Rather rough on us town-boys,” said Redwood, with a laugh.

“I’m sure they’d be delighted to have you,” said I.

“Ah, well, our fellows have a club of their own,” said he, “although they don’t talk philosophy. By the way, is your Christian name correctly printed?” asked he.

“Oh, no,” said I; “that was Languish’s fault. He says it was a printer’s error, but I’m sure he did it on purpose.”

“It helps to call attention to the club,” said the captain, laughing. “Your lot seems to be fond of its little joke, to judge by the specimens that came to see us off just now.”

“I’m awfully sorry,” said I; “they do fool about so—I say, I hope you aren’t in a wax about it.”

He certainly did not look it.

I went up with him to his den, and we had quite a long talk, and somehow without seeming to mean it, he managed to knock a great deal of nonsense out of my head, and incite me to put my back into the work of the term.

“I suppose,” said he, “you mean to back up Tempest now he’s cock of Sharpe’s? You kids can make it pretty hot in a house if you choose.”

“Oh, we’re all backing up Tempest,” said I, “especially now he’s got his colours.”

“All serene,” said the captain; “he’ll pull through well, then.”

I stayed till it was time for Redwood to go over to the school for a committee of the Sports Club. I did not leave Number 3 without a standing invitation to come in whenever I liked, or without painful apologies for the contumacy of Mamie.

Redwood and I had just reached the bridge when some one confronted us whom I recognised at once as Mr Jarman.

“Ah, Redwood, you’ve a meeting on. Who’s this boy? Ah, I remember—Jones iv. What did I say to you yesterday, Jones?”

“Jones has been to tea at my house,” said the captain, with a flush, and looking less amiable than I had yet seen him.

“It’s after hours,” said Mr Jarman, coolly. “I cautioned him yesterday. A hundred lines, Jones iv., by to-morrow evening.”

“It’s not his fault,” said Redwood; “I gave him leave, sir.”

“We need not discuss this, Redwood,” said Mr Jarman, and walked away.

I felt quite sufficiently avenged when I saw the captain’s face. He strode on some distance in silence, and then said,—

“I’m sorry, youngster. It can’t be helped, though. Jarman’s strictly in the right, though it’s sharp practice. You’d better cut in now. Good night.”

“Good night,” said I, making off. But he called me back.

“You’d better do the doctor’s lines to-night. Leave Jarman’s till the morning.”

“All right.”

And I departed, not a little impressed with the incident.

The captain had disappointed me a little. I should have liked to see him knock Jarman down, or at least openly defy him; whereas he seemed to back him up, although much against his will. The net result to me was that I had three hundred lines to write on my third day at school, and that, for a well-meaning youth, was tribulation enough.

I took Redwood’s advice and wrote the doctor’s lines that evening, trusting to a chance next forenoon of satisfying the demands of Mr Jarman. To their credit be it said, some of the faggery helped me out with my task, and as we all wrote in the same style of penmanship, namely, a back-handed slope spread out very wide to cover as much ground as possible, it was very difficult when all was done to believe that the performance was a co-operative one.

Before going to bed I told Tempest of my adventure, and had the satisfaction of receiving his complete sympathy.

“That’s the worst of Redwood—he’ll let it all slide. I wish I’d been with you when it happened. There’d have been a row. There will some day, too.”

All which was very consoling to me and helped me to sleep soundly.

But the surprise of surprises happened next morning when I encountered the captain’s fag at the door before breakfast with a letter in his hand.

“Here you are,” said he, thrusting the document on me. “I don’t see why you can’t come and fetch your own things instead of me having to run after you.”

“You can walk,” said I, “I suppose.”

I meant to be conciliatory, but he was highly offended and began to kick, and it took some little time to pacify him and induce him to return to the bosom of his house.

When he had gone, I opened the envelope with some little curiosity. What was my astonishment when I found it enclosed one hundred lines written out in a bold clear hand, which it was easy to guess was that of the captain himself!

There was no letter or message; but the explanation was clear enough. Redwood having got me into my row, had, like a gentleman, paid the penalty; and as I realised this I could have kicked myself for the unworthy thoughts I had indulged about him.

I only wished Jarman, to whom in due time I handed the precious document, could have known its history.

He evidently gave me credit for being an excellent writer, and perhaps for having an unusual acquaintance, for a boy of my age, with the works of the Immortal Bard. For Redwood had grimly selected the following passage to write out over and over again for the police-master’s benefit: “It is excellent to have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”

I fear the satire was lost on its victim, and that he meekly concluded I had selected the passage because it happened to be in my lesson for the day, and was probably the first to come to hand.

Tempest laughed when I told him.

“It’s all very well,” said he, “but it’s encouraging the enemy. Redwood’s a dear old chap, but he’s too much of an anything-for-a-quiet-life fellow for captain. By the way, has Crofter replied to your polite letter?”

“No,” said I, “not a word, and I haven’t seen him.”

“Well, take my advice, kid. If he wants to kick you, consider yourself lucky. If he’s extra civil, cut him like mischief. Some day you may thank me for the tip.”

It seemed queer advice at the time, but I had occasion to call it to mind later on, as the reader will discover.

By the end of my first week I was pretty well domesticated at Low Heath. My chief regret was that I saw so little of Dicky Brown; and when we did meet the only thing we had in common was our lessons, which were not always congenial topics of conversation.

Dicky was fully imbued with the superiority of the town-boy over the house boy, and irritated me sometimes by his repeated regret that I was not eligible for the junior Urbans.

“What do you do?” I inquired.

“Oh, hosts of things. We go in for geology, and part songs, and antiquities, and all that sort of thing; and have excursions—at least, we’re going to have one soon—to look for remains.”

“Ah! it’s a pity you couldn’t come to our picnic next week. It’s to be no end of a spree.”

“Oh, we’ve heard all about that,” said Dicky, with a grin. “Mens sano in corpore sanae—you should hear some of our chaps yell about that.”

“I’m sure it’s not a bad motto,” ventured I.

“I don’t know about that. But it’s not the motto, it’s the grammar.”

I wasn’t quite pleased with Dicky for this. It seemed as if he thought he knew more than other people, which I held to be a reprehensible failing in any one—particularly a day boy. I flattered myself that, as an exhibitioner, he had hardly the right to talk to me about grammar. But it was Dicky’s way, and I knew he couldn’t help it.

For all that, I referred to the subject in the faggery that evening. My comrades were in high glee. Half a dozen subscriptions had come in, with requests to be allowed to join the picnic, and a considerable number of others had asked to be allowed at half price or on the deferred payment system.

“It’s going like anything, Sarah,” said Langrish, thumping me violently on the back.

“Where’s the picnic to be?” I inquired.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” said the secretary.

I said I would, and, as president, considered I was entitled to the information.

“We’re not as green as we look; are we, you chaps?” said Trimble. “Why, you don’t suppose we’re going to let out and give you a chance of blabbing to the day-boy cads, do you?”

“I’m not any more likely to blab than you are,” said I, warmly.

“All serene. You keep your temper—you’ll know time enough.”

“Suppose I resigned,” said I, feeling I must support my dignity.

“Resign away. We’ve got your subscription.”

“I don’t mean I shall,” said I; “but—”

“Shut up, and don’t disturb the committee meeting.”

“If I’m president, I suppose I’ve a right to speak.”

“Not till you’re asked.”

“All right,” said I, playing my trump card desperately. “When you do ask me what’s wrong with the grammar of your Latin motto, I sha’n’t tell you. Ha, ha!—corpore sanae. You should hear the fellows yell.”

The effect of this announcement was electrical, Langrish turned white, and Trimble turned red. The others bit their nails in silence. It was a season of delicious triumph to me. I was master of the situation for once, and resolved to remain so as long as possible.

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” said Warminster, presently.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” said I.

“Corpore’s feminine, isn’t it?” asked Coxhead.

“Common gender, I fancy,” said Purkis; “depends on who the chap is.”

“You mean if it was Sarah it would be feminine, and if it was one of us it would be masculine,” said Langrish.

This was a nasty one for me, but I held my ground.

“You’d better look it up in the dictionary,” said I.

This was diplomatic; for although I knew the motto was wrong I could not quite say what it should have been.

After much labour it was decided that corpore was neuter, and that the adjective in consequence must be sanum.

A resolution to that effect was proposed and seconded, but an amendment to the effect that as the document had gone out in the name of the president and every one knew it was his work, it was no business of the present company to help him out of the mess, was carried by a large majority.

With which delightful solution of the difficulty—delightful to every one but myself—we proceeded to the order of the day, which was to arrange the details of our picnic next half-holiday.

My colleagues remained obdurate on the question of revealing the place.

“If the day fellows get wind of it they’ll be sure to try to do us,” was the unfailing reply.

“Why shouldn’t I know as well as you?” demanded I.

Whereupon it was explained that nobody knew where the place was to be yet—nor indeed was he likely to know till the morning of the day, when lots would be drawn.

Every member of the council would then be permitted to write the name of a place on a piece of paper, which would be shuffled in a hat and drawn for—the last paper drawn to be the place. I could not help admiring the elaborateness of the precautions, which had only this drawback, as far as I was concerned, that I did not yet know one place from another.

I casually asked Dicky one day if he knew any of the places round.

“What for, picnics and that sort of thing?” he demanded.

“Well—that sort of thing,” said I, anxious not to betray my object too precisely.

“I don’t know. I heard some chaps talking about Camp Hill Bottom—where the battle was, you know.”

I did not know, but it sounded a likely place, and I made a mental note of it for the eventful day.

Meanwhile there was much to be decided. First, as to the applicants for admission on reduced terms, it was agreed if these brought their fair share of provender, and in consideration of their being taken on the cheap would undertake to row or tow the boats up stream, they might come. Then as to the bill of fare, it was resolved that no one should be allowed to take more than he could carry in his pockets—great-coat pockets not to be used.

Then as to the programme; this was drawn up with a view to combine entertainment and instruction in even quantities. For the entertainment was set down the President’s “Inorgural”—the spelling was Langrish’s—address, a part song of the committee, and a public open-air debate or conservation on “Beauty.” The credit of the last suggestion really belonged to Tempest, whom I unofficially consulted as to some good subjects for philosophical discussion. For the instructive part of the day’s proceedings there was to be the dinner, a boat race, a tug of war, and, if funds permitted, a display of fireworks.

What concerned me chiefly in the arrangements was that I, as president, was held responsible for everything of a difficult or hazardous nature. For instance, I was sent down to select the two boats, and drive a bargain for their hire. Then again, when, owing to the prompt payment of two or three of the “paupers” (as the applicants for reduced terms were politely styled) rather than submit to the terms imposed, it was discovered that half-a-crown of the club funds remained unused, it was I who was sent into Low Heath to buy squibs and Roman candles; and it was I who was appointed to take charge of the explosives in my hat-box under my bed till the time arrived for letting them off.

I began to be anxious about my numerous responsibilities (to which, by the way, was added that of replying in the negative on the question of Beauty), for every day something fresh was put on my shoulders, and every day I found my school work falling into arrears.

Tempest and Pridgin both mildly hinted to me that I didn’t seem to be knocking myself up with work, and succeeded in making me uncomfortable on that score. What concerned me still more was to find that Dicky Brown, although not an exhibitioner, kept steadily above me in class, and put me under frequent obligations by helping me out of difficulties.

Never mind, thought I, it will soon be all right—when once the Conversation Club picnic is over.

The morning of the eventful day dawned at last; fair on the whole, but not brilliant. The faggery was astir early, and before breakfast the solemn ceremony of drawing lots for the scene of our revels took place. I faithfully set down Camp Hill Bottom on my paper and committed it to the hat.

Tempest, who chanced to look in with an order for his fag, was requested as a favour to officiate as drawer, which he good-naturedly did. It was anxious work while he pulled out the first five papers and tossed them unopened into the fireplace. Then he drew the sixth and opened it.

“Camp Hill Botton,” he read.

Every one seemed pleased, first, because every one had written it on his paper, and secondly, because it was the only really good place for a river picnic.

“There’s one comfort about it,” said Tempest, as we thanked him for his services, “we shall have a little quiet in this house for an hour or two. Take care of yourselves. Good-bye.”

Chapter Fourteen.

Extra Drill.

Mr Jarman must have felt flattered at the gloomy dead silence which fell on Philosophers and Urbans alike as we looked round and saw him. It was of course impossible to believe he had found us by accident, still less that he had come with any friendly purpose.

He advanced into the middle of the Bottom, watch in hand.

“This is contrary to rules,” said he. “It is now a quarter-past six, and you are half an hour from Low Heath. In addition to which I have already said that fireworks are only to be had with leave. Tempest, you should have put an end to this. You will kindly send me in the name of every boy here. And each of you boys must attend an extra drill to-morrow and write out one hundred lines—except,” added he, catching sight of me, “except Jones iv., whom I have already had to punish, and who must write two hundred lines.”

It was a study to watch Tempest’s face during this speech. It was all he could do to wait to the end.

“It’s not fair,” said he, with pale cheeks and angry brow. “It’s a half-holiday, and boys always get half an hour’s grace.”

“That is not the rule,” said the master.

“It’s the practice, sir. Half these boys are in my house, and I have given them leave to stay. I also allowed the fireworks.”

“Tempest, we will speak of this presently—”

“No, sir,” blurted out Tempest, “the fellows have done nothing wrong; and if they have, I’m responsible to Dr England about it.”

Mr Jarman was not the man to give himself away in a public discussion, and coolly walked off, observing—

“I shall expect the list of names to-night, Tempest.”

Tempest’s reply was a short, defiant laugh, which made the master turn a moment, as if about to notice it. But he departed silently, and left us to recover as well as we could from the surprise of the whole scene.

The general opinion was that the policeman had met his match at last in Tempest; and the more enthusiastic of us tried to express our feelings in words. But Tempest was by no means inclined to discuss the situation.

“Shut up,” he replied angrily, when I ventured to applaud his courage. “Cut back to school at once, and don’t speak to me.”

This was a blow to some of the party, who had calculated on a general revolt, to be headed by the rock of Sharpe’s house in person, and celebrated by general orgies on the spot.

“I sha’n’t do my lines, shall you?” said Dicky, as we trotted down to the boats.

“Rather not. And I don’t think our chaps will turn up for extra drill.”

“Just like old Tempest,” said Brown. “He enjoys a row of this kind.”

“He didn’t look as if he did,” remarked I. “Perhaps that was because such a lot of day chaps are mixed up in it.”

Brown looked a little glum at this.

“He needn’t bother about us unless he likes,” said he. “We can take care of ourselves, I fancy.”

Luckily at this stage we reached the boats, and further discussion was interrupted.

The voyage home was comparatively uneventful. It was of course enlivened by a desultory race with the Urbans all the way, in which, I regret to say, Mr Jorrocks’s boats received a few scratches, owing to the desire of each boat to take the water of its opponent before it was clear ahead. The town-boys unrighteously claimed in the end to have won by a quarter of a length, but as in passing our leader they had pulled away one of our bow oars and further turned the nose of the Sarah into the bank, we stoutly resisted their claim, and a very lively argument ensued, in which Mr Jorrocks lost a good deal of varnish, and most of the combatants became rather wet. However, we were back in school within half an hour of embarking, which on the whole was not a bad record.

Curiosity to know what Tempest would do prevented us from so much as thinking of our “lines.” I took an early opportunity of presenting myself in Pridgin’s study, feeling sure I should be likely to hear something of the matter there.

As it happened, Tempest and Wales were there too, in deep confabulation.

“Look here, old chap,” Pridgin was saying, “don’t spoil your term for a parcel of yelping young puppies like this kid here and his lot. They’re not worth it.”

“For all that,” said Wales, “it’s a question of whether the cock of a house is to be allowed his rights or not.”

“It’s more a question whether Jarman is to be allowed his rights,” said Tempest. “I quite agree that these young muffs are a nuisance, and it’s all the more aggravating to be dragged into a mess by them. But he’d no right to interfere.”

“Strictly speaking, I suppose he was right,” said Pridgin. “There is a rule about juniors being in by 6:30; although every one knows half an hour’s grace is given on half-holidays. And I suppose he’s right about the fireworks.”

“You think I ought to cave in?” asked Tempest.

“I don’t say that. But I’d let the matter alone.”

“We shall never stop Jarman at that rate,” said Wales. “I should say fight it out.”

“All very well for you and me,” said Pridgin, “who are comfortably out of it. But it means a big job for old Tempest. He’ll have to bear the brunt of it.”

“I can’t well drop it when he’s told me to give him a list of the youngsters present,” said Tempest.

“You certainly are not called upon to give him a list of the day boys.”

“Well, as I only know one of them, it wouldn’t be easy. If he’d only lagged me, and given me extra drill and lines, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But it was playing it low down to—”

Here came a knock at the door, and the school messenger entered with a letter.

“No answer,” said he, handing it to Tempest.

It was plain to see by the flush on Tempest’s face as he read it that it contained anything but pleasant news.

“It’s from Jarman,” said he, throwing it down on the table.

Wales took it up and read it.

“Mr Jarman informs Tempest that the list of names required in connection with this afternoon’s incident will not be required, as Mr Jarman already has it. Tempest will please attend the extra drill with the other boys of his house to-morrow, as his conduct this afternoon was neither respectful nor a good example to others.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Pridgin, rising, for a wonder, out of his chair; “that’s a nasty one, if you like. He’s taken you at your word, old man. Who’s given the list of names? Did you, you young sweep?” he demanded of me.

“Oh no,” said I, glad to be recognised under any term of endearment. “I wouldn’t think of doing such a thing. But I’ll tell you what I think.”

“Really, Jones iv., it’s nice to know you do think; but, if you don’t mind, we would rather not hear. If you know anything, let us hear it, but spare us your thoughts.”

Pridgin was rather crushing sometimes.

“I meant we were marked off by the porter at the lodge as we came in,” said I. “Perhaps that’s how he’s got the names.”

“Evidently,” said Pridgin, “he’s had you for once. Tempest. He guessed there’d be a bother about the list, and he has taken the wind out of your sails. You’ll attend extra drill, of course.”

“Certainly.”

“So that,” said Wales, “all you will score by the affair will be a public disgrace before the juniors.”

Tempest’s half dismal, half wrathful face was answer enough.

“We sha’n’t consider it a disgrace,” said I.

“Thank you very much, Jones iv. If that is so, we shall feel it was worth living for to have your approbation. Now you had better go and write out your lines.”

“What?” said I. “I thought we were none of us going to do that.”

“I have warned you once against the perils of thinking. It’s a bad habit for little boys. Off you go, or you won’t get your poena done in time.”

“What am I to tell the others?” I inquired.

“You may tell them it’s a fine evening. Cut—do you hear?”

It was a great come-down. The Philosophers thought so when I reported the case. Some were inclined to be angry with Tempest, others to pity him; and every one was unanimous, I do not know why, in expressing a burning desire to kick me.

The expectation of a general revolt, headed by Tempest in person, and reinforced by the Urbans, faded dismally away as the company saw itself going down to “knock off” Mr Jarman’s lines.

“This comes,” said Langrish, rather illogically, I thought, “of getting mixed up with the day-boy cads. I knew it would land us in a mess, and so it has.”

“Anyway, they’re in the mess too,” said Trimble.

“It’s a little rough on Tempest having to show up for them as well as for us,” said I.

“Shut up, and let a fellow write his lines, can’t you?” growled Coxhead. “When we want Sarah’s advice we’ll ask for it.”

The reader will gather from this that the Philosophers were in bad tempers, and that their president was in imminent danger of losing his.

