CHAPTER IXAN ENDING“Well, Sandy,” said the Doctor to his head prefect the next morning, as he waved the embarrassed Maclaren to a comfortable chair, himself standing with his back to the fire, “I am afraid I have been near making a very bad mistake.” And he related in a few words, without involving Carroll, the revelation that had been made to him the night before.“I see, sir,” said Sandy. “I suppose of course, sir, that you can’t give me the name of your informant. I should like to do a little investigating on my own responsibility.”“No, I can’t,” responded the Head decisively. “And for some reasons I am sorry; but it was such a manly and unselfish course for the boy to take, that I freely forgave him and promised him immunity. So far as he is concerned, I have no doubt that is the best course. But there are others—the ringleaders, I suspect. I want the investigation made, of course, if you can do it without acting on mere suspicion. If you can get me evidence in a straightforward way, I shall act on it. Just now, I wish you would find Deering and ask him to come in here to see me.”“Yes, sir.”Maclaren took his leave then, and the Head Master turned to his morning mail.Within fifteen minutes Tony stood before him. He had not slept well and the strain through which he had been passing had told on his appearance—his freshness was dulled, there were circles under his eyes, his usually eager manner was unwontedly quiet and subdued.The Head put the matter very briefly and frankly. “The evidence seemed very strong against you, my boy,” he concluded; “though I will say in justice to you that even when things looked darkest I never ceased to believe in you. I felt the difficulty, but I saw no way out but to push things on.”“I understand, sir,” Tony replied. The weight was off his heart now, but he was still a little constrained and self-conscious. He was thinking how much he would like to say many things to Reggie and wondering if he could say them when the opportunity came.“I must say, taking it all in all,” resumed the Doctor, “that heredity seems to demonstrate itself afresh in your case with unusual force. You remind me uncommonly of your grandfather. There was an affair at Kingsbridge in his sophomore year—a piece of brutal hazing. It was rather bad, you know, in our day. But Basil had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was captured by the proctors under suspicious though in reality perfectly innocent circumstances, and to save a guilty friend, he maintained a stubborn silence to the verge of expulsion. The friend’s confession at last saved him also.”Tony smiled. “That’s like my grandfather, certainly.”“I admire the trait, you know,” continued Doctor Forester, “but I think there are limits to its indulgence. There is a point, as a boy seldom can realize, at which the authorities must probe very much as the law probes, with a fine disregard for personal feelings. Things that deeply concern the moral welfare of the boys here I must sometimes be inquisitorial about in a way that I little like. I think it well to suffer for a friend, but not to the extent of permitting untruth to establish itself in the minds of those who after all are responsible for your welfare.”“I am afraid, sir, I don’t know where to draw the line.”“No, my boy, I am afraid you do not.”“I think it was pretty fine of Carroll to come to you, sir,” ventured Tony upon this.“Yes, yes, so do I. But I think also that it would have been uncommonly mean if he had not. I have forgiven Reginald, partly because of his confession, partly too because I feel quite confident that he is not the ringleader, that he too has been to some extent a victim. I am not quite sure that he altogether deserves the immunity I have promised him—the complete immunity was a concession to you.”“To me, sir?”“Yes——”“I don’t see how, sir?”“No? Well, perhaps some time you will. You may go now. I am sorry for what has occurred; sorry to have felt it my duty to accuse you, to probeyour replies. You will consider yourself, however, gated until further notice, and so will your friends, Wilson and Lawrence. I do not propose to overlook your breaking bounds at midnight. If that happens again, look out for more serious trouble.”“Thank you, sir.”They shook hands then, and Tony left.How, how, mused the Head, as he looked after the boy, was one to put pressure upon the keenness of that sense of honor; and should one, if one could? Sometimes even a head master realizes that there are limits to his wisdom. One of the indications that the limits of Doctor Forester’s wisdom were less restricted than is often the case was the sincerity with which he frequently questioned his own actions.After dinner Tony found his cronies waiting in the quadrangle back of the Old School for a report on his interview with the Head. He informed them briefly of the fact that he had been cleared and discharged on the several items of the accusations, but also of the penalty of gating that had been imposed upon the trio.