At noon next day, when most of the school was turning out after morning class into the fields, a melancholy band might have been seen dropping in, in irregular order, at the door of the school gymnasium. All except one were juniors. Some looked as if they were used to the thing, other betrayed the shy and self-conscious embarrassment of the first delinquents. None looked cheerful, not a few looked savage. The exception in point of age was a well set-up, square-shouldered, proud-faced senior, who entered with an air of reckless disgust which was not comfortable to look at, and might be dangerous if provoked. None of us spoke to Tempest, and he vouchsafed no sign of recognition of us.

A squad of the school volunteers, chiefly composed of smart boys from Mr Selkirk’s house, were concluding drill as we entered, and of course took stock of our dejected looks and of Tempest’s unwonted appearance as they filed out.

“A row on, eh?” whispered one, as he passed us.

“It doesn’t look like fun, does it?” snarled Langrish.

“Where does Tempest come in?” persisted the inquirer.

“By the door; and the sooner you get out by it the better.”

“Ha, ha!—poor little naughty boys. An extra drill will do you good. Come on, you chaps. Let’s leave them to enjoy themselves. They’ll get used to it in time. Ho, ho!”

“Fall in!” called Mr Jarman.

And painfully conscious not only that a few of the volunteers were hanging about to look on, but that the school porter was at the moment conducting a party of visitors through the building, we obeyed listlessly and dismally. Tempest taking his place at the end of the line.

“Are these some of the volunteers?” we heard one of the lady spectators ask.

“No, madam. This is an extra drill for breach of rules,” replied the official.

“Number from the right,” cried Mr Jarman.

We numbered.

“Answer to your names,” said the discipline master, producing a paper. We could not help noticing that Tempest’s name was mixed in along with ours, and that no difference was made on account of his age or status. We were then formed into double rank, and fours, and open order, and put through a hideous series of extension exercises, irksome enough at any time, but under present circumstances specially so. I heard Dicky Brown beside me groan as he stood leaning over with his left knee bent, his right leg stretched out behind, and his two arms doubled up at his side.

“I wonder they don’t all kick,” he whispered.

“Not easy like this,” said I.

“How Tempest must be enjoying it!” Dick murmured.

“Poor beggar! it’s a nasty dose for him.”

But if Mr Jarman counted on any protest or resistance from his senior victim, he was disappointed. Tempest went patiently and impassively through the drill with the rest of us; but, as we could see, with a blazing eye fixed all the while on the master. But I could guess the struggle that was going on in my friend’s breast. Mr Jarman may have flattered himself he was “taking it out of him”, Dicky and I knew better.

We all took our cue from Tempest that morning, and any inclination to rebel or mutiny was suppressed. We contented ourselves with glaring at our tormentor, and denying him the excuse he probably desired of prolonging the agony. My impression is that Mr Jarman was never so happy as when he realised that he was absolute master of the situation. The Roman emperors were not in it with him.

“Attention! Front!” said he at last, when the proceedings were becoming dull even to him. “Stand at ease! Attention! Stand at ease! Attention! Left turn! Dismiss! As you were! Dismiss!”

It was a prolonged insult, and we knew it. But Tempest stood it, and so, consequently, did we. But as we filed from the place we felt that Mr Jarman’s turn would come some day.

Tempest, contrary to general expectation, evinced no haste to leave the scene of his tribulation. There was yet a quarter of an hour to next bell, and this he evidently decided to spend, as he had the right to do, where he was. Mr Jarman was evidently annoyed to find, not only that the senior was apparently unaffected by the humiliation through which he had passed, but that now the drill was over he evinced an entire unconcern in the master’s presence.

Tempest was one of the best gymnasts in the school, and it was always worth while to watch him on the trapeze and horizontal bar. So the Philosophers and Urbans, by one consent, trooped back into the gymnasium to look on, and (what must have been particularly annoying to the master, because he had no authority to stop it) to cheer. How we did cheer, and what good it did us! Had Tempest been the meanest of performers, and done nothing but swing with his legs doubled up under him from one ring to the next, we should have applauded. But to-day his flights were terrific. No fellow was less given to show off, and he probably objected to our applause as much as Mr Jarman. But he was bound to relieve his feelings somehow, and the trapeze was just what he wanted.

When finally the bell rang, and we were hoarse with cheering (which was our way of relieving our feelings) he came to earth decidedly better for his exercise.

Mr Jarman evidently was impressed, and, to our surprise, even ventured on a compliment.

“You did that well, Tempest.”

Tempest’s reply was to walk away, putting on his coat as he went.

It was plain to see by the angry twitch of Mr Jarman’s mouth that the shaft of this public snub had gone home, and we who looked on and witnessed it all had little need to tell ourselves that civil war had already been declared.

It is hardly necessary to state that the extraordinary meeting of the Conversation Club that evening was lively, and that there was no lack of a topic. Besides our own contingent, a few of the outsiders, including Muskett and Corderoy from Selkirk’s house, and a few of the “paupers,” dropped in. As the faggery would only conveniently hold six persons, and as at least twenty were present, it was considered advisable to adjourn to the shoe-room, where, in the dim light of a small candle, several particularly revolutionary motions were discussed, the company sitting on the floor for the purpose.

The meeting opened by my calling on Langrish to read the minutes, which he accordingly did.

“The inaugural picnic of the Ph.C.C. was held the other day. Present, all the usual lot and seven paupers. The president had chartered the Sarah and Firefly, two of the vilest crocks at Jorrocks’s.”

“He said they were the best they had got,” I explained.

“Shut up, or you’ll be kicked out, young Sarah.”

“I’ve a right to speak.”

“No, you haven’t—unless you hold your tongue.”

“If I held my tongue, I couldn’t possibly speak,” I explained.

“Turn him out!” cried the paupers. Whereat I subsided.

“The paupers,” continued the minutes, “had beastly little go in them, and ought to have had a meal of hay before starting (interruption), and will be badly kicked if they don’t shut up. The Firefly had the best of the race up.” (Here there were most indignant protests from the crew of the gallant Sarah; and the question was argued out with some energy on the floor of the shoe-room before Langrish could proceed.)

“Nature was dressed in her most pristine colours, and the incandescent hues of the autumn leaves brought cries of enjoyment out of the mouths of the Ph.C.C, except the paupers, whose mouths were too full for utterance.”

This paragraph was not likely to pass unchallenged. Coxhead impeached its grammar, Trimble its taste, and the paupers its accuracy, and a very heated argument ensued, at the end of which it was agreed to let the door stand open a few minutes to get rid of the dust.

“Arrived at Camp Hill, a flock of jibbering apes were discovered, headed by the president’s arch-enemy. Brown iii.”

“No, he’s not my enemy,” protested I. “I never said so.”

“The minutes say so. They’re more likely to be right than you.”

“But I like Dicky Brown,” said I.

“That sounds like poetry,” said Warminster, “ho, ho!

“I like Dicky Brown,
His cheek is so cool,
And if I don’t kick him
You call me a fool.”

“I can do that whether you kick him or not,” said I, quite unmoved by this brilliant impromptu.

Here I was compelled to vacate the chair for a few moments, in order to discuss the matter further with Warminster. On order being restored, the minutes proceeded—

“The Philosophers soon made it too hot for these mules, and they were only allowed to stay on the ground as it amused us to see their idiotic sniggers. The paper on ‘Beauty’ was rot, and invoked well-deserved hisses.”

“Say that again,” ejaculated the outraged Trimble.

“That! there you are,” said Langrish hurriedly. But Trimble had more to say on the subject, and once again the meeting became warm and dusty.

“Order, please; let’s hear the rest,” said I, when both had been brushed down by their friends.

“As for Sarah’s speech in reply, it was the drivellingest balderdash you ever heard. It made the club blush.”

“That speaks well for it,” I suggested mildly.

The meeting did not seem to know how exactly to take this, but concluded it was meant to be complimentary, and contented themselves with ordering me to “shut up” if I didn’t want to be kicked out.

“Tempest (loud cheers) turned up presently and backed us up (cheers). The baboons weren’t in it in the sports. We pulled off the tug of war on our heads (cheers), and their speeches were even drivellinger than Trim’s and Sarah’s. (Interruption.) Just at the end a howling sneak and cad and outsider called Jarman came, and lagged us all, including Tempest. (Groans.) Our president behaved like a mutton-head throughout. Going home, the Philosophers led by several miles. The meeting then adjourned for extra drill in the gym. to-day, and mean to pay Jarman out.” (Cheers.)

The patriotic sentiment with which the minutes concluded did away with any little difference arising earlier is the evening, and they were carried unanimously.

It was then moved, seconded, thirded, fourthed, and fifthed, “that Jarman be, and is hereby, hung, and ought to be kicked.”

It was further agreed, “that Tempest be elected an Honorary Philosopher, and be let off entrance fee.”

Also, “that the town cads are about the biggest outsiders going.”

Also, “that Trimble be requested to wash his face.”

This last was not carried without some opposition, Trimble’s amendment, “that you be hung,” being lost only by a narrow minority. Finally it was resolved unanimously—

“That the Philosophers’ Conversation Club make it hot all round for any one who doesn’t want to kick Jarman or back up Tempest.”

With which highly satisfactory piece of business accomplished, we adjourned to our own studies, and finally to bed.

Chapter Fifteen.

Explosive Material.

It was plain to be seen that Tempest, although he had borne his humiliating penalty like a man, had been badly bruised by it. Not that he broke out into any wild rebellion, or tried to make for himself a party to avenge his wrongs; but he seemed to have either lost interest in his work as house captain, or to enjoy disturbing the sensibilities of his friends by a reckless indifference to its affairs.

The story of his “extra drill” had become public property in Low Heath. Most of the fellows sympathised with him, but could not understand why he had not appealed to the head master. A few, a very few, suggested that he had come badly out of the business; but no one particularly cared to discuss the matter with him.

To Pridgin and Wales he insisted that it was no use referring to Dr England. The Head was bound to support his policeman.

“Why not get Redwood to take it up?” suggested Pridgin.

“Redwood! He wouldn’t go a yard out of his way. What does it matter to him—a day boy? No, old chap, we can take care of ourselves. There’ll be a return match one day!”

It concerned me to hear my old friend talk like this; still more to notice how he began to lose grip in Sharpe’s house. No news flies so fast in a school as that of a responsible head boy being slack or “out of collar.” And when once it is known and admitted, it takes a good deal to keep the house from going slack and “out of collar” too.

In our particular department the relaxing of authority was specially apparent. It destroyed some of the interest in our philosophical extravagances; for the dread of coming across the powers that be lends a certain flavour to the routine of a junior boy. It also tended to substitute horseplay and rowdyism for mere fun—greatly to the detriment of our self-respect and enjoyment.

On the whole, then, Sharpe’s house had a heavier grudge against Mr Jarman than it suspected.

The worst of the whole business was that Tempest himself seemed not to see the effect of his attitude on the house at large. He did not realise how much the juniors were impressed by what he said and how he looked, or how much his example counted with others of a less imitative turn. He looked upon his grievance as his own affair, and failed to give himself credit for all the influence he really possessed.

One curious result of the upset was that Crofter was now and then to be found in his fellow-seniors’ rooms. He had blossomed out as an ardent anti-Jarmanite, and belonged to the party who not only vowed revenge, but was impatient at delay. Tempest’s wrongs he seemed to feel as keenly as if they had been his own; and the insults put upon Sharpe’s house he took to heart as warmly as any one.

Tempest could hardly help tolerating this effusively-offered sympathy, although he made no profession of liking it, and continued to warn me against having more to do than I could help with Crofter. Pridgin was even less cordial, but his laziness prevented his taking any active steps to cut the connection. Wales, on the other hand, though Tempest’s chum, took more kindly to the new-comer, and amused himself now and again by defending him against his detractors.

“The wonder to me is,” said Crofter, “Jarman has not caught it before now. We’re not the only house he’s insulted, although I don’t think he’s tried it on with any of the others as he has with us.”

“Some day he’ll find he’s sailing a little too near the wind,” said Tempest, with a pleasant confusion of metaphors; “and then he’ll get bowled out.”

“Upon my word, though,” said Wales, “I think we’ve a right to get that extra drill of yours wiped out. It stands against you on the register, and it’s a scandal to the house.”

“They seem to think it so,” observed Pridgin, as just then a loud chorus of war-whoops came up from the region of the faggery. “Somebody had better stop that row!”

“Jarman had better come and do it,” said Tempest, laughing. “He’s got charge of the morals of Sharpe’s house now.”

When in due time I returned, somewhat depressed by what I had overheard, to the faggery, I discovered that the particular occasion of the triumphal shout referred to had been a proposal by Langrish to celebrate the approaching Fifth of November by hanging, and, if possible, burning Mr Jarman in effigy, for which purpose an overcoat of mine had already been impounded. I had the greatest difficulty in rescuing it from the hands of the marauders, who represented to me that it was my duty to sacrifice something for the public good.

“Why don’t you let them have your coat, then?” I asked.

“Because,” was the insinuating reply, “it wouldn’t burn as well.”

“You won’t have mine,” I insisted. “But I tell you what; I’ve got an old hat and pair of boots I—I don’t often wear—you can have them.”

A shout of laughter greeted this ingenuous offer—but it saved my top-coat. And when in time my flat-topped pot-hat and tan boots were produced, there was general rejoicing. Each Philosopher present tried them on in turn, and finally I was compelled to wear them, as well as my top-coat, for the rest of the evening, and assist in a full-dress rehearsal of the proposed hanging of the discipline master, in which, greatly to my inconvenience, I was made to personate Mr Jarman.

The following day I was enjoying a little hard-earned solitude, and amusing myself by leaning over the bridge and watching the boats below, when a voice at my side startled me.

“Ah, my polite letter-writer, is that you? The very chap I want.”

It was Crofter. My instinct at first, especially on the sly reference to my letter of apology, was to fly. On second thoughts it seemed to me wiser to remain. Crofter and Tempest were on better terms now. It would be best to be civil.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Can you steer a boat?”

“A little,” said I.

“Does that mean you can run it into the bank every few yards?”

“Oh no, I’ve often steered Tempest and Pridgin.”

“Come along, then; I’m going to have a spin up to Middle-weir.”

If there was one thing I enjoyed it was steering a boat, and I was not long in accepting the invitation.

Crofter was not conferring a favour on me; only making a convenience of me. So that I was not in any way making up to him. Our relations were that of senior and fag only; and Tempest’s and Pridgin’s warnings to beware when he was particularly friendly (even if it had not already been cancelled by the fact that they now frequently had Crofter in their rooms) could hardly apply now.

For all that, I did not feel quite comfortable, and was glad, on the whole, that the embarkation did not take place under the eyes of my patrons.

For some time Crofter sculled on in silence, giving me directions now and again to keep in the stream, or take the boat well out at the corners—which I considered superfluous. Presently, however, when we were clear of Low Heath he slacked off and began to talk.

“I enjoyed that letter of yours,” said he; “did you write it all yourself?”

“Yes,” said I, feeling and looking very uncomfortable.

“You and Tempest must be quite old chums.”

“Yes.”

“It’s very rough on him, all this business.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” said I, somewhat won over by this admission.

“The worst of it is, it makes the house run down. I expected we were going to do big things this term.”

“It’s not Tempest’s fault if we don’t,” said I.

“Of course not. It’s Jarman’s. Every one knows that. It’s rather a pity Tempest takes it so meekly, though. Fellows will think he’s either afraid or doesn’t care; and neither would be true.”

“I should think not.”

There was a pause, during which Crofter sculled on. Then he said,—

“Tempest and I don’t hit it, somehow. He doesn’t like me, does he?”

“Well—no, I don’t fancy he does,” I admitted.

“I dare say he advises you to fight shy of me, and that sort of thing, eh?”

This was awkward; but I could not well get out of it.

“Yes.”

Crofter laughed sweetly.

“I wish he’d let me be friends. I hate to see a fellow coming to grief, and not be allowed to give him a leg-up.”

“Tempest’s not coming to grief,” said I.

“Well, not perhaps that, only it’s a pity he’s adding to his other troubles by getting head-over-ears in debt. I hear he’s been going it pretty well in the shops. You should give him a friendly tip.”

This was a revelation to me. I had gathered some time ago, from what Pridgin had said, that there was some fear of it; but I had hoped I had made a mistake.

“Who told you?” said I.

“A good many people are talking about it; including some of the shopmen. It’s just one of those things that a fellow himself never dreams anybody knows about till it’s public property. That’s why I wish I were on good enough terms to give him the tip.”

“If he’s owing anybody he’ll pay,” said I, feeling a great sinking in my heart.

“Look out for that stake in the water there; pull your left! Narrow shave that. Of course he means to pay. What I’m afraid of is, Jarman or England or any of them getting to hear of it. Ever since Sweeten last year got turned out of the headship of his house, and afterwards expelled, it’s seemed to me to be a risky thing for a fellow to run into debt. These shopmen are such sneaks. If they can’t get their money from the fellow, they send their bills in to the house master, and sometimes to the head master; and then it’s a precious awkward thing. How are you getting on in your form?”

I had not much spirit to tell him, and if I had there was no time, for just then the swish of a pair of sculls came round the corner behind us, and presently a boat at almost racing speed appeared in sight.

“Pull your right!” said Crofter. “Hallo! it’s one of our fellows. Looks like Tempest himself.”

I wished myself at the bottom of the river then! What would he think of me if he saw me, and if he knew what I had been listening to?

In my perturbation I over-pulled my line and sent our boat into the bank. Tempest, who evidently was relieving himself with a spin of hard exercise after his fashion, and imagined he had the river to himself, was bearing down straight upon us.

“Hallo, there; keep her out!” shouted Crofter.

Tempest looked round in a startled way, and held water hard to avoid a collision. Then, as he suddenly took in who we were, his face lengthened, and he came to a halt alongside.

“You there, Jones iv.?”

“Yes, would you like me to come and steer you?” said I.

Considering the difficulty into which I had just landed my present boat, it was difficult to flatter myself any one would exactly compete for my services. But Tempest answered shortly,—

“Come along.”

“Hullo, I say,” said Crofter suavely, but with a flush on his cheeks, “he’s steering me, Tempest.”

“He’s doing no good. He’s stuck you in the bank already. Come along, Jones.”

“I haven’t done with him yet,” said Crofter, flushing still more deeply as his voice became sweeter. “I want him to stay with me.”

“And I don’t want him to stay with you,” blurted out Tempest, losing his temper. “I’ve told him so already. He can do as he likes, though.”

And he began to dip his sculls again in the water.

“No,” said I, “I want to come in your boat, Tempest.”

“Come along, then;” and he backed his stern up towards me.

Crofter made no further protest; but greeted my desertion with a mellifluous laugh, which made me more uncomfortable than a storm of objurgations.

Tempest said nothing, but dug his blades viciously in the water, and spun away with grim face and clenched teeth.

For a quarter of a mile he sculled on before he lay on his oars and exclaimed,—

“You young fool!”

“Why,” pleaded I, “I didn’t think you’d mind. He’s been friendly enough to you lately.”

“Bah! What do I care what he is to me? I told you to fight shy of the fellow, and there you go and give yourself away to him.”

I did not quite like this. Tempest spoke to me as if I had not a soul of my own, and had no right to do anything without his leave.

“He was speaking quite kindly about you,” persisted I.

Tempest checked the contemptuous exclamation which came to his lips, and said, more earnestly than I had heard him yet,—

“Look here, Jones; that fellow’s a cad; and he’ll make a cad of you, if you let him. Don’t believe a word he says to you, unless he calls you a fool.”

“I hope what he’s been saying to-day will turn out to be Lies,” said I oracularly.

To my disappointment Tempest evinced no curiosity as to my meaning, and relapsed into gloomy silence for the rest of the voyage.

For the first time in my life I felt out of humour with my old Dux. He had no right to treat me like a baby, or dictate to me whom I was to know and whom I was not to know in Low Heath. No doubt he thought he was doing me a good turn, and honestly thought ill of Crofter. But it did not follow he was not doing him an injustice, and demanding that I should join in it.