“Well, that’s all very nice and jolly,” said Kit, as the three sat and kicked their heels against a bench outside their form common-room, “and really not much of a soak for the provocation we undoubtedly gave ‘em. I only hoped in the old gentleman’s excitement about the shanty that he’d forget our minor sins. Not he! But, on the other hand, considering that they spoiled the best part of the lark and insulted you uncommonly by supposing all manner of rotten immoral things, I’m equally torn as to whether it’snot an awful roast and with wondering how we get off at all, at all.”“Say, kiddo, you are all tangled up,” said Tony, feeling Kit’s head for indications of unsuspected abnormalities.“I am, I confess it,” that youth blandly responded. “Kindly inform Jim and me, who’ve been unfeelingly omitted from these interesting interviews, who was the victim that went so willingly to the sacrifice?”“Well,” interrupted Jimmie, “not Arty Chapin—”“No, Chapin’s a bounder.”“Not Hen Marsh.”“No, Hen’s a shadow of Arty’s, and a poor measly sort of shadow at that.”“Nor Buster Thorndyke.”“Rather not,” assented Kit; “Buster’s just plain garden variety of no good.”“Well, there are other candidates, of course, for the honor; but though nameless I guess we can count on them failing to qualify—all of which rather narrows the possibilities to Reginald Carter Westover Carroll.”“Now look here!” exclaimed Tony. “It’s to Reggie’s credit or I wouldn’t admit it. Reggie’s a peach. I can’t stand for a word against him. He’s made everything all right.”“Oh, Reggie’s all right,” admitted Kit soothingly. “Reggie is certainly all right. Haven’t I always said so? Haven’t I deplored from the very beginning that he was in with such a crowd of bounders. This only proves that he’s too good for them. I only hope,” he added, with mock gravity, “that this will have taught him a lesson and that in the future he will model himself upon us.”Upon this Tony turned and with a powerful swing of his left arm swept Kit out off the bench onto the snow. But Wilson, in his sudden descent, reached out instinctively, grabbed Tony by an arm and a leg, and pulled him down on top of him. Jimmie joyously fell on the heap. For several blissful moments there was wonderful rough-house. Tony emerged at last, sent Jimmie sprawling, and established himself for a brief triumphant moment on Kit’s stomach.“Swear you’ll never tell any of it, or I’ll stuff your mouth full of dirty snow. Swear!”“I swear,” yelled Kit. “Let me up, you white trash! Jim, to the rescue!”But Tony was up and at bay, and by whirlwind sparring was keeping Jimmie at his distance. Kit was ludicrously slow, and had a bad thump on his knee, which he rubbed ruefully as he arose with exaggerated dignity.“Cut it,” he bellowed. “Come on, do let’s crawl back in the sun and be nice and quiet and comfy again.”The other two quickly desisted and helped the wounded warrior to his seat. “I’m sorry, kid,” began Tony. “Didn’t mean to hurt you. Does it hurtsomuch, old man?” he added, teasingly.Kit could not resist, but lumbered forward, despite the thumped knee, and fell afresh on the light-footed Deering.“Keep off, Jim!” yelled Tony, and again they wentcrashing to the ground. “He has got to eat that nice clean white snow.”“No—! I swear,” protested Kit. But they were in for it, and with Jimmie standing by, after a few moments of furious wrestling, both fed the other handfuls of snow, until exhausted with laughter and the effort, they lay supine and called on Lawrence piteously to help them up.“I’m off,” said Jimmie, “call-over bell is ringing, and the Gumshoe’s on deck.”“Oh, hang, oh hang the Gumshoe,” pleaded Kit.They picked themselves up, cheeks glowing, eyes glistening, clothes and hair tossed.“Such is life,” said Wilson, ostentatiously rubbing his knee.At this moment Mr. Roylston emerged from the door of the Old School and was passing them on his way to the Gymnasium to hold call-over. He glanced at their disheveled clothes and paused.“Will you take our names, sir?” asked Lawrence.“Hm—yes,” replied the master at length. “And may I ask, do you propose to wallow for the rest of the afternoon in the dirt and snow?”“Not much else to do, sir,” answered Kit ruefully, “we’re gated.”“Ah!” murmured Mr. Roylston, not making the pretense of concealing his satisfaction, “to whom is the credit of having awarded you with your just deserts? I may ask?”“Certainly, sir,” responded Kit blithely, “the Head.”“Ah, indeed. Well, I will note your names.” And with that he passed quickly on.“Ain’t he the tender-hearted elder brother?” said Kit, with a not altogether pleasant glance in the direction of the master’s retreating figure. “Well, I vote we play fox and geese and keep the amiable Gumshoe chasin’ us through the houses. ‘Twill be our only means of getting exercise.”And fox and geese it was, and Mr. Roylston and they had plenty of exercise, and that night Deering and Lawrence and Wilson had a good long rest as they stood outside of Mr. Roylston’s study-door in Howard House until the clock struck twelve.The gating, however, did not last many weeks, and before long our friends were back at their old haunts again.Sandy Maclaren meanwhile was pursuing his investigation with both ardor and discretion. He felt certain of his victims, if he only had patience to watch their doings carefully. Chapin and Marsh were in his house, so that he could note their absences up to lights without deliberately spying. After lights Sandy was at a loss, for he did not believe in going into a boy’s bedroom to see if he were there. Nor on the other hand was it possible often to visit the shanty. However he gained an unexpected ally in his house master, Mr. Roylston. The doings at the shanty in Lovel’s Woods had come to that gentleman’s ears; he also had his suspicions; and he did not share Sandy’s scruples about quietly making sure half-an-hour after lights that none of his boys were out of their rooms.He came one evening toward the end of the term to Maclaren’s study about half-past ten. Sandy was almost ready for bed. “Chapin and Marsh are not in their rooms, Maclaren,” he said.