At any rate, I felt heartily miserable, and wished I had never put foot outside the faggery that day.

About a mile from home Tempest got out on the towing-path, and said he would trot to the school while I paddled the boat home. It was some relief to be left alone; a relief, however, which was considerably tempered by the fear of meeting Crofter, and having to explain matters to him. That difficulty fortunately did not occur, and I got back to the bosom of the Philosophers without further adventure.

In their sweet society I gradually recovered my spirits. Their enthusiasm for Tempest was still unabated, and their avowed contempt for his enemies all the world over was refreshing. A night’s reflection further repaired my loyalty. After all, thought I, Tempest meant well by me, and was willing to make an enemy for my sake. He might be wrong, of course; but suppose he was right—

The result of all these inward musings was that I offered Trimble to do Tempest’s fagging in his place next morning.

He seemed half to expect me, and the old friendly look was back in his face as he saw me enter.

“I’m sorry I offended you yesterday, Tempest,” said I.

“I fancied it was I offended you,” said he; “but I couldn’t stand seeing you in that cad’s clutches.”

“Is he really a cad, then?” I asked.

“You don’t suppose I asked you into my boat for fun, do you?” said he shortly.

I went on for some time with my work, and then said,—

“Would you like to know what he was saying about you?”

“Not a bit,” said he, so decisively that I relapsed again into silence.

“Look here, kid,” said he, presently, and with unwonted seriousness. “I’m not a saint, and don’t profess to be. And I may not be able to manage my own affairs, to judge by what you and half a dozen other of the fellows seem to think; but I don’t want to see you—well, come to grief—and that’s what you’re likely to do if you let that fellow get hold of you.”

“He’s not got hold of me,” said I, feeling a little hurt once more. “Mayn’t I be civil to a fellow, even? Why, he was saying if you—”

“Shut up! didn’t I tell you I don’t want to hear?” said he.

“Oh, all right.”

If he had only vouchsafed to tell me why he disliked Crofter, or if he had given his counsel in a less authoritative way, it would have been different. He would not even let me repeat the friendly remarks Crofter had made about him; and was determined neither to say a good word for the fellow himself, nor let me say one.

The consequence was that our interview ended in my wishing once more I had confined myself to my own quarters and let ill alone.

My companions were not long in discovering that something was on my mind, and in their gentle way tried to cheer me up.

“What’s the row—ear-ache?” demanded Trimble.

“He’s blue because he’s not had lines to-day,” suggested Langrish.

“Perhaps his washerwoman has sent in her bill,” said Coxhead.

“You’ll get kicked out of here, if you look so jolly blue,” said Warminster. “It’s stale enough this term, without having a chap with a face like a boiled fish gaping at you.”

“Look here,” said I, resolved to be candid as far as I dare. “I’m in a jolly mess—”

“Never knew you out of it. What’s up?” said Langrish.

“Really though, no larks,” said I. “Tempest’s down on me because I went out with Crofter, and Crofter’s down on me because I cut him for Tempest. That’s enough to give a chap blues, isn’t it?”

“There seems to be a run on Sarah,” said Trimble. “Anybody got a halfpenny?”

“What for?” I inquired, as the requisite coin was planked down on the table.

“Heads Tempest, tails Crofter,” said Langrish.

It was heads, and I was solemnly ordered to adhere to Crofter.

“We’ll square it with Tempest,” said they. “He’ll probably keep his shutters up for a day or two, but he’ll soon get over it.”

“But,” said I, “I mean to stick to Tempest as well. The fact is, from what I hear,”—little I realised the fatal error I was making!—“he’s in rather a bad way himself.”

“How?”

“Well, don’t tell; but he’s owing a lot in the shops; and if he can’t pay he’ll get shown up.”

There was a whistle of dismay at this. Sweeten’s fate was still fresh in the memory of some of the faggery.

“We’ll have to give him a leg-up,” was the general verdict.

“Oh, don’t let out I told you!” said I, beginning to get alarmed at the interest my revelation had evoked.

“Who’s going to say a word about you? We can back up the cock of our own house, I suppose, without asking your precious leave. You go and black Crofter’s boots. We’ll see old Tempest through.”

This was not at all what I wanted. I had at least hoped to be recognised as Tempest’s leading champion in this company. Whereas, here was I coolly shunted, my revelation coolly appropriated, and my services unceremoniously dispensed with. I did not like it at all.

“This dodge about stringing up Jarman’s guy,” said Trimble, “ought to help our man a bit. It’ll show we’re taking the matter up. By the way, Sarah’s not heard the latest—we’re going to blow him up as well as hang him.”

And they proceeded to explain that the guy was to be filled chock-full of fireworks and gunpowder, and his tongue to be made of touch-paper. Altogether, he was to be a most dangerous and explosive effigy; and I, as president of the Philosophical Conversation Club, was naturally selected to take charge of him.

I pleaded hard for a sub-committee to assist me, but they would not hear of it.

“It’ll only be a day or two,” said they, “to the Fifth of November. We’ll have his stuffing all in to-morrow—there’s almost enough fireworks left over from the picnic to load him. Then you can stow him away quiet somewhere till the day. Couldn’t you stick him under your bed?”

“Oh no, he might go off, you know,” said I; “or some one might see him. Besides, he’ll be too stout to go under.”

“Bother!—where can he go, then?”

“I vote we stick him in the lumber room under the gymnasium. Nobody ever goes there, and you can get into it any time by the area outside,” said Coxhead.

This was voted an excellent idea. At any rate, if he was discovered or did go off there, the gymnasium was far enough away from Sharpe’s.

So, with much rejoicing, the guy was duly loaded with his explosive internals, and clad in an old derelict overcoat of some late senior. My famous hat adorned his hideous head, and my unappreciated tan boots lent distinction to his somewhat incoherent legs. A train of touch-paper connected with a Roman candle was cunningly devised to protrude in the form of a tongue from his mouth, while ginger-beer bottles filled with gunpowder served as hands. And the whole work of art was one dark evening conveyed by me tenderly and deposited among a wilderness of broken forms, empty hampers, and old bottles in the lumber room under the school gymnasium, “to be called for” in a few days time.

Chapter Seventeen.

Before the “Beak.”

At the sight of the policeman I gave myself up for lost. The sins and errors of my youth all rose in a hideous procession before me. I recalled vividly the occasion when, years ago, I had borrowed Dicky Brown’s “nicker” without acknowledgment, and lost it. I recalled a dismal series of assaults and libels in my guardian’s office. I recollected with horror once travelling on a half-ticket two days after my twelfth birthday. Above all, the vision of that ill-favoured effigy under the grating rose gibbering and mocking me to my face, and claiming me for penal servitude, if not for the gallows itself.

How well I remember every detail of that scene as I entered the doctor’s study! The bust of Minerva looking askance at me from above the book-case; the quill in the doctor’s hand with its fringe all on end; Tempest’s necktie crooked and showing the collar stud above; Mr Jarman’s eye coldly fixed on me; and the policeman, helmet in hand, standing with his large boots on the hearthrug, the picture of content and prosperity.

“Jones,” said the doctor, “we have sent for you to tell us what you did at the gymnasium last night. You were there, I understand, after dark?”

I looked first at the doctor, then at Tempest. I would have given worlds to be able to have two minutes’ conversation with him, and ascertain what he wished me to say, if indeed he wished me to say anything at all. The memory of a similar dilemma at Dangerfield only served to confuse me more, and make it impossible to decide how I should act now; while the presence of the policeman drove from my head any ideas that were ever there. Would Tempest like me to say that I went there at his bidding, and if not, how could I explain the matter? I wished I only knew what had been said already, so that at least I might put my evidence on the right side.

“Yes, sir,” said I, “I saw Mr Jarman there.”

“What were you doing there, eh, young master?” said the policeman.

This was an unexpected attack from the flank of the battle for which I was wholly unprepared. I could have told the doctor, or even Mr Jarman. But to be questioned thus by a representative of the law was too much for my delicate nerves.

“Really, it wasn’t me,” said I. “I didn’t do it, and don’t know who did. I only went to get a blazer, and left it there directly Mr Jarman told me to do so.”

“A blazer?” said the policeman, with the air of a man who has made a discovery. “What sort of a thing is that? A blazer? Was it alight?”

Here Tempest laughed irreverently, much to the displeasure of the policeman. I was, however, thankful for the cue.

“What,” said I, “don’t you know what a blazer is? Anybody knows that. It’s what you have in the fields.”

“Come, young gentleman,” said the officer, whom Tempest’s laugh had put on his dignity, “no prevaricating. What were you doing with that there blazer?”

“What was I doing with it? Fetching it.”

The policeman was evidently puzzled. He wished he knew what a blazer was, but in the present distinguished company did not like to show his ignorance.

“That blazer must be produced,” said he; “it’ll be evidence.”

I looked at Tempest, as the person best able to deal with the matter, and said,—

“I left it in the gym. Mr Jarman made me.”

“How long was that before the explosion? Was it alight when you left it?”

“The blazer? Oh no.”

“A blazer,” explained the head master blandly, “is a flannel jacket. I don’t see what use it can be as evidence.”

“I suppose,” said Tempest jauntily, who was evidently recovering his presence of mind, “he thought it was a lucifer match.”

“You’ll laugh on the wrong side of your face, young gentleman,” said the policeman wrathfully; “this here matter will have to be gone into. There’s been a party injured, and it’ll be a matter for the magistrate. You’ll have to come along with me.”

“I tell you,” said Tempest, becoming grave once more, “I’ve had no more to do with it than you have.”

“And yet,” said Mr Jarman, speaking for the first time, “the explosion took place immediately after you were there, and when it was impossible for any one else to be there.”

“I say I know nothing at all about it,” said Tempest shortly, “and I don’t care what you think.”

“Come, Tempest,” said Dr England, “no good will be gained by losing temper. It is very necessary to get to the bottom of this business, especially as some one has been injured. It seems almost impossible the explosion could have happened by accident; at the same time, knowing what I do of you, I do not myself believe that you are the boy who would commit an outrage of this sort. As the policeman intends to report the affair to the magistrate, you had better go with him and let him investigate the matter. Don’t do yourself injustice by losing your temper. Mr Jarman, your attendance will probably be necessary; and Jones had better go too, although so far he has not thrown very much light on the matter. Constable, if you will take my compliments to Captain Rymer and ask him when he can see us—”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said the constable, evidently sore about the blazer, “the young gent must come along with me now. That’s my duty, and I can’t take no instructions contrary.”

“Very well,” said the doctor stiffly; “we will go to Captain Rymer at once.”

“Hadn’t you better handcuff me?” said Tempest, who appeared to be seized with a wild desire to exasperate the man of the law.

The policeman glared as if he was disposed to take him at his word.

“None of your imperence, I can tell you, my beauty!” said he. “I ain’t a-going to stand it—straight. Come, stir yourself.”

“It is not necessary,” said the head master, “for you to come with us. I give my word that we shall be at the police court immediately. But I wish to avoid the public scandal of one of my boys going through the streets in charge.”

“I ain’t a-going to let him out of my sight,” said the ruffled constable. “I know his style.”

Tempest smiled provokingly.

“I’d sooner walk, sir,” said he. “If the policeman holds me on one side and Mr Jarman on the other—”

“Silence, sir,” said the doctor sternly, while Mr Jarman raised his brows deprecatingly.

“Am I to come too?” said I.

“Yes.”

“I should like Pridgin and some of the fellows to be there too, sir,” said Tempest. “They saw me just before and just after the explosion.”

“It does not seem necessary to have more boys,” said Mr Jarman.

“Not to you!” said Tempest hotly; “the fewer you have the better. But if you choose to accuse me, I sha’n’t ask you whom to have to speak for me.”

“Tempest,” said the head master, “you are only doing yourself harm by this. Jones, go and fetch Pridgin, and any of the others he speaks of, to the police court; and kindly do not say a word of what has passed here. Now, constable, are you ready?”

The school was fortunately all within doors at the time, so that, except to the few who chanced to be gazing from the windows, the little procession, headed by the doctor and Mr Jarman, with the policeman and Tempest bringing up the rear, passed unobserved.

I was full of apprehensions. Whatever the result, I knew Tempest well enough to be sure that the effect on him would be bad, and would call out in him all that spirit of insubordination and defiance which had before now threatened to wreck his career. A strong sense of responsibility was all that had hitherto held it in check. If that were now shattered—and how could it help being upset by this charge?—it would break out badly and dangerously. I was not long in speeding over to Sharpe’s, where I found Pridgin just going over to class.

He heard the doctor’s message with a groan of weariness.

“What’s the use of my going?—I can’t tell them anything,” said he.

“You can tell them Tempest never did it,” said I.

“If they don’t believe him, they won’t me. Anyhow, I am coming.” Thereupon I was inspired to tell him the secret history of the effigy of Mr Jarman, and my theory as to the cause of the explosion; namely, that Tempest might have dropped a match through the grating, not knowing on what it would fall, and that in the natural perversity of things it had lit on the projecting tongue of the guy.

“You’d better make a clean breast of that guy,” said Pridgin, “if you want to get Tempest out of this mess. You’ll probably get expelled or flogged, but Low Heath can spare you better than it can Tempest. It strikes me you’d better fetch down one or two of your lot to corroborate you. It sounds too neat a story as it is.”

Whereupon I sought out Langrish and Trimble, and had the satisfaction of making their hair stand on end for once. At first they flatly refused to come, and reminded me that, as President of the Conversation Club, the entire responsibility for the guy rested on me.

“All serene,” said I, “only come and let them know how Jarman brought it all on. The more we go for him, the better for our man.”

They failed to see the force of my logic, but curiosity and love of adventure induced them to venture into the lion’s den. On our way, moreover, we captured Dicky Brown, who, to do him credit, was only too eager to come with us and stand by his old Dux.

Contrary to our expectations, when we arrived, instead of finding a crowded court, we were ushered into the magistrate’s parlour, where, to judge by appearances, a comfortable little party was going on.

The captain, a cheery old boy, familiar to all Low Heathens for his presence on speech day, sat at a table with his clerk beside him. The doctor and Mr Jarman were also sitting down, and Tempest was standing restlessly near the window. The lodge-keeper’s son, with his head bound up (for he was the victim of the explosion, and I suppose, the prosecutor), was standing beside the policeman, cap in hand, on the mat.

At the sight of the three juniors the doctor frowned a little, and Mr Jarman scowled.

“What are these boys doing here?” said the former.

“Please, sir, we thought you wanted to hear how it went off,” said Langrish.

“So we do,” said the magistrate; “sit down, my lads. We'll hear what you have to say in time.”

“Please, sir,” said Tempest, “may I speak to Pridgin?”

“Certainly, my lad,” said the captain again.

So the two friends hastily conferred together in the window, while we stared round with an awestruck, and apparently disconcerting, gaze at the gentlemen on the doormat, who severally represented the majesty of the law and injured innocence.

“Now, then,” said the magistrate presently, “let us hear what this is all about. One of your boys, doctor, I see, is charged with attempting to blow up part of the school gymnasium last night, and injuring this poor fellow here. Who makes the charge, by the way? Do you?”

“No,” said the doctor, “I understand Mr Jarman does.”

“Which is Mr Jarman?” said the captain, looking blandly round. “Ah, you. Well, sir, this is a serious charge to make; let us hear what you have to say. This is not a sworn examination, but what you say will be taken down, and the boy you accuse will have a right to ask any question. Now, sir.”

Mr Jarman, thereupon, with very bad grace, for he felt that the magistrate’s tone was not cordial, related how he was walking in the court at such and such an hour, when he saw a boy attempting to enter the gymnasium. That he stopped him and demanded his name. That the boy pushed past him and entered the gymnasium. Upon which Mr Jarman turned the key on the outside in order to detain him there, by way of punishment. That the boy began to kick at the door, and after half an hour broke it open and made his escape. That the boy was Tempest, and that scarcely two minutes after he had left, and just after Mr Jarman, having stayed to examine the damage to the door, had turned to go away, the explosion occurred; that he heard a cry from young Sugden, the lodge-keeper’s son, who was passing at the time, and was thrown violently forward against the railings, cutting his head badly.

“How do you know the boy was Tempest?” asked the magistrate.

“I recognised him in the dark,” said Mr Jarman. “In fact, I expected him.”

“Expected him?”

“Yes, he had sent his fag for a jacket just previously, and I had sent the fag back.”

“Why?”

“Boys are not allowed to enter the gymnasium after dark.”

“Is that a rule of the school?”

“It is my rule.”

“Does it apply to senior boys as well as juniors?” asked Tempest.

“I am responsible for the gymnasium, and—”

“That is not the question,” said the magistrate. “Have you ever allowed senior boys in the gymnasium after dark?”

“I may have; but I forbade Tempest to enter last night.”

“What harm was there in his fetching his coat, if it was not against rules?”

“It was against rules to go in when I told him not.”

“Well, well,” said Captain Rymer, “that is a matter that need not detain us. Have you any more questions, Mr Tempest?”

“Yes, please, sir. You said you were expecting me, Mr Jarman. What made you do that?”

“I expected, from my knowledge of your conduct, that you would come and try and get the blazer.”

“When have I disobeyed you before?”

“You know as well as I do, Tempest.”

“Yes, but I don’t,” said the magistrate. “Answer the question.”

Mr Jarman thereupon gave his version of the affair at Camp Hill Bottom.

“The offence being,” said the magistrate, “that the boys, Tempest among them, were out, on the afternoon of a holiday, half an hour from the school, with only a one quarter of an hour to get back. You punished the boys, I understand.”

“Yes.”

“And Tempest took his punishment with the rest.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose it is a special indignity to a senior boy, captain of his house, to be paraded for extra drill with a lot of small boys, eh, Dr England?”

“I should consider it so,” said the doctor.

“I did not feel myself called upon to make any difference,” said Mr Jarman.

“Apparently not. And on account of this affair, you say you expected Tempest would attempt to defy you last night?”

Mr Jarman bit his lips and did not reply.

Tempest resumed his questions with a coolness that surprised us.

“You were smoking, I think, Mr Jarman?”

“What if I was?”

“Nothing, only I wanted the magistrate to know it. And you locked me into the gymnasium for half an hour till I kicked myself out. I say you had no right to do that. What did you do while I was inside?”

“I walked up and down.”

“Did you try to stop me when I got out?”

“No.”

“Why?” asked Tempest, with a sneer that made us all contrast his broad shoulders with the master’s slouch.

“I decided to deal with the matter to-day.”

“How did you see what I had done to the door in the dark?”

“I saw by the light of a match.”

“You say it was two minutes after I left that the explosion took place, and immediately after you left?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And you were striking matches during the interval?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you suggest that it was I who blew the place up?”

“I say it was suspicious, knowing your frame of mind and the passion you were in at the time.”

“How could I blow up the place without explosives?”

“There must have been some there already.”

“He didn’t know anything about that! That was our affair, wasn’t it, you chaps?” blurted out Trimble.

“Rather,” chimed in all of us.

The sensation in the court at this announcement may be better imagined than described.

The magistrate put on his glasses and stared at us. Mr Jarman looked startled. The doctor looked bewildered.

“You see, it was this way,” said Trimble, who had been working himself up to the point all through the previous cross-examination. “We had—”

“Wait a moment, my boy,” said the magistrate. But the witness was too eager to listen to the remark.

“It was this way. We had a guy belonging to the Ph.C.C, you know, and he was chock-full of fireworks. We were keeping him for Guy Fawkes’ Day, you know. You wouldn’t have known he was Jarman (Mr Jarman, I mean), to look at him, but he was, and Sarah, being president, offered to look after him. It was too big to stick under the bed, so—”

“So,” continued I, “I thought the safest place to stick him would be in the lumber room under the gym.; and I never thought any one would be dropping matches through the grating on his touch-paper tongue. Tempest didn’t know anything about it, and—”

“You see,” said Langrish, taking up the parable, “we meant to keep it dark, and only the Philosophers were in it; he had on Sarah’s hat and boots, and a top-coat we found somewhere about. He’d have never gone off of himself, and he wouldn’t have done any harm on the Fifth, when we should have hung and blown him up in the open. Tempest—”

“Tempest,” broke in Dicky Brown, putting in his oar, “isn’t the kind of chap to do a thing like that on purpose; and it must have been Mr Jarman blew him up by mistake, with one of his matches or the end of a cigar or something—”

“It was a mulish thing of Sarah to stick him there,” said Trimble, “but he knows no better, and thought it was all right. So did we, and Pridgin says it was quite an accident, sir, and—”

“And if any one’s to get in a row,” said I, “we’d better, because he was our guy, and the mistake we made was letting his touch-paper tongue hang out so far. He’d have never blown up if it hadn’t been for that.”

Here there was a general pause for breath, and the magistrate, who evidently had a sense of humour, said,—

“And pray who is Sarah, my man?”

“That’s what they call me when they’re fooling; it’s not my real name, really, sir. Jones iv. is my real name.”

“That’s right,” said Trimble; “he’s only called Sarah because he looks like it. He’s not more in it than the rest of us, because he only had to take care of the guy because he was president. We’re all sorry the tongue was made so long.”

The magistrate did his best to look grave as he turned to Mr Jarman.

“Does this explanation help to clear up the mystery?”

Mr Jarman bit his lips and said,—

“If it is as they say, it may account for the explosion. I certainly dropped several matches through the grating.”

“It is as we say, isn’t it, you chaps?” said Langrish. “We wouldn’t tell a cram about it.”

“Rather not!” chimed we.

“Very well. Then I don’t see that I can do much good,” said the magistrate. “Dr England will know better how to deal with the matter. An accident is an accident after all; and if I may give an opinion, these boys have done quite properly in coming here and telling all about it. Little boys should not be allowed to play with explosives. At the same time, you must allow me to say, Mr Jarman, that it is unfortunate for a master to put himself in the position of being made the subject of an effigy. As for Tempest, there is absolutely nothing against him, unless according to the rules of the school it is an offence for a boy who is locked up in a dark room at night to do his best to get out. It is a great pity the matter was brought to me at all; but as it has been, my advice is to let it rest where it is. Meanwhile, this poor fellow who has been injured has some claim, and I dare say this sovereign will help get him the necessary bandages and plaster for his forehead. Good morning, Dr England; good morning, Mr Jarman. Good day, my lads. Let this be a lesson against touch-paper tongues.” So ended the famous affair of Mr Jarman’s guy.

Chapter Eighteen.

Going Down Stream.

If any one supposed that Low Heath had heard the last of Mr Jarman’s guy they little knew Mr Jarman, or Tempest, or the Philosophers. The ghost of that unhappy effigy was hardly likely to be laid by a simple magisterial decision.

Mr Jarman, it was rumoured, had a bad quarter of an hour with the doctor that evening, and went about his ordinary work for the next few days with a scowl which boded no good to any one who chanced to cross him, least of all to those of us who had contributed to his defeat.

Tempest, on the other hand, took his victory coolly. He talked it over with his chums, and came to the conclusion that they were quits with the enemy and could afford to leave him alone. But it was plain to see that he had suffered a jar, which found expression in his reckless unconcern for the duties of his position as head of his house, and an increased disinclination to make any exertion for the credit of a school which, he considered, had treated him ill. What troubled me most was to notice that his spirits had flagged, and that he was dropping slowly into the listless indifference which had made Pridgin only a term ago shirk his responsibilities to the school.

Towards us juniors he was utterly easy-going, perhaps in token of his gratitude for the assistance we had rendered him at a critical time; but chiefly, I fear, because he was slack to check anything which seemed to defy constituted authority or promised to give an uneasy time to the representatives of law and order.

To do us credit, we availed ourselves of his licence to the uttermost. Sharpe’s rapidly became known as the “rowdy” house at Low Heath, and we grew almost proud of the distinction. Mr Sharpe, an amiable bookworm, made periodical mild expostulations, which were always most deferentially received, and most invariably neglected.

If any reader thinks (as we flattered ourselves at the time) that Mr Jarman was the cause of all this state of things, let me tell him he is as stupid as we young fools then were.

It’s all very well to stand up for your rights, but the way to do it is not by letting everything go wrong. If poor old Tempest had taken a bigger view of things, he would have seen that the way to pay Jarman out was by making Sharpe’s house the crack house of Low Heath in spite of him. But how hard it is to see just what the right thing is at the time! So I do not propose to throw stones at anybody, whatever the reader may do.

The Philosophers of course duly entered a record of the transactions just related in their minutes, the reading of which occupied the whole of one of the extraordinary general meetings of their club.

One could never say what line Langrish would take up; and I as president always had my qualms in calling upon him to read the minutes of the previous meeting.

On the present occasion our meeting was held one half-holiday late in the term, in mid-stream, on a barge which, in the course of a “scientific” ramble, we found in a forlorn condition, about a mile above Low Heath. It was empty, and neither horse nor man nor boy was there to betoken that it had an owner.

Being capacious, though dirty—for it was evidently in the habit of carrying coal—it struck us generally that in the interests of philosophy we should explore it. The result being satisfactory, it was moved and seconded and carried that the club hereby hold an extraordinary meeting.

Objection was taken to the proximity of our meeting-place to the bank—“in case some of the day louts should be fooling about,” as Warminster explained. Thereupon, with herculean efforts, we shoved out the stern across stream, the prow being still tethered; and catching on to a stake, we had the satisfaction not only of feeling ourselves in an unassailable position, but of knowing that we were effectually blocking the river for any presumptuous wayfarer who wanted to go either up stream or down.

After exploring the bunks and lockers and hold of the unsavoury vessel, Trimble proposed that it would be best for the club to occupy seats on the floor of the barge, where, quite invisible to any one on shore or stream, we could hold our meeting undisturbed.

In a few introductory remarks, which were listened to with some impatience, I explained that things had reached a critical state at Low Heath. It was the duty of everybody to back up Tempest and make it hot for Jarman. (Cries of “Why don’t you?” “What’s the use of you?”) We didn’t intend to be interfered with by anybody, and if Coxhead didn’t shut up shying bits of coal he’d get one for himself. (Derisive cheers from Coxhead, and more coal.)

Coxhead and I were both warm when, a quarter of an hour later, I resumed the chair and called upon our excellent secretary to read the minutes, which he accordingly did.

“Owing to the asinine mulishness of Sarah—” Here an interruption occurred.

“Look here,” said I, “you’ve got to drop that, Langrish. I’ve told you already I’m not going to stand it.”

“Stand what? Being called Sarah or an asinine mule?”

I explained that I was particularly referring to Sarah.

“Oh, all serene,” said the secretary. “We’ll start again.”

“Owing to the asinine mulishness of S—H, and three between—”

“No—that won’t do,” said I, fiercely.

“Owing to the asinine mulishness of—” here the speaker pointed at me with his thumb—“of the asinine mule in the chair—”

I was weak enough to let this pass, and the applause with which it was received quite carried the secretary off his feet. When he got on them again he resumed,—

“Jarman’s guy was mulled all through. Even Trimble couldn’t have made a bigger mess of it.”

Here Trimble mildly interposed, but Langrish, who had hooked one arm through a ring in the side of the vessel, and had a firm grip with his feet up against a rib in front of him, was inflexible.

“A bigger mess of it,” he repeated, when at last he was free to proceed. “It was stuck just under the grating of the gym., and was neatly blown up by Jarman at 8:15 on November 2. The cost of the fireworks was four-and-six, which the asinine mule, as it was his fault, is going to hand over to the club, or know the reason why.”

I said I would know the reason why. Whereupon a long Socratic argument ensued.

“Do you mean to say it wasn’t your fault?” demanded Langrish.

“I couldn’t tell Jarman would drop his cigar down.”

“But if you’d tried you couldn’t have stuck him in a better place.”

“That’s what I thought. What have you got to growl at?”

“You offered to put it in a safe place.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t want to have it at all.”

“But you did have it; you can’t deny that.”

“No—but—”

“Hold on. And you stuck it there under the grating.”

“Well, and if I did—”

“And that’s how Jarman’s cigar got on to it.”

“Yes—but—”

“And that’s how it blew up, wasn’t it? You haven’t the cheek to say that wasn’t the way it blew up?”

“Of course it was; only—”

“Therefore, if you hadn’t stuck it there it wouldn’t have blown up. You can’t deny that?”

“I don’t say that. What I say—”

“Therefore, it was you who blew it up; and it’s you’ve got to pay for the fireworks, Q.E.D.; and if you don’t shut up, young Sarah, you’ll get your face washed.”

I felt I was the victim of a very one-sided argument, but the popular verdict was so manifestly in favour of the secretary, that I was constrained to allow the point to pass.

”—reason why,” resumed Langrish. “There was a bit of a row, and the doctor and some of the chaps were had up before the beak. We got on all serene till a howling chimpanzee whose name is Sarah—”

“There you are again,” said I. “I’ll pay you now.”

“What are you talking about? I never mentioned you—did I, you chaps?”

“Rather not,” chimed in the Philosophers assembled.

“Of course,” said Langrish, “if whenever you hear of a howling chimpanzee you think you’re being referred to, we can’t help it, can we?”

The cheers which greeted this unanswerable proposition convinced me I had given myself away for once.

”—howling chimpanzee, whose name’s Sarah, put in his oar and spoilt the whole thing.”

“If it hadn’t been for me,” protested I, “you’d none of you have been there at all.”

“The magistrate,” proceeded Langrish, not heeding the interruption, “treated him with the contempt he deserved, and gave him a caution which he’ll remember to the end of his days.”

“I don’t remember it now,” I growled.

“Turn him out for interrupting,” shouted the secretary.

“You’d better not try,” snarled I, preparing to contest my seat. But Langrish, eager to continue, went on,—

“The rest of us pulled Tempest through easy. If Trim hadn’t dropped his ‘h’s,’ and—”

Here there was a real row. Trim rose majestic and outraged, and hurled himself on the secretary; and for a quarter of an hour at least, any casual passer-by glancing at the apparently empty barge in mid-stream, would have come to the conclusion that it was swaying from side to side rather more violently than the force of the current seemed to warrant.

Trimble’s “h’s” took a long time to avenge, and by the time it was done most of us were pretty much the colour of the coal-dust in which we had searched for them.

Langrish was about to proceed with his luckless minutes when Warminster, who had happened to peep above board for the sake of fresh air, exclaimed,—

“Hullo, we’re adrift!”

Instantly all hands were on board, and we discovered that our gallant barge, probably during the last argument, had slipped her boathook at the stern, and that the rope which held our prow had evidently been slipped for us by a couple of youths wearing the town-boy ribbon, whom we could descry at that moment strolling innocently up the towing-path, apparently heedless of our existence.

The great lumbering barge was going down stream side on, about half-way between either bank, at the breakneck speed of a mile an hour. We had lost our boathook, and had nothing whatever to navigate our craft with. Worst of all, at the end of the long reach, coming to meet us, we could see another barge, towed by a horse, which could certainly never pass up in safety.

We were in for it, and had evidently nothing to do but peer, with our grimy faces over the gunwale, at our impending doom. About a hundred yards off the men in charge of the opposition barge became aware of our presence, and a hurried interchange of polite observations took place between the skipper at the helm and the driver on the tow-path, the result of which was that their tow-rope was cast off and hauled ashore; and man and horse, accompanied by a dangerous-looking dog, advanced at a quick pace to meet us.

The rope was hurriedly gathered up in a coil and thrown across our bows, and we were invited to hitch the loop at the end over the hook on our front thwart. The horse was then put in motion, and the downward career of our ark suffered an abrupt check, as we found ourselves rudely lugged in towards the bank.

The situation was an awkward one, for not only was the skipper of the opposition barge landed, and awaiting us with an uncomplimentary eagerness on the bank, but the driver, whip in hand, was standing beside him, and the dog, showing his teeth, beside him.

“Kotched yer, are we?” said the former, with a deplorable profuseness of unnecessary verbiage, as he jumped on board. “We tho’t as much. Lend me that there whip, Bill.”

“You tip ’em over, Tom; I’ll make ’em jump.”

Escape was impossible. Our exits were in the hands of the enemy. We made one feeble attempt to temporise.

“We’re sorry,” said I, in my capacity as spokesman. “We didn’t know it was your boat, really.”

“You knows it now,” said the proprietor. “Over you go, or I’ll ’elp yer.”

What! was it a case of being pitched overboard? We looked round desperately for hope, but there was none. We might by a concerted action have tackled one man, but the other on the bank, with the whip and the dog, was a formidable second line to carry. It needed all our philosophy to sustain us in the emergency.

“Come, wake up,” shouted the man. “’Ere, Tike, come!”

Whereupon, to our terror, the dog leapt up on to the barge, and jumped yapping in our midst.

“T’other side, if you please,” said the bargee, as I prepared dismally to take my header on the near side. “Wake ’im up, Tike!”

I needed no waking up; and giving myself up for lost, bounded to the other side of the barge, and made a floundering jump overboard. Luckily for us the Low Heathens could swim to a man, and if all that we were in for was to swim round that hideous barge and get ashore, we should have been easily out of it. But we had yet to reckon with the man and the whip, who in his turn made every preparation to reckon with us.

I was the first to taste his mettle. He had me twice before I could get clear, and I seem to feel it as I write. One by one the luckless and dripping Philosophers ran the gauntlet of that fatal debarkation, which was by no means alleviated by the opprobrious hilarity of our two castigators and the delighted yappings of Tike.

At last it was all over, and, dripping and smarting, we collected our shattered forces a quarter of a mile down the towing-path, and hastily agreed that as a meeting-place for Philosophers a barge was not a desirable place. It was further agreed, that if we could catch the day boys who were the source of all our woes (for if our barge had not been let adrift, we could have sheered off in time), we would do to them as we had been done by.

By good or ill luck, we had scarcely arrived at this important decision when a defiant shout from a little hill among the trees close by apprised us that we were not the only occupants of the river bank; and worse still, that whoever the strangers were, they must have been witnesses of our recent misfortunes—a certainty which made us feel anything but friendly.

“Who are they?” said Langrish.

“Suppose it’s those Urbans,” said Coxhead. “I heard they were going to excavate somewhere this way.”

“I vote we go and see,” said Trimble, who was evidently smarting not a little.

So we went and saw, and it was even as Coxhead had surmised; for as we approached, shouts of—

“Who got licked with a whip?”

“What’s the price of beauty?”

“Why don’t you dry your clothes?” fell on our ears.

“Yah—we dare you to come down and have your noses pulled!” shouted we.

“We dare you to come up and have your hair curled!” shouted they.

We accepted the invitation, and stormed the hill. The battle was short and sharp. We were fifteen to ten, and had a grievance. I found myself engaged with Dicky Brown, who, though he did himself credit, was hampered by a satchelful of stones, which he fondly hoped might turn out to be fossils, on his back. I grieve to say I made mincemeat of Dicky on this occasion. In a few minutes the hill was ours, and the enemy in full retreat.

We remained a short time to celebrate our victory, and then adjourned to the school, a little solaced in our spirits.

The day’s troubles, however, were not over, for at the door of Sharpe’s house, reinforced by half a dozen recruits, stalked the Urbans, thirsting for reprisals, and longing to wipe out scores.

Then ensued a notable battle. We failed to dislodge the enemy by a forward attack, and for some time it seemed as if our flank movements would be equally unsuccessful. At length, by a great effort, we succeeded in cutting off a few of them from the main body, and were applying ourselves to the task of annihilating the rest when Tempest appeared on the scene.

He looked fagged and harassed, and was evidently not much interested in our battle. A row was now too common a thing in Sharpe’s to be an event, and he allowed it to proceed with complete unconcern.

Just, however, as he was turning to enter the house, Mr Jarman came up.

It was almost the first time we had met officially since our encounter in the magistrate’s room, and as with one accord we ceased hostilities and stared at him, one or two of the more audacious of our party indulged in a low hiss.

“Come in, you fellows, at once,” said Tempest, turning on his heel.

“Wait, you boys,” said Mr Jarman, taking out his pencil. “Wait, Tempest.”

But Tempest did not wait, nor did we, but made a deliberate rush into our house, and in less than a minute were safely stowed away in our several studies, secure from all immediate arrest.

It was an act of open rebellion such as Sharpe’s had not yet ventured on. There was no excuse that any of us had not heard the order. We had, and had disobeyed it. And in the present instance Tempest had headed us. What would be the consequence?

We were not destined to know till next morning, when a notice appeared on the board stating that Mr Sharpe’s house having been reported for riotous conduct and disobedience to orders, the head master would meet the boys in the hall at eleven o’clock.

Chapter Twenty.

Deepest Depths.

We did not see Tempest again till the afternoon. As we most of us surmised, he was relieving his feelings after his interview with the doctor by a spin on the river.

How, I wondered, had the interview gone? Had he agreed to the humiliating condition of apologising to Mr Jarman, or had his pride been too much for him after all? If so, this was probably his last spin on the river.

Had our house been Selkirk’s, there would, no doubt, have been wagers on the event. As it was, the Philosophers contented themselves with bickering. The general impression seemed to be that he had refused to surrender. That being so, the game was up—there was no object in keeping up appearances.

A spirit of defiance seemed to get hold of us. We deliberately sat on the fence of the prohibited playing fields, in the hope that Mr Jarman or some one would see us. Trimble even went to the length of crossing it at one corner.

What made it more trying was the conduct of the day boys, who, with an acuteness which did them credit, seemed to have discovered our delicate situation, and resolved to make the most of it.

They paraded the field about twenty yards from our fence, jeering at us openly, and daring us to set foot on the turf.

“Look at them,” said one, “hung up like a lot of washing on the palings. We’ll make them cut. Let’s have a scientific meeting. That’ll clear them out.”

Whereupon the Urbans ranged themselves on the grass under our noses, and called upon Mr Flitwick to address them on the “Treatment of Lunatics.”

This was too much. We were few in number, and the palings were hard and uncomfortable. But if they thought they were going to frighten us away by this demonstration, they were mistaken.

Langrish, in a loud voice, called out “Chair,” whereupon I, taking the cue, and assuming that the Philosophers were in congress, called upon Mr Trimble to favour us with his oration on “Mud.”

“Oh, all serene,” said Trimble, who till that moment had had as little notion of his subject as I had had. “Mud is dirty lumps of stuff lying about on the grass, like what you see in front of you. It has neither brains nor sense. It’s a vile thing to look at, and worse to touch. If you—”

”—If you,” here broke in Mr Flitwick, “want to see what lunatics really are, you should look on the palings of some of our school playing fields. If you happen to see a row of squinney-eyed, ill-dressed mules, with large boots and turn-up noses, and afraid of their lives to move off where they are, those are the prize lunatics. I have pleasure in exhibiting a few choice specimens collected from various sources. The one thing—”

”—The one thing about mud is, it daren’t come within reach of you,” continued Trimble, getting a little random in his statements, “for fear of getting one in the eye. If you want a sample—”

”—There’s one,” shouted Flitwick, interrupting our orator with a fragment of mother earth in his face.

Of course it was all up after that. Doctor or no doctor, we couldn’t sit by and see our treasurer assaulted. So we hurled ourselves on the foe, regardless of consequences, and a deadly fight ensued. Some of the more cautious of our number were lucky enough to be able to drag their men off the prohibited field and engage them on the right side of the fence.

I was not so lucky—indeed, I was doubly unlucky. For not only was my adversary my dear friend Dicky Brown, whom I loved as a brother, but he edged further and further afield as the combat went on, so that at the last we were cut off from the main body and left to fight our duel conspicuously in the open.