“What, sir?” exclaimed Sandy, starting to his feet, “how do you know, sir?”“That is of no consequence. Chapin and Marsh are out of their rooms.”“Do you know where they are, sir?”“I have some reason to suspect that they are playing poker in that wretched shanty in the Woods.”“Oh, but we raided that, you know; took all their stuff,—if it was they.”“Yes, but a clever criminal goes directly back to commit his crimes in the same place. After a little time he is nowhere so safe. Most fools think lightning never strikes in the same place twice. I have suspected them for some time, but I have not before been sure that they were missing. I am sorry to ask you to make a journey over to the Woods at this time of night, but I cannot well leave the House. You will probably find them, I think; in which case you will direct them to report to me at once. I will wait up until your return.”Poor Sandy began to pull on his clothes. He did not like the job, not merely because it was cold and dark, but because he would have preferred to have received the information from another master. He was not adverse to catching Chapin and Marsh, if he was to catch them, but he felt a little sorry for himself as well as them that it all had to come on such a night. He routed out Larry Cummings to go withthem, and they started on the dismal journey. After all, duty was duty, they reflected; and if that gang could be broken up it would be a good thing for the school.It was nearly midnight when Sandy, Larry and their victims—Chapin, Thorndyke and Marsh—returned to Mr. Roylston’s study. The master received them with a quiet satisfaction. It was a good, and thought Sandy a little unkindly, an easy night’s work for him.“You will all retire at once,” he said in grave judicial tones, “and in the morning you will accompany me to the Rectory.”It was a clear case for the Head Master on the morrow, though he singularly failed to congratulate Mr. Roylston on the success of his detective work. He suspended judgment until he could talk with Mr. Morris about Reggie Carroll’s connection with the affair.Morris, when the Head had sent for him, was convinced that Carroll deserved the leniency; that there were chances for him in the school of making good that did not exist for Chapin, that were doubtful for Thorndyke and Marsh. Carroll certainly had improved, markedly improved, since his confession. He had broken, Morris felt, with his old crowd.“Besides,” he added, “as for Chapin there is an old score against him that should perhaps weigh with you in your decision, Doctor Forester.”“Yes?—what is that?”Morris told the story of the Boxford game of the year before.“Ah, I see,” said Doctor Forester, and he did seewith an admirable lucidity. “And Deering held his tongue about that too?”“About that too,” answered Morris.“Unusual boy!”“A very fine boy, sir.”“Yes, a fine boy. Well, I think that settles it. After Chapin is gone I shall tell the prefects the whole story, and I think perhaps it will be well that the school should know it too, at least through them. We can trust them to do justice to the football episode, anyway.”“I agree with you, sir,—now; but for a long time I wanted to let things take their course. It has been good for Deering. It has deepened his easy-going pleasant nature; or rather it has served to bring out the deep things that are in his nature.”“Yes, yes—that was right, I dare say. But that you have told me now makes my course perfectly clear. I am glad you have done so.”Chapin was shortly summoned to the Rectory. He had a brief and uncomfortable interview with Doctor Forester, and an hour later he boarded a train bound for Coventry, and was heard of at Deal School no more. Marsh and Thorndyke and one or two others were suspended for the rest of the term, and after this house-cleaning the school settled down to its normal life.One afternoon not long after these events Doctor Forester paused on the terrace of the Old School and looked over the playing-fields. The snows had melted, the frost was out of the ground, it was one of the first warm days of the Spring shortly before theEaster vacation, and the boys were playing ball for the first time, rushing the season as they commonly do. Doctor Forester liked baseball, for it gave him less anxiety than some other games.Morris had joined him as he stood on the terrace in the pleasant sunlight. Morris was an Old Boy, and the Head had a special feeling for him that for the most part he carefully concealed. He welcomed him now with a sympathetic nod.Just below them a rod or so away Jimmie Lawrence and Tony Deering were passing ball.