Dicky was not a scientific pugilist, but he had an awkward way of closing in with you and getting you round the middle just at the moment that his left foot got round behind your right calf. And it grieves me to say that, although I boasted of far more talent in the exercise of the fistic art than he did, he had me on my back on the grass just as Mr Sharpe of all persons walked by.

“What are you two doing?” demanded the master, stopping short.

“Fighting, sir,” said the stalwart Dicky, “and I licked him.”

“Why are you fighting?”

“Because Flitwick shied mud at Trimble,” said I.

The reason did not seem to appeal to Mr Sharpe, who replied,—

“You heard the doctor’s orders yesterday, Jones iv., about keeping off the playing field?”

“Yes, sir,” said I, realising for the first time that I was well out in the middle of the field, and that the rest of my comrades were looking on from a safe distance.

“Come to me after school for exemplary punishment. You are the most disorderly boy in the house, and it is evident a lenient punishment is no good in your case.”

“Please, sir,” said the loyal Dicky, “I lugged him on a good part of the way.”

“No, you didn’t,” snarled I—taking this as a taunt, whereas it was intended as a “leg-up”—“I came of my own accord.”

“Very well,” said Mr Sharpe. “You will come to me, Jones iv., of my accord”—and he walked away.

I was reckless and defiant, and deaf to Dicky’s sympathy.

“I don’t care,” said I. “It was a good job for you he came up. I should have licked you hollow.”

“No, you wouldn’t, old chap; I had you over twice,” said Dicky.

“Come outside and finish it out.”

So we adjourned to the other side of the palings and finished it out in the presence of the assembled Urbans and Philosophers. And I grieve to say once more Dicky had me on my back.

The wrath of my comrades was even more grievous to bear than the rejoicings of the enemy. I was promptly withdrawn from the fray as a bad lot, and had it not been for the opportune bell, should probably have been kicked all round.

At any rate, I went in disgusted with myself, with Low Heath, with everybody. What was the use of keeping it up? Tempest, ten to one, was expelled. Dicky Brown, once my inferior, could put me on my back. The Philosophers hated me. Mr Sharpe had marked me down for exemplary punishment, and publicly denounced me as the worst boy in the house. And all this in a single term. What, I wondered, would it be like, if I remained, at the end of a second term?

I looked dismally into Tempest’s study—he was not back. Pridgin was in, but did not want me. The faggery just now was impossible. I never felt more lonely and miserable in my life.

I was wandering down the passage, with my jacket flung over my shoulder and my shirt sleeves still tucked up, when the voice of Crofter stopped me.

“Look here,” said he, “the contents of your pocket may be interesting to you, but we don’t want them littered about the passage. Here, catch hold,” and he held out a handful of loose letters. “Why, what’s the matter? How blue you look! Has any one been hurting you?”

“Rather not. I’ve been licking a young cad, that’s all.”

“Well, you don’t look as if you enjoyed it, anyhow. Has Tempest come back?”

“No—probably he’s expelled,” said I, determined to have things as miserable as possible.

“I sincerely hope not,” said Crofter, in a tone which quite softened me to him. “He doesn’t like me, but I’d be sorry if he left, all the same.”

“He thinks you and Jarman would like to see him kicked out. That’s the one reason why he might stay on.”

Crofter laughed sweetly.

“What a notion! Why, I’ve had a good mind to go to England myself and stick up for him.”

“It’s a good job you haven’t,” said I.

“What I’m afraid is, that he is worried about other things. I hope, by the way, you never said anything about what I told you the other day.”

“No,” said I, not quite candidly. For I had tried to tell Tempest, but he would not let me.

“That’s right. I hope he’s cleared his debts off by now.”

“I—I don’t think he has,” stammered I.

“Really! It’s a pity. The doctor would be much more likely to be down on him for being in debt than—”

He pulled up suddenly, as Tempest at that moment walked up. He must have heard the last few words; and if it required looks of guilt and confusion on my part to convince him we had been speaking of him, I think I gave him proof positive.

He had apparently intended to summon me to his study. But, as he saw with whom I was conferring, and overheard the subject of our conversation, he thought better of it, and with lowering face stalked away.

I wished I was dead then! Something told me I had lost my friend, and that no amount of explanation could do away with the barrier which had suddenly been erected between us.

“Awkward,” said Crofter. “It’s a good job we were talking no harm of him.”

“He won’t fancy our talking about him at all,” said I.

“I suppose we’ve as much right to talk about him as any one else.”

“He’ll be awfully down on me, I know,” said I miserably.

“All I can say is, if he is, you’re a young fool if you care two straws. Tempest’s a good fellow; but he’s rather a way of not allowing a fellow to have a soul of his own.”

This failed to console me. I made one effort to see Tempest and explain, but he was occupied with his books, and did not even deign to notice my presence in his study.

Later on in the evening all speculation as to the result of the morning’s interview was set at rest. An unusual summons came to Sharpe’s to meet the doctor in our hall.

We assembled uncomfortably and with sore spirits. The worry of the whole business was telling on us, and we heartily hoped, while we clamoured for no surrender in words, that Tempest would disappoint us for once.

The doctor came presently, looking very grave, and accompanied by Mr Jarman. From the head master’s face we concluded at once that all was up. But to our surprise he said,—

“I am glad to say, in reference to the matter I met you boys about yesterday, that Tempest has taken a proper sense of his duty, and has undertaken to apologise for his conduct to Mr Jarman. That being so, Tempest, you will please take this opportunity of expressing your regret.”

Tempest flushed as he rose in obedience to the doctor’s summons. It was evidently, as Redwood had said, “a bitter pill,” and had he been a less brave fellow, he could hardly have swallowed it. As it was, even the knowledge that the welfare of the entire house was somehow dependent on his submission was scarcely able to break down his pride.

He advanced to Mr Jarman more like one who comes to administer a thrashing than ask for pardon, and after eyeing him almost fiercely for a moment, summoned his self-control sufficiently to say hoarsely,—

“I apologise, sir.”

Mr Jarman bit his lips. It was not the triumph he had expected. Indeed the whole manner of it was such as to hurt instead of soothe his feelings.

“This is hardly an apology,” said he to the doctor.

“I trust, Tempest, it means that you regret your action?”

It was an awkward question. Tempest had gone further than any one expected, and his silence now reminded the doctor what the cost had been.

“I think,” said he, not waiting for a reply to his own question, “Tempest has fulfilled his pledged—not cordially, I am sorry to say, but sufficiently.”

“Very well, sir,” said Mr Jarman, “I accept his apology for what it is worth, which seems very little.”

“Now, I regret to say,” continued the head master, producing a letter which made my heart jump to my mouth, “I have a more serious matter to speak about. I wish heartily what we have just heard had been the end of this painful interview. But it is necessary to refer to something different—a very serious offence against rules. It concerns you, Tempest. Is it a fact that you are in debt to some of the tradesmen?”

Tempest changed colour again and replied,—

“Yes, sir, I am sorry to say I am.”

I held on tight to my desk. This was a finishing touch surely, and I, if any one, felt myself the criminal.

“This letter, addressed to me, but containing a bill for more than two pounds owing by you, part of it since last term, has been left at my house—I presume by the tradesman to whom it is due. Come here and look at it, Tempest.”

Tempest obeyed.

“Is it a fact that you are in debt to this extent?”

“Yes, sir—more.”

“You are aware—”

Here I could stand it no longer, but sprang to my feet and shouted,—

“Please, sir, it’s my fault!”

Everybody turned to me in amazement, as well they might.

“Your fault, Jones iv.?—come forward and explain.”

“I mean,” said or rather shouted I, speaking while I walked up the room, “it’s my fault you got that bill, sir. I don’t know how you got it, but it wasn’t meant to get to you, really. I must have dropped it. I—I—was going—to try—to get it paid for him, sir. Really—”

Tempest gave me a glare that knocked all the spirit out of me. What business had I, it seemed to demand, to meddle in his private affairs?

I felt I had done him a real bad turn by my clumsiness, but had not the wit to avoid making bad worse.

“Yes, sir, I told Marple—”

“I purposely refrained from mentioning names, Jones iv.; why can you not do so too?”

“I told him to keep it dark, and got him to give it to me. I—I knew Tempest hadn’t enough money to pay it—and—and—”

An exclamation of anger from Tempest cut me short, and I was sent ignominiously back to my place.

“Tempest,” said the head master very sternly, “send me in a list of all you owe before you go to bed to-night, and understand that, unless all is paid by Friday when we break up, you will not be allowed to return to Low Heath after the holidays. You must cease in any case to retain the headship of the house, even for the few days of the term that remain. You, I understand. Crofter, come next in form order; you will act as head boy in the meantime.”

In the midst of my anguish I could see the look of meek resignation on Crofter’s face, and that of quiet satisfaction on Mr Jarman’s. At Tempest I dared not look, or at my fellow-Philosophers.

What had I done? What was to become of me? How could I get out of it? These were the three questions which set my poor brain spinning as I wandered off alone to the remotest corner of the quadrangle, and as, later on, I lay miserably awake in my bed.

I had done my friend about as much harm as I possibly could. I may not have meant it. But who cares what a fellow means, so long as he acts like a cad? As to what was to become of me, I had had a taste of that already. The faggery door had been locked against me, and a missive shoved under the bottom had apprised me of my fate in that quarter.

“To Beast Sarah.

“Take notice that you are kicked out of the Philosophers, and if you dare show your abominable face within a mile of them you’ll get it all over with rulers. It has been resolved by Mr Langrish and seconded by Mr Trimble, and passed by all the lot, that you be and are hereby kicked whenever any one sees you. Any one not kicking you will be lammed. It is also resolved that the faggery be fumigated and disinfected during the holidays, and that any chap seen talking to you be refused to be let in till he has been vaccinated. You are about the lowest, meanest, vilest, abominablest, unmitigatedest sneak going. Three cheers for poor old Tempest, and down with girls’ schools and washerwomen!”

This fiery document was formally signed by every Philosopher in the house, together with a particular word of opprobrium addressed to me by each of my former colleagues.

I was not long in realising that I was an outcast in Sharpe’s. No one would look at me, still less speak to me. Pridgin ordered me off like a dog. Wales slammed his door in my face. When I appeared in the preparation hall, a long hiss saluted me, even though Mr Sharpe was present. Even outside fellows seemed to have heard of my crime, and looked askance or gave me a wide berth. I can truly say that I found myself the most miserable boy in Low Heath, and only longed for the end of the term to come, that I might shake the dust of the hateful place from my feet, and drop out of the sight of a school full of enemies.

Indeed, as I lay awake that night I had serious thoughts of making off there and then. If I had only had my boots, I think I might have done so; but they were in the blacking-room; and my desperation drew the line at walking off in my bare feet.

I was sitting up in bed, half whimpering with headache and misery, when a light appeared at the end of the dormitory. It was Crofter, in his new capacity of head of the house, taking his rounds before turning in. The sight of him brought home to me the injury I had done, not only to Tempest, but the whole house. For it was my fault, and mine only, that Crofter was at this moment captain of Sharpe’s.

To my surprise and alarm, when he came up to my bed he stopped short, and drawing a letter from his pocket, put it into my hand, saying—

“Put that under your pillow till the morning.”

It was more than nature could do to sleep with a mystery like this on the top of my misery. I listened to the clock as it struck the hours through the night, and thought the day would never come. Indeed, the getting-up bell had sounded before the winter sun struggled in through the dormitory window.

Then by the light of a candle I seized the missive from under my pillow and tore it open.

A five-pound note fell out, and with it the following letter.

“You have made a nice mess of it, and ought to be happy. The least you can do is to try to make things right for Tempest. Call round on the following six tradesmen (giving the six names, one of which was Marple) early to-morrow, and pay Tempest’s bill at each, and bring home the receipts. You needn’t mention who sent you. Send the receipts to me, and if Tempest asks any questions, tell him you paid the money by request of a friend.

“W. Crofter.”

Chapter Twenty One.

I am advised to lie low.

My first impulse on reading Crofter’s letter was to jump for joy. It meant that Tempest would stay at Low Heath, and that I was to be allowed to assist in keeping him there.

But my second thoughts were more of a surprise than pleasure. Crofter was a mystery to me. His fellow-seniors disliked him, and warned me against him. But, as far as I could see, he was not as bad as they made him out, and certainly never said anything as bad about them as they said about him.

What could be his object now if it was not a disinterested one? He would be permanent captain of the house if Tempest left, and yet he was doing the very thing that would keep Tempest at school. Tempest had openly insulted him during the term, and yet here he was helping his enemy out of a very tight place. I knew he was well off, so probably he could afford the £5; but at the end of the term pocket-money was not a plentiful commodity. He said nothing about being paid back, too; surely he did not mean to make Tempest a free gift of this magnificent amount! The more I thought it over the more I felt Crofter was a brick, and had been scandalously misunderstood. He seemed to me a true type of the virtuous man, who, when struck on one cheek, turns the other, and when robbed of his coat offers his cloak too. I only hoped Tempest might know what he owed him. In short, in the brief time it took me to dress, I had worked myself up into a state of enthusiasm on the subject of Crofter.

As to the mystery of Mr Marple’s letter having got into the doctor’s hands, no doubt I had been careless and dropped the compromising envelope, which some foolish but honest person (it did not occur to me at the time it might have been Crofter himself) had picked up and dropped in the head master’s letter-box, supposing he was doing a very clever thing. Tempest would not be likely to allow me to explain, which was hard on me, and made it all the more virtuous on my part to assist now in putting things right for him. Luckily for him, he had friends at Low Heath in spite of himself.

When I encountered Crofter in the morning, I requested him, with a knowing look of intelligence, to give me an exeat into the town to do some shopping. It was probably the first recognition he had received of his temporary authority as head of the house, and he made no difficulty in granting my request.

I made my way first of all to Marple’s.

“Oh, about that bill you gave me. How much was it?”

“Two pounds and sixpence, young gentleman.”

“I said I’d see it paid for you, didn’t I?”

“You did. I don’t want to show up—”

“All right, you needn’t. Here’s the money; give me the change, please, and a receipt.”

Mr Marple opened his eyes very wide at the sight of a five-pound note within three days of the end of term. “I—I hope it’s all right,” said he, hesitatingly. “You needn’t have it if you don’t want,” said I, mounting my high horse.

“I’m sure I’m much obliged to you, young gentleman,” said the tradesman, giving the note a professional twitch, and proceeding to count out the change from his till. “I shall always be pleased to attend to any little orders from Mr Tempest or you.”

“You can make out the receipt to Tempest,” said I; “I expect he won’t get much more here.”

“Don’t say that. I’m sure no offence was meant.”

It was a delicious sensation to feel myself master of the situation like this. I could have bullied Marple if I had liked, but I resolved not to be too hard on him.

“I’m sure I’m much obliged,” said he, “for all your trouble. Have you seen these pretty little pencil-sharpers? They are quite new. I shall be pleased if you will accept one, young gentleman.”

A pencil-sharpener was the very thing I wanted. All the term I had been wrestling with a blunt penknife, which no sooner uncovered the lead at the end of a pencil than it broke it off. So in a weak moment I accepted the gift, and forfeited my advantage.

From Marple’s I proceeded to the confectioner’s, where a score of nearly a pound stood against Tempest. Here, again, I experienced the sweets of being treated with distinguished consideration, and being asked to partake of a strawberry ice (how Rammage, by the way, continued to have strawberry ices in the middle of December I have never yet clearly understood) while the receipt was being made out.

Mr Winget, the hatter, rather disappointed me by offering me nothing more than his sincere thanks for the settlement of his little bill. He might at least, I thought, have offered me a mourning hatband or a new school ribbon. His bill, however, was only five shillings, so probably the profit did not permit of any gratuitous allowance in recognition of my distinguished services.

I was consoled, however, by Mr Ringstead, the games man, who presented me with a net-bag for holding tennis balls, and urged me, whenever I wanted any little thing in the way of repairs to bats, or fresh spikes to my running shoes, to let him know.

It was all very pleasant, and I grieve to say that the shady side of all this petty bribery and corruption never once occurred to my simple mind.

I returned to school covered with self-satisfaction, and virtuously clutching in my hand half-a-crown, the final change out of the “fiver.” This in due course I put in an envelope, together with the batch of receipts, and laid on Crofter’s table after morning school, with the laconic message under the flap, “All right, T.J. iv.”

I was far too knowing to let out my secret to the Philosophers, whose agitation and indignation at Tempest’s probable expulsion knew no bounds and somewhat amused me.

“Look here, Sarah,” said Langrish, as I entered for the first time after my disgrace of the previous day—I knew my comrades well enough to be sure they would like to see me—“we all know you’re about the beastliest, howlingest cad in Low Heath; so that’s all right.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Yes, and you’ve been told to clear out, as it’s your fault Tempest’s expelled.”

“Is it? That’s all you know,” said I.

“Yes, and you’re kicked out of the Philosophers, and we’re going to invite Dicky Brown to join us. He’s a decent chap.”

This was rather a blow.

“I thought no town-boys were eligible.”

“No cads are; that’s why you’re out of it.”

“Look here—” said I.

“We’re not going to look here. You can cut and go, and sit on the stairs. We don’t want you in here, do we, you chaps?”

“Rather not, unless we’ve got our kicking boots on.”

“All right,” said I, feeling I must play one or two of my trumps. “I sha’n’t tell you what I was going to.”

“Pooh, we know all about it,” said Coxhead. But it was plain by the way they had all pricked their ears they did not.

“Oh, if you know, it’s all right. But you don’t know the latest.”

“We don’t want to, unless it’s that old Tempest has got off.”

“That’s just what it is,” said I triumphantly.

“Good old Sarah! how do you know?”

“Never mind, it’s a secret; but it’s a fact, honour bright.”

“What, has he paid all his bills?”

“They’re all paid, I know that.”

“I suppose,” said Langrish, “as that motion about Sarah being kicked out wasn’t properly seconded, it’s off, isn’t it?”

“Does any gentleman second the motion?” said Coxhead, glancing round the assembled Philosophers.

No one seconded it.

“Jolly lucky shave for you, young Sarah,” said Coxhead.

“Thanks awfully,” said I.

“We may as well divide up the pool now?” suggested Warminster.

With a generosity which was really touching, the Philosophers had clubbed together the shattered fragments of their term’s pocket-money to assist Tempest in his financial troubles. They had done it ungrudgingly, nay enthusiastically, and it was not against them that the enthusiasm remained now as each one unexpectedly received back his Philosopher’s mite from the depths of the kindly “pool.”

It is all very well keeping a secret like mine for twenty-four hours. It was an effort, but I did it, and prevailed on my comrades to keep it too. It was even harder work to prevail upon them as a matter of policy to accept the temporary supremacy of Crofter in the house. Nothing would induce them to refrain from cheering Tempest (much to his displeasure) on every possible occasion. It made it awkward for me sometimes when this happened in Crofter’s presence; for as things now were in Sharpe’s, a cheer for the old captain meant a hoot at the new; and I felt that Crofter, did the fellows only know all, did not deserve their resentment.

After forty-eight hours I could not restrain myself any longer. It was not fair to myself, or Crofter, or Low Heath, that every one should suppose Tempest was to be expelled when he really was not. So, with some misgivings, I decided to put myself in his way and break the agreeable news to him, and so have everything cleared up before the end of term.

It was not difficult to find an excuse. I had not been to Tempest’s rooms since our unlucky quarrel, and had been suffering inconvenience ever since by the fact that my Latin Gradus was there. On the last day but one of the term, therefore, I developed a burning desire to consult my missing handbook, and must needs go in search of it.

Tempest was sitting, miserably enough, before the fire, with his feet on the fender and his hands up to the back of his head as I entered. It was not till I was well in the room and had closed the door that he turned round and saw me.

I thought at first he meant to fly at me, his face clouded so angrily. But it changed to a look of contempt as he said,—

“Well?”

“Tempest, I’m awfully sorry, really I am, but—”

“Don’t let us have any of that. If I thought you’d meant it, I should precious soon know what to do. You’ve done me about the worst turn a fellow could, and if you weren’t a conceited young ass it would be some use thrashing you. As it is, somebody else may do that when I’m gone.”

The wretchedness of his tone quite touched me. I forgot my anger and sense of resentment, and all the old affection and loyalty came back with a rush. How could I ever have imagined a fellow like Crofter was worthy to hold a candle to my old Dux?

“Really, Tempest,” began I, losing my head and blundering I scarcely knew whither, “when you saw me talking to Crofter—” He uttered an angry exclamation.

“There, now, shut up about your friend Crofter. I don’t want to hear about him.”

“He’s not my friend, Tempest; he’s—he’s yours.”

He wheeled round in his chair and laughed bitterly.

“It’s a queer time to joke,” said he, with a laugh that cut me through.

“It’s no joke, Tempest. You don’t know what he’s done for you.”

“Don’t I? I fancy I do.”

“About the bills,” said I, faltering, “you know.”

“Ah! don’t come here to tell me about that.”

“It was all of his own accord he paid them.”

“He what?” shouted Tempest, springing from his chair and facing round.

“Paid them, you know; at least, I paid them for him.”

“You? Paid?” and he caught me by the collar and shook me like a puppy.

“You said you knew,” gasped I.

“Paid my bills! You say that blackguard had the cheek to—”

“He got me to do it; it was his money, though.”

He groaned as if some one had wounded him. A crimson flush of shame and mortification overspread his face, and for a moment he stared at me speechless.

Then he pulled himself together and strode out of the room. Utterly bewildered and half terrified, I followed him. What had I done to offend him? Had all the trouble of the term turned his head?

To my alarm he made straight for Crofter’s study. No one was there. He turned and saw me.

“Tell Crofter I want him at once.”

I departed with my heart in my mouth. At the foot of the staircase I met Crofter.

“Tempest wants to see you,” said I; “he sent me to—to ask you to come.”

“He doesn’t know?” inquired Crofter.

“Yes—I told him—I—I thought I ought to let him know.” Crofter laughed his sweet laugh.

“If I had wanted it known all over Low Heath,” said he, “I could hardly have done better than tell you to keep it a secret. I’d much sooner he had not known. However—where is he?”

“In your study, I think.”

I felt constrained to follow. Crofter evidently was expecting to be the recipient of an outburst of effusive gratitude. I had not the courage to disabuse him.

He walked pleasantly and graciously into his study, where Tempest stood, flushing and biting his lips, awaiting him. “Is this true what that youngster says, that you’ve had the—that you’ve paid bills of mine?”

“I’m sorry he told you, Tempest. I thought it might get you out of a difficulty, and I—”

“And you expect me to thank you! Take that, for daring to meddle in my affairs!”

And he struck Crofter on the cheek—not a hard blow, but one which sent the recipient reeling across the room with astonishment.

For a moment I expected a fight. Crofter, however, pale, but smiling still, declined the challenge.

“You’ll be sorry, I’m sure,” said he, as coolly as he could. “I only wanted to do you a good turn, and—”

“I’m sorry already,” said Tempest, who had already gathered himself together. “I hoped you’d fight like a man. As you’re afraid to, I’m sorry I touched you.”

“I see nothing to fight about,” said Crofter. “I don’t see what there is to be angry about.”

Tempest waited motionless for a few uncomfortable moments, in the hope that Crofter would pluck up spirit to accept the challenge. But, as Crofter only smiled, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room. As he passed me, he beckoned me imperiously to follow him. I did so in terror.

He put a piece of paper and a pen before me.

“Write down there an account of every bill you paid, and the amount.”

I obeyed—my memory fortunately served me for the task.

“Now go. You’ve had the satisfaction of seeing me make an ass of myself in striking that cad—he’s not worth it. You may go and tell him I’m sorry if you like. As for you, I don’t want to see any more of you. Go to your captain, and leave me alone.”

And he flung himself miserably into his chair, leaning forward with his head on his hands, and apparently indifferent whether I stayed or went.

I went, leaving him thus. And the memory of him sitting there haunted me all that night and for weeks to come.

When, next day, the news went round that Tempest had escaped expulsion, the general delight was tempered with amazement at the rumour which accompanied it, that he owed his escape to Crofter. No one but Crofter himself could have put the latter story into circulation, and to any one knowing the two seniors as well as I did, it was obvious that what had completed the humiliation of one had been the crowning triumph of the other.

Crofter could not have avenged himself for the insults of the term more effectively; and Tempest’s proud nature could not have suffered a bitterer wound than to know that he had been put under an obligation in spite of himself, and without the possibility of preventing it, by his worst enemy.

The ordinary “Sharper” could hardly be expected to trouble himself about questions of motive. It was sufficient for him that his hero was saved, and that the credit of the popular act which saved him belonged to Crofter.

Consequently both were cheered equally when they appeared in public, and of the two Crofter accepted his popularity with a far better grace than his mortified adversary.

But it was all very miserable to me as I slunk home that afternoon in the train. All the hopes of the wonderful term had been disappointed. I was a recognised dunce and idler at Low Heath. I had lost my best friend and sold myself to his enemy. My self-respect was at a low ebb. I knew that in a post or two would come a report which would bring tears to my mother’s eyes, and cause my guardian to grunt and say, “I expected as much.” The worst of it was, I could not get it out of my head yet that I was rather a fine young fellow if only people knew it, and that my misfortunes were more to blame for the failure of the term than my faults.

To my relief a letter came early in the holidays from Dicky Brown’s people, asking me to spend the last two weeks with them, I jumped at it, for in my present miserable frame of mind even home was dismal.

But when I found myself back at Low Heath, installed in Dicky’s quiet little family circle, I was almost sorry I had come. For Dicky was all high spirits and jubilation. He had won a form prize; everything had gone swimmingly for him. The Urbans looked up to him; the head master had patted him on the back; the Redwoods had taken a fancy to him. No one thought of calling him by a feminine nickname.

“I think Low Heath’s a ripping place,” said he, as we strolled past the gate of the empty quadrangle in one of our holiday rambles. “I’m jolly glad we got kicked out of Dangerfield, ain’t you?”

“Middling,” said I; “the fact is, Dicky, you may as well know it, but I’m rather sick of this place.”

“Hullo!” said he, looking at me, “why, I thought you were having such a high old time.”

“I—I’ve come a bit of a howler, Dicky;” here I gulped ominously, much to Dicky’s concern. “I’ve fooled things rather, you know.” I was in for my confession now, and gave the penitent horse his head. “I’m jolly miserable, Dicky, that’s all about it, and wish I was dead, don’t you know, and that sort of thing.”

“What’s up, old chappie?” said Dicky, taking my arm, and evidently in a fright lest I should compromise myself by breaking down on the spot. “Come down by the willows; it’s rather muddy, but it’s quieter.”

So we ploughed through the mud under the willows, and I let out on Dicky all that was in my heart. I’m sure he thought it a lot of bosh, but he was too kind to say so, and hung on to my arm, and never once contradicted me when I called myself a fool.

“You have rotted it a bit,” remarked he, when the story was complete. “Never mind, old chap, it can’t be helped. You’ll worry through all right.”

This was true comfort. If Dicky had been a prig like me, he would have tried to talk to me like a father, and driven me crazy. It made all the difference that he understood me, and yet believed in me a little.

“It strikes me,” said he, with refreshing candour, “you fancy yourself a bit too much, Tommy. I’d advise you to lie low a bit, and it will all come round.”

“That’s just exactly what Tempest said to me the first day of term,” said I, with a groan.

“There you are,” said he; “bless you, you’re not going to get done over one wretched term, are you? I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“But all the chaps are down on me.”

“What do you care?” said he, with a snort. “Who cares twopence about the lot of them—chaps like them too? You’re a cut better than that lot, I fancy—ought to be, anyhow.”

What balm it all was to my wounds! What miles of mud we ploughed through that afternoon! and how, as the water gradually leaked into my boots, my heart rose out of them, and got back somehow to its proper place, and enabled me to look at things in their proper light. I think Dicky, little as he knew it, was sent by God to help me pull myself together, and I shall always think better of him for his blunt, genuine encouragement that day.

On our way back he pulled up at Redwood’s door.

“Let’s see if he’s in,” said he; “he won’t mind.”

“All right,” said I, beginning to quail again a little, and yet determined to go through with the whole business.

Redwood was in, mending a pair of skates, in anticipation of a day or two’s frost before the holidays were over.

“Look here, Redwood,” said Dicky, determined to make things easy for me. “Old Jones minimus is in the blues. He’s been fooling it rather this term, you know, but he’s a bit sick of it, and we thought you’d like to know, didn’t we, young Jones minimus?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind, Redwood,” said I.

“Wait a bit—tea’s just ready. We’ll have ours up here,” said the captain.

Over tea Dicky trotted out my troubles second-hand to our host, appealing to me every now and then to confirm his statement that I’d rather “mucked” it over this and that, and so on.

Redwood nibbled away at his tea, looking up now and then with a friendly nod to show he agreed with all that was said about me.

When all was said, he remarked—

“I wouldn’t worry, youngster, if I were you. It’s been a poor show last term, but you’ll pull yourself together right enough. Take my advice, and lie low a bit, that’s the best thing for your complaint.”

“Why,” said I, “that’s just exactly what Tempest said to me.”

“There you are again,” broke in Dicky, cutting himself a hunch of cake.

Presently Redwood began to “draw” me on the subject of Tempest, and looked rather blank when I told him of the dismal circumstances in which the term had closed at Sharpe’s. However, he did not favour Dicky and me with much comment on the matter, and finally got us to help him sharpen his skates and talk about other things.

I went to bed that night at Dicky’s more easy and hopeful than I had been for weeks, and felt half-impatient for term to begin again, so that I might put into practice the new and trebly-patent specific of lying low.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Pretty warm all round.

“Dicky, old chap, I’m in a howling mess.”

“The same old one, or a new one?”

“It’s about those blessed bills of Tempest’s—I wish I’d let them alone. You see, it was this way. How was I to know? I’m sure I never meant to do anything shady.”

“I dare say not, but what are you talking about?”

“Why, I’ve been regularly let in. You see, I—”

“Look here, old chap, let’s hear what it is,” said the practical Dicky.

“Why, the fact is, most of the chaps wanted to stand me something when I squared up with them, and Crofter tries to make out I’m a thief, and he’s going to show me up to Tempest.”

“But you didn’t let them?”

“Well, yes, one or two. You see, Marple gave me a pencil-sharpener, and Rammage a strawberry ice, and Ringstead a net-bag and spikes—jolly bad ones too, they all came out in a week.”

“And does Crofter say you swindled him or Tempest?”

“I didn’t think I was swindling anybody,” said I evasively.

“You made a pretty good thing out of it, though.”

“I know. I say, Dicky, what’s to be done? I thought I was going to pull round all square this term—really I did—and now I’m in a regular fix.”

Dicky pondered.

“It was a bit shady,” said he, with his refreshing candour; “the sort of thing Ananias and—”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Dicky, if that’s all you’ve got to say—”

“It’s not. I think you’d best make it good somehow. Can’t you give them back?”

“How can I give back the strawberry ice?”

This was a poser, certainly, and set Dicky thinking again.

“Have you got the other things?” asked he.

“No; the pencil-sharpener smashed first time I used it, and the net-bag got lost at home.”

“Awkward. You’ll have to buy new ones.”

“Who for?”

“Tempest, of course. They were his bills.”

“But it was Crofter’s money.”

“But Tempest has paid him back.”

The result of this conversation was, that instead of practising for the Quarter-mile that afternoon I went down town with a bag, and expended five shillings of my term’s pocket-money in the purchase of a pencil-sharpener, a strawberry ice, a net-bag, and a set of patent screw spikes.

Dicky, like a brick, undertook to convey these to Tempest, with the following letter, which I wrote at his suggestion.

“Dear Tempest,—I send you back the change I got out of the bills I got last term. I’m sorrier than I can say, and hope you won’t hate me more than you do. Dicky will tell you how jolly blue I am, and how we all hope you’ll win the Mile. We aren’t backing up Crofter, and hope you’ll soon be captain again. Please excuse me writing, but I don’t like to come and tell you this, as you’re so down on me.

“Yours truly,—

“T. Jones iv.”

I also penned a further letter for Crofter:—

“Dear Crofter,—You needn’t mind telling Tempest, as I’ve done so and paid him back. With thanks all the same,—

“Yours truly,—

“T.J. iv.”

I felt vastly easier in my mind when this polite letter was at an end, and when I saw the faithful Dicky depart to execute his brotherly mission. My one fear was lest the strawberry ice should get warm before it reached its destination.

I waited in vain for any sign of response from Tempest. The Philosophers went down during the afternoon to watch him training for his race; but he vouchsafed us no regard, and, for all I knew, still put me down as a thief and a sharper. Dicky, whom I met later on, explained that he had failed to catch Tempest in his study, but had deposited the articles along with the letter on his table, so that, if he did not know of them yet, he soon would.

My anxiety was not at all allayed by a casual encounter with Crofter in the evening. He summoned me into his study, where I saw my billet-doux lying on the table.

“I suppose you wrote this?” said he.

“Yes.”

“And you think everything’s clear now, do you?”

“Isn’t it?” said I.

“I dare say Dr England will be able to tell you. By the way, why did you only give me 2 shillings 6 pence change instead of 3 shillings 6 pence?”

“There was only 2 shillings 6 pence to give.”

“Really? I thought so too till your clever management of the tips tempted me to look over the bills again. I see that what you paid only came to £4 16 shillings 6 pence, instead of £4 17 shillings 6 pence. I don’t want the other shilling, but hope you bought yourself something nice with it. You must consider it a present from Tempest, not me.”

I timed red and white in the sudden confusion of that announcement. I was positively certain 2 shillings 6 pence had been the change, and that if there was any mistake it must be on the part of the tradesmen, not me. But how was I likely to convince Crofter, or, for the matter of that, Tempest, that such was the case?

“I promise you,” said I, “I only had 2 shillings 6 pence change. Really, Crofter, do believe me.”

“I believe every word you say,” said Crofter, with a smile. “I have every reason to, haven’t I?”

“But, really and truly—”

“What’s the use of saying any more? Of course, it’s all really and truly. I’ve no doubt Tempest believes it too.”

“Please let me see the bills,” pleaded I; “I’ll show you I’m right.”

“Unfortunately Tempest has them. I dare say he will be delighted.”

“You haven’t told him about this, have you?” I gasped, in helpless misery.

“I’m going to; it’s too good a joke to be kept to myself; I don’t suppose he’ll mind. Certainly he won’t be surprised.”

“Oh, Crofter, for goodness’ sake, don’t tell him this!” said I, blundering on into an appearance of guiltiness of which I was quite innocent. “I’m wanting so awfully to be friends with him again. I’ve given him back all I got out of the shops; and it will spoil everything if you tell him this, really—it isn’t true either.”

Crofter laughed pleasantly.

“It’s rather likely I should shield you, isn’t it? when all this term you and your friends have been insulting and defying me, and setting yourself to upset my authority as captain of the house.”

“Oh, but we aren’t!”

“What does this precious thing mean?” demanded he, producing the famous round-robin; “it’s meant to be all politeness, I suppose.”

“It only means,” faltered I, “that we are sorry Tempest is not captain.”

“Naturally. It’s nice to have a captain one can swindle and rob, isn’t it?”

I groaned miserably—it seemed no use trying to put myself right.

“If you chose to be civil and back me up, it would be different,” said Crofter.

“But we are—we’re going as steady as anything,” said I.

“What do you mean by going to Pridgin and Wales and Tempest for exeats and special leave instead of to me?” he demanded.

This was a point I was unprepared for. It was true that the Philosophers, in their desire not to be interfered with by the new captain, had made a point of applying, as they were entitled to do, to any of the other prefects of the house in preference to Crofter for exeats and occasional leave to go without bounds. It had always been considered the prerogative of the captain of the house to grant these; but, strictly speaking, the other prefects had the right too. I tried to explain as much.

“Of course,” said he, “it is a very neat way of ignoring my authority. I expect you to come to me. I shall not refuse any reasonable request, but I’m not going to be insulted in my own house.”

“But—” said I.

“There is no ‘but’ about it. If you want to prevent your being shown up to your friend as an amiable young swindler, you can stop it by undertaking that you and your lot will do what I tell you. If not, it is your own look-out, that’s all.”

Luckily the school bell enabled me to get away without giving any pledge. Fool as I was, I knew what all this meant. It was an attempt to buy us all over at the cost of that unlucky shilling, and with it to secure Crofter in the authority which he so dearly coveted, but so far so imperfectly enjoyed.

The Philosophers, as might be expected, waxed very indignant when I made a clean breast of the whole matter. With their usual frankness they quite admitted that I might have pilfered the shilling. That sort of thing, they remarked, was quite in my line, and in keeping with my character generally; and they hoped to live to see me hung. But as to caving in to Crofter as the cost of my shelter, they drew the line at that. He had no right to impose new rules, or take away the immemorial privileges of the “Sharpers.” Besides, if they gave in on this point, they would immediately have to go and ask his leave to practise for the Sports in Callow Meadow, which was just out of bounds, and where, in strict seclusion, diligent practice had been going on for a week, with most promising results.

I was thereupon ordered to write a laconic rejoinder to the tempting offer, the Philosophers promising to back me up in the matter of the shilling and see me through it.

With a heavy heart, therefore, I sat down and penned the following brief epistle, which was approved by the faggery and ordered to be laid on Crofter’s table before bed-time.

“Dear Crofter,—We all think it’s not good enough. It’s all a lie about the shilling. Yours sincerely, T.J. iv.”

Some of the Philosophers demurred to the sentence about the shilling, which appeared to commit them to an opinion they did not hold. But I had my way for once, and retired to bed, when all was done, wondering whenever peace would come, and I and my friend should rejoice to see one another again as of old.

I do not know how soon I fell asleep. It must have been pretty soon; for I can remember seeing Crofter come into the dormitory and turn out the gas; and I can remember in the general stillness hearing voices and the noise of poking the fire in Mr Sharpe’s room downstairs. After that I forgot everything, until suddenly I discovered myself awake again.

Things seemed strange as I slowly turned my head on the pillow and blinked up with half-opened eyes. The dormitory seemed hot and stuffy; somebody or something was making a noise, and I wished they would stop. I could see nothing, except the hazy outline of my shirt hanging on the back of the chair, and even that seemed to come and go as I watched it. I was indisposed to move, and my mind was half asleep still. The one thing I did long for was for the noise to stop and some one to open a window. It was simply choking; I could hardly breathe, and—

Suddenly my shirt seemed to turn red, and by the lurid light it emitted I could see smoke coming over the top of the door. Then the side of the room grew red too, and seemed to close in on me, getting redder and redder as it did so, till finally by a frantic effort I raised myself in my bed and yelled—

“Fire!”

The answer was a great volume of smoke, which leapt out at me like a savage beast and sent me back on to the pillow; a deafening roar outside, and a sudden blaze, which half-blinded me and stifled the cry that was on my lips.

That is all I can remember distinctly. I was vaguely conscious of hearing my name called, of seeing my door move, of everything whirling round and round, and finally of falling, or getting, or being dragged out of bed.

The next thing I was aware of was that I was lying in a strange bed, with a headache, but otherwise tolerably comfortable, though awfully thirsty, and as weak as a mouse.

“Water, please,” I remarked at large.