“Good to see the baseball starting, eh? Who are those two boys just below us? Deering and Lawrence? I am getting blind, I fancy. I wish Deering were as good a baseball player as he is a good football player. Oh, yes, I know you like the other game. Look, how quick he is! I like that. By the by, I have thought often of what you told me of his keeping his mouth shut about Chapin’s trick in the Boxford game. It was like a Deering. His grandfather was just such a chivalrous fool—such a good Christian, Morris! I like a boy like that here. He will do something. I wonder what?”“Who knows, sir? We can count on him, I feel sure of that.”“And that is much. One muses of these boys now and then—what the future has for them. Yes—you do, I know. I envy you sometimes knowing them as you can and do. How much one wants to do for them, eh? That Deering, now—we must watch him. He will be worth while.”“Yes, I think so. We shall see, sir, just how.”“Yes, we shall see.” And still musing, the Doctor turned away.Morris stayed on for a long time watching the boys on the playing-fields.The Head Master had turned as he was about to enter the Old School and glanced again at his younger colleague, and a smile of quiet affection and satisfaction stole over his keen kindly face.CHAPTER XFINCHOne stormy night in the early autumn, two years after the events narrated in the last chapter, a group of masters were sitting in their common-room at Deal School. Supper was just concluded; a cheerful fire burned on the hearth, and the crackling of the flames was a pleasing contrast to the roar of the wind and the dashing of the rain without. Two of the masters were playing chess under the light of a lamp, the others were sitting before the fire, smoking and talking.“Well,” remarked Beverly, one of the younger men, noted among his colleagues for his readiness to express an opinion upon any subject in the universe, “what do you think of the Head’s latest departure?”Mr. Roylston pursed his thin close-shaven lips as though he were about to reply, but before doing so he carefully pressed the tobacco into his pipe, and struck a match and applied it. “I don’t know,” he muttered, between the puffs, in rather a high jerky voice, “that it makes very much difference what we think. But I am inclined to characterize it as an arrival rather than a departure.”“It is certainly very much with us,” commented Gray, with an absent-minded glance into the fire.“Well, I predict its speedy extinction,” resumed Beverly. “It is difficult for me to conceive how the Doctor can suppose that Finch will ever get on here. Upon my word, did you ever see such an object?”“Uponmyword, I did not,” answered Gray. “But here it certainly is, and in a sense it is bound to get on. I am entrusted with its table manners, if one may speak of what does not exist.”“I believe that Morris is to have it in his house,” said Roylston, looking over at the chess players.“It? who? Oh, you are talking about Finch, eh? Queer little duffer, isn’t he?”“Queer?” murmured Beverly in a tone that spoke volumes of intense pity for the limits of Morris’s vocabulary. “Perhaps you can really tell us something about it, Mr. Morris?”“Nothing much, I’m afraid,” Morris replied. “The Doctor has some special interest,—he’s a trust, I understand, from a very old friend. It is very much up to us, I fancy, to help make things easy for the poor kid. I shall speak to some of the boys in my house about him, and ask them to go out of their way to be a bit decent.”“Speedy execution were the more merciful, I should say,” commented Mr. Roylston, taking a comfortable pull at his pipe.“Nonsense! he’ll make good,” said Morris, a shade of irritation crossing his face, “that is, if we give him half a chance.”“I don’t precisely see why we should be supposed to give him less or more chance than we give to everyboy,” said Beverly, a little pompously. “I am sure we all——”“Wecan’t perhaps,” Roylston rejoined, “but doubtless Mr. Morris, who has the advantage of certain confidential relations with the boys of his house which we do not enjoy, probably can.”“Oh, come, Roylston,” exclaimed Morris, making a bad move in his game with Stenton. “Of course, I shall use my influence with the boys in my house to make things easy for poor Finch. Why should I not?”“Echo answers ‘why,’” replied Mr. Roylston, somewhat annoyed; and then he added with an air of indulgence, “but be assured, my dear fellow, I have no intention of criticising your extraordinary theories afresh.”“Thank you,” said Morris and gave his attention to his game. “Your move, Stenton, I think.”Mr. Roylston sent a characteristic glance of patient suffering in the direction of his colleague, and then held up his hands for the benefit of the company as though to say, “You see how useless it is to discuss these things with our friend over there.” He then bade them all a tart good-night, and went off to keep his duty in the schoolroom.His way led across the Gymnasium. There, in the center of a crowd of boys engaged in making his life miserable, stood the new boy, Finch, who had just been the subject of conversation in the masters’ common-room. He was a sorry specimen of a boy, to be sure; the sorriest probably that through mistaken kindness had ever found his way to a great schoolof wholesome, healthy youngsters. He was thin, he was pallid, he was ugly. He