Instantly a face bent over me—a strangely familiar face, which after a moment’s reflection I told myself was my mother’s.

It was such a surprise that I forgot about the water, and took a nap instead.

In due time I must have woke again, this time by candlelight.

“Mother, are you there?”

“Yes, darling; what is it?”

“My shirt caught fire, and—”

“Hush, dear. Don’t try to talk.”

I didn’t quite see why. I was really curious about several things. In fact, I thirsted for information.

“Why mayn’t I talk, mother?”

“Because you’ve been ill.”

“Did I get doctor’s leave?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Mother?”

“Well, sonny darling.”

“How did you get here?”

“They sent and told me you—”

“You didn’t believe about that shilling? Really there was only 2 shillings 6 pence change.”

“Yes, yes, dear. Hush now, there’s a good boy.”

“Mother?”

“Well, Tommy dear.”

“Was there a fire last night?”

“It was a week ago, sonny.”

“Who was the fellow called me? Was he riled at me for not answering?”

“Oh no—you were almost suffocated.”

“Where shall I sleep now? Have they mended my cubicle?”

“You’ll sleep here, dear. All the boys are over here.”

“Was all the dormitory on fire, then?”

“Yes; but thank God every one was saved.”

“Is Langrish all right?”

“Oh yes, all of them are.”

“Will he be game for the High Jump?”

“Surely, surely—but you’re talking too much, sonny.”

“Mother?”

“What is it, darling?”

“Does Tempest know I’ve been ill?”

“Yes,” and her eyes seemed to fill with tears as she bent over me.

“Will you tell him about the shilling?”

“Yes, if you like.”

“Mother, why are you crying? Is Tempest ill too?”

“No, dear—but—”

“Tell us, mother.”

“If it had not been for Tempest,” said she, “I should have had no boy to-day.”

“Did he get me out, then?” said I, getting thoroughly aroused.

“Yes, Heaven bless him for it!” she replied, kissing my forehead.

“That’ll be a score for him,” said I; “I’m so glad.”

My mother evidently did not quite understand this point of view, and concluded I had been talking more than was good for me, and once more implored me to be silent.

But I had no notion of giving up my inquiries at this stage.

“Did he get hurt doing it?” I asked.

“Only his hand a little.”

“How did he get at me?”

“Every one thought you were safe out of the burning room with the others. When it was found you were not, Tempest rushed back before any one could stop him, and carried you out. He had not got outside with you more than a second or two when the roof and staircase and all fell in.”

Here she shuddered as once more she bent over me and kissed me.

This was all I wanted to hear at present, and I closed my eyes in order to think it over the better.

My chief sensation was one of exultation that Tempest should risk his life for me. It meant that I had won him back in spite of myself. Then when I recalled the frightful blaze and noise of that night, I began to realise what my rescue must have meant to any one. No one but a fellow utterly scornful of danger, and utterly determined to save a life in peril at all cost, could have ventured into that place. He would have done it for any one, I knew; but to come deliberately after me, who had ruined his chances last term, and whom he despised as a pilferer and a sneak—this was an act of heroism which it baffled me to contemplate, and in the contemplation of which consequently I succumbed once more to sleep and forgot everything.

As I slowly got better (and, after all, I was not much damaged, as soon as I had got over the effects of the suffocation and terror of that awful night) I heard more about the fire. Permission was given me to see one friend a day for ten minutes at a time, and the reader may imagine the wild excitement of those ten minutes.

I naturally called for Dicky Brown as my first man. He came, looking rather scared, and was evidently relieved to find I was something better than a mass of burns, and able to do my share in the conversation.

“It was a close shave for you, I can tell you,” he said. “All the other fellows hopped out long before the fire got bad, and no one fancied you weren’t out too. You must have been sleeping jolly sound. All of a sudden one of your lot yelled out that you were missing. It was so hot then the fellows were all standing back, but old Tempest, almost before the chap had shouted, nipped into the middle of it, and made a dash for your cubicle. My word! I wish I’d been there to see it! You were as good as done for when he collared you and hauled you out. He fell with you half-way down the stairs, but Sharpe and Pridgin and one or two others caught him and fished him out with you over his shoulder. He swears he’s not damaged, but he’s got his hand in a sling. I say, old chap, it’s no use blubbing; it’s all right how.”

“I wasn’t blubbing,” said I. “When you’ve got a cold in your head your eyes water sometimes, don’t they?”

“Rather, buckets,” said the magnanimous Dicky.

Langrish was my next interviewer; and his account as an eye-witness was graphic, and not calculated entirely to cure my “cold in the head.”

“You see, it’s this way,” said he. “Jarman was smoking in Sharpe’s room, and chucked his cigar into the waste-paper basket or somewhere by mistake, and while he and Sharpe toddled across the quad, the thing flared up and went up the curtains, and when old Sharpe came back the whole place was in a blaze. I twigged it pretty sharp, and so did Trim, and there was a regular stampede. No one ever supposed you’d go snoring all through it. Crofter and Wales were first outside, looking as white as milk. Bless you, it was such a rush and shindy, no one could see anybody. Of course we made sure you were all serene. Think of you sleeping through it!”

“I was in the end cubicle, you see,” said I.

“For all that, you might have stuck your head out to see what the fun was about,” said Langrish, in rather an aggrieved tone. “Sharpe turned up presently, with his face all grimy with smoke, and yelled, ‘Is every one here?’ ‘Yes,’ said Crofter—silly ass, how could he tell? Then Coxhead said to me, ‘Where’s Sarah got to?’ That made me look round, and I can tell you I was pretty sick when I couldn’t see you. Just fancy a chap sleeping away through it all! Why, the ant and the sluggard,” said Langrish, getting a little mixed in his proverbs, “weren’t in it with you. So I yelled ‘Sarah!’ with all my might. You should have seen the chaps sit up when they heard your name. Then old Tempest, with his mouth shut and looking middling pasty about the face, broke through the scrimmage and sent us right and left, and made a regular header into the place. Sharpe yelled to him to come back; some tried to yell, but couldn’t for lumps in their throats, and we all closed up. I can tell you it was a hot place. The smoke rolled out and got in our eyes, and the wood and stuff cracked and blazed, and sounded like the waves at Dover. We never expected to see him or you come back. The stairs were going to bits as fast as they could, and great bits of burning wood were tumbling off the roof. Then the smoke shifted somehow, and we heard Sharpe yell, ‘Heavens!’ Then there was a dull row like something tumbling, and Pridgin and Sharpe dashed in. We got kept back, or we’d have given you a leg-up too. Then you strolled in, fast asleep still—I never saw such a snoozer!—on Tempest’s arm. He was pretty well done, and couldn’t have pulled it off if Sharpe and Pridgin hadn’t hiked him out. Even then he couldn’t stand. So I hope you’re jolly well pleased with yourself. I hope it will be a lesson to you, young Sarah, to keep one eye open while you’re asleep. We were jolly glad you got canted out, though you are a bit of a mule. But it would have been rough on you to miss the Sports. They say Tempest’s burned his hand pretty bad, but he means to have a shot at the Mile. I say, Redwood was asking after you. Jarman’s jolly sick that it was his fault about the fire. He’s been quite civil, and been to ask about you every day. Look sharp and get right, I say, or it’ll rot the Sports if you don’t. Hullo, there comes your mater. Ta, ta, old hoss. It’s rather ripping you scraped through all right.”

He was a good sort, Langrish. He did not tell me, what I heard later, that at the time of the fire he had to be held back by main force from following Tempest in quest of me; and that he had rather a “cold in his head” when he saw me hauled out safe and sound.

Chapter Twenty Four.

“Small and Early” in the Sanatorium.

My recovery was far too rapid to please me. I never had such a jolly time in all my life. My mother was in and out all day; there were no lessons. I was allowed to summon any chum I liked to my bedside. I was receiving messages daily from masters and seniors, and, best of all, I had nothing the matter with me except, a strong disinclination to exert myself, and an occasional headache or dizziness when I sat up.

I had come up to Low Heath that term with the honest determination to “lie low.” I little expected, however, that I should find myself quite so literally adhering to my resolution.

My one trouble was that all this time I had not seen Tempest. I did not like to send for him, in case he should not appreciate the compliment. And he, as I guessed, would not care to come of his own accord for the uncomfortable ceremony of receiving my thanks. My mother told me he had often asked about me; but when she asked him to come and see me he had replied,—“I’ll see him as soon as he gets about again.” When she inquired about his hand he had replied airily that it was all right, and he was only keeping it in the sling to get it right for the Sports. “But,” said my mother, “I wish he would let the doctor see it, or give up running till it is well.”

“But,” said I, “he’s a chance of winning off Redwood.” This argument, which in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred in Low Heath would have been absolutely conclusive, failed to impress my mother in the least. She attached no importance to “winning off Redwood” compared with a boy’s health, and obdurately protested that if she were Tempest’s mother she would not allow him to think of running.

It was only my agitated appeals to her not to interpose that prevented her speaking to Dr England about the matter, and so knocking the race on the head altogether.

I took it as a compliment to myself that the Sports had been put off a fortnight in consequence of the fire. That warm event had so upset everything and monopolised so much attention that Low Heath would not have come up to scratch at all on the day originally fixed. And whereas the new date permitted of my being present to assist—though, alas! not to compete—in the day’s proceedings, I felt specially satisfied with the alteration.

I had naturally heard a good deal of Philosophical gossip during my convalescence. On my last evening in hospital especially, there was quite a symposium.

My mother, in an innocent moment, had remarked, “I should so like to have one or two of your friends to tea, sonny, before I go home. The doctor says it will not do you any harm—and we can have them in here, as you are the only invalid in hospital.”

“That’ll be ten, with you and me,” said I.

“Do you want quite so many?” asked she, beginning to get a little concerned.

“Must have the lot or none,” said I decisively. “We can cut out Rackstraw and Walsh, if you like—they’re paupers.”

“Oh, Tommy!” said the dear, tender-hearted one, “if they are not as well off as—”

“Oh, that’s not it. They can shell out as well as anybody; only they got on our club for nothing on condition of towing the boats, cleaning up, and that sort of thing.”

“At any rate, let us have them,” said my mother.

“All serene. Will you write the invitations? I say, mother, do you mind writing as well as you can? Our chaps are rather particular, you know, and I wouldn’t like them to snuff up at you.”

My poor dear mother began, I think, to repent of her hospitable offer, but decided to go through with it now.

So she got eight nice little sheets of scented invitation note, with envelopes to match, and wrote,—

“Mrs Jones requests the pleasure of Mr Alfred James Remington Trimble’s company to tea in the Sanatorium parlour this evening at 6 p.m.;” and so on, in each case.

My suggestion to add “R.S.V.P.” and “Evening dress de rigueur” she thought it best to decline. But her kind leniency was thrown away, for within half an hour eight notes dropped in upon us, couched in the politest phraseology.

Here was Langrish’s, for instance:—

“Everard Langrish, Esquire, begs to thank Mrs Jones for asking him to tea at six sharp, when he will be very pleased to fall in with her wishes and be of service in any other way her better feelings may dictate.”

Langrish told me afterwards he cribbed this last sentence out of a story he had read in a weekly newspaper. He rather fancied it was “on the spot.”

Trimble’s was less romantic:—

“Dear Madam,—I accept with thanks. Sarah gets rather outside sometimes, but we do what we can for him. Till then,—

“I am yours affectionately,—

“A.J.R. Trimble.”

Warminster’s was, no doubt, meant to be impressive:—“The President of the Philosophical Conversation Club presents his compliments to Mrs Jones, and desires to inform her of his intention to wait upon her at the hour named in her letter. He trusts that Mrs Jones is in good health, and that her ailing child will be spared to her a little longer. Having several matters to attend to, the President of the Philosophical Conversation Club must now abruptly terminate, namely, Percy Algernon Warminster.”

The ending seemed to me decidedly weak compared with the rest. I will only give one more—that of Coxhead:—

“Dear Mrs Jones, I’ll come to tea;
At six o’clock you shall me see.
I’m sorry Sarah’s been laid up
And drinks his physic from a cup.
Unless unto the contrary I hear.
My Eton suit I think I’ll wear.
And now ‘farewell,’ as great John Knox said.
Yours truly, Samuel Wilberforce Coxhead.”

This effusion struck me as rather like cheek; but my mother seemed to like it.

As evening approached I began to grow very nervous, and have to confess that my mother was the cause of my concern. I was so afraid she was not properly impressed with the gravity of the occasion—that perhaps she would not be dressed at her best—or that the tea might not be up to the mark—or that for any cause the fellows should consider they had been “done.” I’m sure I wearied the life out of her by my inquiries as to the nature of the jam, as to whether the cake would go round twice, whether any of the teacups were cracked, whether the nine chairs ranged round the little room were all sound on their legs, who would open the door to let them in, whether my mother would mind not proposing juvenile games like table-turning, or clumps, and whether when the time came for them to go she would mind not looking at her watch or yawning, for fear they should think it a hint.

All which points the dear soul faithfully promised should be borne in mind and attended to, with a little quiet banter at my expense, which helped to remind me that, after all, one’s mother may be trusted not to disgrace a fellow, if left to herself.

In due time she presented herself in her Sunday dress, looking very pretty and smart—quite creditable, in fact. The tea also, as it appeared laid out on the sideboard—I had urged, by the way, that it should be served in party style, and not partaken of round a table—looked a well-found meal for the most exacting of Philosophers. I myself reposed in state in bed, arrayed in my Eton jacket and best collar and choker. The fire in the hearth was both cheerful and adequate, and the knowledge that the Sanatorium maid was downstairs in her cap and clean apron, to show the young gentlemen up, finally relieved my anxiety.

In due time there was a ring, and a sound of the funereal tramp of eighteen feet on the staircase, and I knew that Mrs Jones’s party had begun.

They all trooped in together, looking very grave and shy, and spick and span in their full-dress, and evidently on their good behaviour. My mother shook hands with each in unexceptionable style, repeating his name as I announced it from the bed, and expressing her pleasure at making his acquaintance.

The sight of me propped up on my pillows, somewhat pale still, and as shy as themselves, seemed to impress them a good deal, and added to the funereal character of the entertainment. A long pause ensued, broken only by the entrance of the maid with the teapot, and Langrish’s remark to Trimble that it was a fine day.

Then my mother had the wit to observe that she hoped it would be equally fine on the day of the Sports, and she was so sorry she would miss them, as she understood Mr Sharpe’s house was likely to win a good many of the events, and of course her sympathies were entirely that way.

This went down beautifully, and drew from Coxhead the remark,—

“It’s a pity Sar—I mean Jones iv.—is out of it. He might have got the Quarter-mile.”

“Are the names down yet?” I asked.

“Yes. We stuck them down to-day,” said Langrish.

“Any one else in for the Senior Mile?”

“No; only Tempest and Redwood.”

Another pause—everybody evidently meditating what my mother would like to hear next.

My mother meanwhile moved to the sideboard and began to pour out tea.

“Do you take cream and sugar?” she said, with a pleasant smile, to Langrish. How relieved I was she did not call him “Everard” or “dear!”

“Yes, please—can I pass round?” he replied.

It was admirable. I had been in terror lest he would have collared the first cup and stuck to it.

“Thank you, if you will, please. I see they are beginning to get your old house ready for rebuilding.”

“It won’t be ready this term, though,” said Warminster; “it will take—a slice of cake, thanks.”

“No sugar for me, thanks,” said Coxhead. “I wonder if Jarman will have to pay for it?”

“Does your mater take cream and sugar?” said Purkis to me, in an aside.

“I shouldn’t think so,” said Langrish, “because he didn’t do it on purpose, you know.”

“Thank you very much. Do you mind putting it down there? And won’t you sit down?” said my mother, setting the example.

“I expect he’d better give up smoking, as he’s always setting things on fire,” ventured I. “Mother knows about the guy last term, don’t you, mother?”

“Yes, indeed,” said she, with a laugh, which won over the Philosophers in a body. “That was a lucky escape for everybody. I was horrified.”

“Well, old Sar—I mean Jones iv.—”

“I think he understands his nickname better than his real name,” said my clever parent.

“Old Sarah,” said Langrish, getting rapidly at his ease, “let us in for that. You see (cake up, please), it was this way—”

And he launched forth into an account of that famous adventure, into which the company one by one cut, at my expense, of course, and highly to the diversion of my mother.

Meanwhile the teapot was kept busy, and the jam went its rounds—some of it on to Coxhead’s shirt-front—and by the end of it all the Philosophers found themselves comfortably at home.

“I say,” said I, when a break came, “how’s the club getting on? Anything fresh?”

Langrish glanced round at my mother.

“I’ve got the minute-book,” he said, “would she—”

“Oh, do!” said she. “Is it an account of your meetings? I would like to hear it immensely. Debating societies are such capital things, I think.”

“It’s a bit down on Sarah, though,” said the secretary, dubiously.

“Why, I wasn’t there,” said I.

“Weren’t you? that’s all.”

“Let’s hear it,” said my mother, “I dare say he deserves it.”

I forgave the dear traitress for giving me away like this, for I felt sure the minutes would save our evening.

“You see,” said Trimble, “we try to keep it fair, so it’s down on some of the others too. But Sarah gets it a little the hottest.”

“I’m used to getting things hot by now,” said I; “forge ahead, and sit where I can shy the pillow at you.”

Whereupon Langrish moved his chair to a conspicuous place, and read,—

“‘A meeting of the Ph.C.C. was held in dormitory on February 1, at 9 p.m.’”

“Why, that’s when the fire was,” said Trimble.

“Shut—I mean what’s that got to do with it?” retorted the secretary.

“Well?” said my mother, taking a stitch or two at her needlework.

“‘Owing to the side put on by the ex-president, who was lately, kicked out for being a howling cad, and because he was down in form order—’”

“What a cram!” I interposed; “I was on the second desk, and should have had you down weeks ago if I hadn’t been laid up.”

“Ha, ha, I like that—you! Did your mater ever hear about corpore being the ablative masculine, eh?”

“No, I never heard about that,” said my mother.

“All right—Sarah will tell you—where was I, oh—down in form order, though he’s not quite such a crock as Coxhead, who is champion dunce in Low Heath—”

“Me?” exclaimed Coxhead, warm with tea and indignation.

“There you are,” said Langrish, “anybody but a champion dunce would have said ‘I.’ You ask Sarah’s mater if they wouldn’t.”

“Well, you, if you like,” said Coxhead; “what about it—”

“Look here, how can I read the minutes when—here we are—‘crock as Coxhead, who is champion dunce in Low Heath.’”

“What happened then?” said my mother, looking a little mixed.

“‘He was shunted to an outside berth, and was out of it.’”

“I rather think I was in it,” said I; “never mind.”

“Oh, if you think so, all right. The minutes say you were out of it. ‘He’d not begun to snore many minutes with deafening effect, when, as might be expected, Jarman set fire to the show to stop the noise.’”

“Do you think that’s why he did it, really?” asked Warminster.

“Look here, young Warminster. I don’t think, I—”

“Pity you don’t now and then,” remarked the newly-elected president.

Langrish looked hard at his colleague, and then glanced at my mother, whose face was bent over her work. Whereupon the secretary threw the minute-book at the president’s head, and observed,—

“Look out, Warminster; hand up that book, can’t you—it’s not yours.”

My mother looked up, and Warminster meekly surrendered the book.

“‘—Stop the noise. The club then adjourned, all except Sarah, who hung on, contrary to the rules, and is hereby fined 2 shillings 6 pence.’”

“Oh, I say,” protested I, “that’s rather rough, isn’t it?”

“‘But,’” proceeded Langrish, “‘owing to his mother coming up to buy him off, he is hereby let off with a fie— I mean a warning.’”

“Thank you so much,” said my mother, gratefully.

“‘When we thought he was pretty well warmed up, we sent Tempest in to fish him out, which he accordingly did, and is hereby elected honorary porter to the club, and is backed to win the Mile.’”

“That’s the least he deserves, surely,” said my mother, with feeling.

“‘Sarah, owing to this unprincipled conduct, has been suspended for a month, and the club hereby hopes some day not far off to see him sus—’ no, that’s wrong—I mean—”

“Hung,” suggested Trimble, in an audible whisper.

“Order—turn him out for saying hung, instead of hanged,” said the president.

“Shut up, can’t you?” said the secretary, “can’t you let me finish the sentence? ‘—See him sus—susceptible of better emotions.’”

“Hear, hear,” said the club, breathing again to see the corner turned.

“I hope that’s not all,” said my mother.

“That’s as far as we’ve got; but we’ll let him down easy in the next,” said Langrish.

“The next will have the account of the Sports, I suppose,” said my mother.

“If our men win,” said Warminster. “We’re bound to win the High Jump if Langrish keeps on his form; he did 4 feet 1 and a half inches this afternoon.”

“You needn’t talk—you’re all right for the 100 Yards,” said the modest Langrish; “there’s no one in, except young Brown of the day cads, who can touch you; and he’s sure to go a mucker on the day.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said I. “Dicky Brown doesn’t go muckers if he can help it.”

“There you are—backing the town cads now. I move, and Mrs Jones seconds, that Sarah be, and is hereby, kic—I mean sat upon by the club.”

“Oh, don’t, please,” said my mother, “the bed is not strong enough.”

“All right—it’s lucky for Sarah. If you were half a chap you’d see we didn’t lose the Quarter-mile. Rackstraw will have a look in at it, but it’ll puzzle him to beat Flitwick. Walsh is going to cut out for him. So we may just do it; but it’ll be a go—eh, paupers?”

Rackstraw and Walsh both protested there would be no difficulty about it if only the track was in good order, and their wind held out, and Flitwick muddled his start, and finished a yard or two behind. We were all prepared to stake the glory of Sharpe’s on these trifling conditions.

Presently the preparation bell began to toll, and the party broke up with a cordiality and cheerfulness which contrasted strangely with the solemnity with which it had begun. My mother was politely requested to become an honorary member of the club, and as politely consented, expressing a hope that she might meet with its honourable members many times again.

When they had gone she told me how much she had enjoyed the evening, and how she liked every one of them, and hoped they wouldn’t think her rude to have laughed now and then, but really, she said, not being used to it, she could not help it.

Next day she left, and, dismally enough, I made the first use of my liberty to accompany her in the fly to the station. She talked to me, as only she could, about the future, and the spirit in which she thought I would take up once more the work of the term and the thankfulness which she the widow, and I the orphan, could not help feeling to the Heavenly Father, who had saved us both from such peril and sorrow in the past. She urged me to show my gratitude for my escape, by seeking to follow more closely in the footsteps of that Saviour to whom she had so often taught me to look for help and guidance, and at the same time she urged me to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Her goodness only made my sorrow at parting the greater; and more than any time since I had entered Low Heath, the pangs of home-sickness fell upon me as I saw her into her carriage.

Just before the train started I felt my heart beat suddenly, and the blood rush to my cheeks, as I saw a figure, with one hand in a sling, running up the platform, looking into one carriage after another.

“Mother, here’s Tempest!”

Next moment he saw us, and ran up.

“I heard you were going by this train,” said he, “and I thought I would like to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye, my dear boy, and God bless you once more!”

“The youngster’s all right again, I see,” said he, putting his hand on my arm. “I’ll see he takes care of himself—good-bye.”

And the train steamed off, leaving us two on the platform.

“I hope your hand’s not awfully bad,” said I, breaking a silence of nearly three months in the only way which occurred for the moment.

“Rather not. We’d better cab it back—you’re not up to walking yet.”

“Thanks awfully, Tempest, for saving—”

“Look here, don’t let’s get on to that,” said he.

“I say,” said I, “I was afraid you believed what Crofter said, and thought—”

“You were an ass, Tommy—you always were—I ought to have remembered it. Of course I never believed a word Crofter said—I saw his game. But I was idiot enough to get riled at you for giving yourself away to him. I’m sorry. Now let’s forget it. After all, it was the best thing for me that all that row about my bills came out when it did. You did me a better turn than you meant to do. Just like you—if you try to do things the right way, it’s all up with everybody. But if you do them your own way, they manage to come round somehow.”

“But Crofter’s done you out of the captaincy.”

“So much the better—I didn’t deserve it. I’ll get it back some day perhaps, and work it better. Come in to me to tea. Redwood’s coming, and old Dicky, too.”

“But you’re against Redwood for the Mile,” said I.

“That’s no reason why I shouldn’t give him a cup of tea, is it, you young mule?”

The way he said it, and the grip of his hand on my arm, satisfied me that all was square once more between me and my dear old Dux.

Chapter Twenty Six.

A Good Show-up all Round.

It was the last day but one of the Summer term, and the Philosophers were in a ferment. The lists were to be out in the afternoon, and a score of events were to be decided by them. Was I to get on to the top form of my division, and if so, was it Langrish or Purkis who was to be displaced? Or was I, after all my grind, to yield a place to the truculent Coxhead?

More than that, was Warminster to be beaten after all by a day boy called Dicky Brown, who, amid all the changes and distractions of the term, had stuck doggedly to his work, and was reported a hot man for the head place in the junior division?

All this was exciting enough, but it was as nothing to the tussle at the head of the school.

Pridgin’s alarming burst of work in the Easter term had, contrary to all expectation, not died out. Every one prophesied he would sicken of it. Wales laughed at him. Crofter smiled sweetly. Tempest inquired frequently after his health, and even Redwood knocked off some of his extra cricket to keep pace with it.

“What are you trying to do?” asked Tempest one day, as his friend looked in.

“Nothing, my dear fellow, only amusing myself, I assure you.”

“You have a queer idea of fun. Do you know, I’ve hardly been out on the river all the term, owing to you.”

“Don’t let me prevent you, old chap. The exercise will do you good.”

Tempest laughed.

“I hope yours will do you good. But two can play at your game.”

“Two! Half a dozen.—I’ve not got my knife into you, though.”

“Who? Crofter?”

“Rather. I see no other way of taking it out of him. He shirks sports, and takes his pound of flesh out of the captaincy, although he knows he’s no right to it, and no one, not even the rowdies in the faggery, respects him.”

“That’s why we’re going steady,” said I, “just to rile him.”

“The only way to take it out of him is to make him sit up, and harry him,” said the amiable Pridgin. “I only hope, though, it won’t land me head of the house. I’m depending on you to beat me. But I’m not going to play second fiddle to Crofter.”

“It will serve you right if it does land you head,” responded Tempest. “If it does, we’ll have to keep you up to the mark and see you don’t shirk.”

“Don’t say that, old chap, or I shall jack it up,” said Pridgin, putting his feet upon the window-ledge. “Besides, does it occur to you that Redwood’s leaving, and that the second man up, if he’s one of us, is left not only captain of Sharpe’s but captain of Low Heath?”

“I know,” said Tempest quietly, “but they say Leslie of Selkirk’s is in the running for that.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” retorted Pridgin. “Tempest of Sharpe’s is the man for my money.”

Tempest laughed again; but it was a sort of laugh which did not bode well for Leslie of Selkirk’s.

This talk had been a fortnight ago. Since then the examinations had come and gone. The Philosophers, sobered and perspiring, had been spread out at two-desk intervals on three fatal days in the large hall, with day boys to right of them and Selkirkers to left, writing for their lives, and groaning over questions which only a fiend could have devised, and only a double-first could have answered. How I had got on, I could no more tell than the man in the moon. My comrades, when we compared notes afterwards, cheerfully assured me that, out of some fifty questions on the three days, I had possibly got half a question right, but that that was doubtful, and depended on the particular crib the examiner swore by. Redwood, to whom I confided some of my answers, thought rather more hopefully of my case, and told me to keep my spirits up. Tempest said that if he were to cuff me for every discreditable blunder I had made, I should have ear-ache for a month. Dicky, on the other hand, confessed that he wished he could believe he had done as well as I.

As for the other Philosophers, general discouragement was the order of the day. It was moved and seconded that Coxhead be kicked for having made “amnis” feminine, and having translated the French “impasse” as “instep.” And Trimble was temporarily suspended from the service of the Conversation Club because he had put a decimal dot in the wrong place. Public feeling ran so high that any departure from the rules of syntax or algebra was regarded as treason against the house, and dealt with accordingly.

On the whole, therefore, we were glad when the time of suspense came to an end.

How matters had gone with the seniors it was even more difficult to surmise than it had been in our case. The day after the end of their exams., Redwood and Tempest, with Pridgin to cox, rowed twelve miles down stream and back, and returned cheerful and serene, and even jocular. Leslie of Selkirk’s also spent a pleasant afternoon in the school laboratory, whistling to himself as he mixed up his acids. Crofter and Wales mooned about under the trees in the field somewhat limply, but showed no outward signs of distress. Altogether, speculation was baffled, and it was almost irritating to find the chief actors in the drama refusing to take the momentous question seriously.

“How did you get on?” I asked Tempest.

“You’ll hear to-morrow,” said he; “so shall I.”

“Do you think you’ll beat Leslie?”

“Either that, or he’ll beat me, or it’ll be a dead heat,” said he.

There was no dealing with frivolity of this kind; and Tempest, ever since his recovery last term, had been rapidly regaining all his old frivolity and lightheartedness.

It was a trying ordeal on “Result” day, sitting patiently in hall till the doctor made up his mind to appear. All the school was there. There was an unusual spirit of orderliness afoot. The few irresponsible ones, who, with nothing to lose, tried to get up a disturbance, were promptly squashed by the grim, anxious competitors to whom the coming results meant so much. We Philosophers huddled together for comfort, but not a joke travelled down the line. We sat and drummed our fingers on the desk before us, and wondered why on earth the doctor, on a day like this, should take such an unearthly time to put on his cap and gown.

At last he appeared, paper in hand, and glasses on nose. I could see Dicky just in front of me catch a quick breath, and Tempest up in the front brush his hair back with his fingers; and there arose before my mind in horrible review all the palpable blunders of my own examination papers.

“Lower school,” began the doctor in a hard, dry, unemotional voice. “Aggregate form order—out of a possible 1000 marks, Brown iii., day boy, and Jones iv., Mr Sharpe’s, bracketed first with 853 marks.”

What! me? bracketed top with Dicky? Go along with you! But a huge thump on the back from Warminster, followed by a huger from Langrish; the vision of Dicky’s consciously blushing cheeks, as Flitwick performed the same office for him; and, above all, a nod across the room from Redwood, and a grin from Tempest, convinced me that there was something in it after all. Of course it was a mistake, and when the marks came to be counted again it would be put right. But while it lasted it wasn’t bad. What was the doctor saying?

“A very good performance, both of you; and the result of honest hard work.”

It was true then? There was no humbug about it? Oh, I must write to my mother this very afternoon.

“Warminster, Mr Sharpe’s second, 836, good also; Corderoy, Mr Selkirk’s, third, 815; Langrish, Mr Sharpe’s, fourth, 807; Trimble, Mr Sharpe’s, sixth, 796; Purkis, Mr Sharpe’s, seventh, 771; Coxhead, Mr Sharpe’s, eighth, 734—(Mr Sharpe’s boys have worked excellently this term);—Quin, day boy, ninth, 699; Rackstraw, Mr Sharpe’s, tenth, 678.”

And so the list went on. I was too much lost in the wonder of my own success to appreciate all at once the glorious significance of the whole result. But as the Philosophers crowded in a little closer on one another, and the friendly nudge went round, it began to dawn on me. Every one of our men had given a good account of himself, even Coxhead and the “pauper” Rackstraw! Not one of the old gang but was eligible for the club; not one but had done something to “put the day boys and Selkirk’s and everybody else to bed,” as Langrish said.

“Just like your side,” said the latter to me, “trying to make out you’d made a mess of it. You can only make a mess of it, young Sarah, when you try not to; when you do try you can’t do it.” And with another thump on the back our excellent secretary gave me to know he bore me no malice, but on the contrary was pleased to favour me with his general approbation.

But more was yet to come. Compared with the “aggregates,” the details of how we had passed each examination were more or less tame, and we were impatient to get on to the senior results.

The middle school had to come first. As a rule we were not greatly concerned in them, except as belonging to the division into which some of us would probably be promoted next term. But such as they were, they kept up the credit of Sharpe’s. A Selkirker did indeed head the list, but after him a string of four of our fellows followed; after them a day boy, and then two more “Sharpers.”

More back patting, crowding up, conscious blushes, and congratulations.

Then the doctor put down one paper and took up another; and every one knew what was coming.

“Upper school,” read the doctor in exactly the same voice, as if this announcement were of no more importance than any other. “Aggregate form order—out of a possible 1000 marks, Redwood, captain of the school, and day boy, 902.”

We were obliged to interrupt a little here. There would not be many more chances of cheering old Redwood, and we couldn’t afford to chuck them away. So we cheered, and gave the doctor time to polish up his glasses and take a sip of water.

“Your cheers,” said he, when at last we had relieved ourselves, “are well-deserved. In addition to this capital result, Redwood takes the Low Heath scholarship to Trinity, where, I almost venture to prophesy, we shall hear even greater things of him some day.”

More cheers. But we were too impatient to hear what came next to interpose too long a delay.

“Tempest, Mr Sharpe’s, second, 888; all the more gratifying when we remember the causes which interrupted his school work for a time last term.”

We fairly gave ourselves away now! Sharpe’s had reached the top of the tide with a vengeance. There was an end to all uncertainty as to who would be its captain; and there was the glorious certainty that the captain of Sharpe’s would also be captain of Low Heath. Three cheers! Rather.

But still we could not, till the rest of the list was read, give ourselves up to cheering for as long as we should have liked. So we allowed the doctor to proceed.

“Pridgin, Mr Sharpe’s, third, 869—very close.”

Good old Pridgin! All his discomfort had not been for nothing. He had “taken it out of” Crofter, after all. By how much?

“Leslie, Mr Selkirk’s, fourth, 832. Wales, Mr Sharpe’s, fifth, 801. Crofter, Mr Sharpe’s, sixth, 769.”

A cool hundred between them! We had the decency not to rub it in too hard. It was clear by the disconcerted look in the face of our so-called captain that he was more surprised than any one. He smiled, of course, and leant across to pat Pridgin on the back. But that was just his way—we knew well enough that it cloaked a bitter mortification, and why worry the poor beggar with letting him see we noticed it?

So we waited till we got outside, and then let ourselves loose on Tempest and Pridgin, and positively injured our voices with cheering.

That afternoon in the faggery our jubilant review of the situation was combined with a wind-up meeting of the Conversation Club for the term.

“Jolly good show for us,” said Langrish. “Crofter’s pretty sick, but it’ll do him good. I move and third, and Sarah seconds and fourths, that we send him a resolution of condolence.”

“Better let him alone,” suggested I.

“Shut up, or you’ll get jolly well kicked out of the club,” said the secretary. “If you don’t want to be civil, it’s no reason why we shouldn’t.” I had imagined I was on the whole more concerned for Crofter’s feelings than they, but, putting it in the way they did, I could hardly resist. So the following resolution was solemnly drawn up and ordered to be conveyed to “The late Mr Crofter.”

“That this meeting of the Philosophical Conversation Club is hereby jolly glad to see Tempest cock of the house again, with Pridgin second man up. It hereby condoles with Crofter in the jolly back seat he has got to take, and is sorry he shirked the Mile. It begs to inform him that he is a hundred and eighteen marks behind Tempest, and trusts he will in future obey the house captain, to whom all applications for exeats and extra leave are to be addressed. Crofter need not trouble to reply, as the club only desires to have communication with the cock of the house.”

This done, I was ordered to take the chair as the new president, and called upon the secretary to read the minutes.

These were short and to the point,—

“‘A general meeting of the Conversation Club was held on Monday in the Examination Hall. With his usual mulishness, Sarah thought he’d have a cut in, and it was resolved to give him a chance. Thanks to the drivelling idiotcy of Warminster, who doesn’t even know the feminine genitive of corpus, he scraped through; and, as he couldn’t do much worse than Coxhead, he did a shade better.’”

“All very well,” growled Coxhead, “he did a jolly sight better than you.”

“‘Coxhead, who is hereby expelled for using slang, was, as usual, down with the paupers at the bottom. A town cad called Brown, who managed to conceal his cribs, came out first, and it was decided to tack Sarah on to him. Trimble, as might be expected, came a cropper in his English grammar—’”

“A cram! They never examined us in it!”

“There you are; you don’t even know it when you see it—‘came a cropper in his English grammar.’”

“I tell you I didn’t,” expostulated Trimble. “Shut up.”

“Shut what up?”

“Yourself.”

“Come and shut me.”

A warm argument ensued, which knocked over the table, and was only composed by my reminding the club that we didn’t want to disturb the peace of the new cock of the house on his first night.

“All right,” said Langrish, “where was I?—‘English grammar. Purkis, not having paid his subscription, naturally came out too low to be classed, but to give him a lift he was allowed to be stuck in between Trim and Coxhead, who being outsiders at the best of times, had plenty of room for another.’”

“All very well—what sort of howler did you come?” asked the outraged Purkis.

“‘It being considered well to stick one Selkirker into the list, the hon. secretary made room for Corderoy, and is hereby thanked on his retirement.’”

“Hullo!” said I, “don’t say that, Langrish.”

“Fact is,” said Langrish, dropping the minutes, “I’ve got to. I’ve gone down, you see.”

“Oh, but you’ve worked like a cart-horse. I move, Trim seconds, Warminster thirds, Coxhead fourths, Purkis fifths, and the paupers sixth, that old Lang be and hereby is perpetual secretary of the Ph.C.C., and that it’s all rot his retiring.”

“Oh, all serene,” said Langrish, evidently pleased. “That’s your look-out. Where was I?—‘thanked on his retirement, but as nobody else can read his writing, he is hereby asked to hang on, which he hereby does. The meeting then adjourned.’”

We decided to celebrate the evening by a state tea, as which the usual loyal and patriotic toasts were given; of which I will only trouble the reader with one, that delivered by Warminster, the late president.

“It’s a sell, of course, getting down; but we all had a good look in, and Sal’s come out best man this once. We aren’t going to jack it up though, and he’ll have to mind his eye (cheers). After all, what with the mess he made over Tempest’s bills (loud cheers), and the shindy about the guy, and all that rot about the barge, he’s shown he’s fit for the job (laughter). But he’ll have to make a good show-up for Sharpe’s now, or we’ll let him know. We’ve scored a bit of a record, and we don’t want to fool it away (loud cheers), and any fellow who doesn’t put it on doesn’t deserve to be a Ph.C.C. or anything like (prolonged applause). Gentlemen, with these remarks I beg to give the health of ‘the army and navy and reserve forces’ (loud cheers).”

The “reserve forces” were the most striking feature, after all, about the wind-up of the Conversation Club that night.

Before I went to bed I looked in at Tempest’s study, where, to my delight, I found Dicky Brown.

“Hullo, I was just coming to fetch you,” said the new captain. “Don’t you think this a pretty good show for old Plummer?”

“Rather,” said Dicky. “I wonder how he’s getting on!”

“And I wonder if the pond is full up again yet.”

“By the way,” said Tempest, “I’ve never hided you for collaring that pistol of mine. I may as well do it now.”

“Fire away,” said I; “I don’t mind taking a licking from the captain of Low Heath.”

“It sounds queer, doesn’t it?” said Tempest, disarmed by this compliment. “Between you and me, kids, I think we ought to be able to make the thing work next term.”

“Rather,” said I, “only we shall have to keep sitting up to do it.”

“So much the better,” said they.

The End.