had the face of a little old man, weak light eyes, a high dome-like forehead, over which straggled little wisps of thin yellow hair. His ill-formed mouth was parted now in a snarl half of rage, half of terror, as he glanced from one jibing boy to another, like a hunted rat. His clothes were too small for him, and his thin little legs, which long since should have been concealed by long trousers, were incased in bright red knitted stockings. These had acted upon the imagination of his schoolmates like the proverbial red rag upon a bull, and were the subject of the stream of jibes and jokes that were being heaped upon him. It was not a representative crowd of boys that surrounded him, but a miscellaneous crew of lower schoolers who had followed in the wake of a fat Third Form boy, known as Ducky Thornton, the self-appointed chief inquisitor of the moment. The noise was unduly loud, consisting for the most part of catcalls and strange and weird squeaks from the throats of a dozen excited small boys. It was the sort of commotion that under ordinary circumstances Mr. Roylston would have promptly checked and rewarded with a liberal distribution of pensums. Such indeed had been his immediate impulse, but as he started to carry out his purpose, he had caught sight of Finch and there had flashed into his mind the irritating exchange of words about him in the common-room. He checked the feeling of compassion for the new boy and his annoyance at the disturbance, and passed quickly into the cloister that led into the schoolroom.Fortunately for Finch a more resolute champion now appeared upon the scene. It was Kit Wilson—on his way across the Gymnasium. Quick as a flash he took in the situation, and, crossing the room with a leap and a stride, he landed in the midst of the party of “horsers.” He grabbed one small boy by the collar of his coat and sent him spinning out into the middle of the Gymnasium, another he pushed out of his way with something of his football manner, and ended by applying a kick to Ducky Thornton that even that well-cushioned individual was apt to remember. “Here, you infernal cads!” he cried, “cut this out! what the deuce do you think you’re up to?” The crowd of small boys scattered instantly, leaving poor Ducky, with rueful face and painful limp, to hobble away by himself, pursued by a volley of Kit’s variegated vocabulary that was more picturesque than elegant.Finch stood still where Kit had found him as if transfixed. He was relieved, thankful for the rescue, but incapable of saying so. His face looked hideous in the bright glare of the electric light, drawn as it was by anguish and blazing with what seemed like superhuman hate. Kit stared at him a moment, amazed by the passion of the boy’s face; almost shocked by its weird uncanny venom. Conquering the instinctive feeling of revulsion, he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You poor little duffer,” he said, “I’m sorry for you. Don’t take it too hard. They’re a crowd of little curs, but their bark is worse than their bite.”“I hate them,” snarled the boy. “I hate them.” Then his face relaxed, and the light faded in his little blue eyes, as they suffused with tears. “Thank you all the same,” he added, his voice still trembling with passion.“What’s your name?” asked Kit.“Jacob Finch.”“Oh! you’re the new boy, eh? Where do you come from?”“Coventry. I wish I was back. I can’t stand it here.”“Rot!” exclaimed Kit, with the easy-going philosophy of popularity and success. “Cut along to the schoolroom now, and let me know if Ducky Thornton bothers you again.”“All right,” Finch murmured, and dropping his head, he stole off through the cloister, keeping well within the shadow of the wall until he reached the schoolroom. There he was received by Mr. Roylston, who showed him a seat, and immediately afterwards called the room to order.Kit, having watched Finch out of sight, stalked off grandly across the Gymnasium, dropping a word of warning here and there to the groups of small boys who had watched the encounter from a safe distance. Ducky Thornton witnessed his departure from an angle in the wall, whither he had retired with a few of his satellites. His face, at no time very attractive, wore now a most repulsive expression of contempt. “By golly,” was his comment, “he’s the swell head, ain’t he? I wonder if he hurts?”“Not as much as you do, Ducky, I guess,” squeaked a premature wit and got his ears cuffed for his effort.A few minutes later Wilson dropped into the study of Number Five Standerland, which Deering and Lawrence were sharing that year, Carroll having been promoted to the Old School, a privilege of the Sixth. The two boys were sitting at their desks, books open, it is true, but rather deeper in football than Virgil. Kit received a characteristic welcome.“Hello, old sport, drape yourself on a couch, and listen to this fairy tale about the pious Æneas. Tony’s boned it out.”“Oh, chuck the stuff!” growled Kit. “I’ll do it after breakfast with a trot. I’ve only got ten minutes now for a pow-wow. Have you seen the new kid?”“Well, rather,” answered Jimmie, “the Doctor has loaded him onto Bill. He’s to have Number Three single right across the hall. The little beast is in the Fifth.”“Pon honor?” said Kit. “Why, he looks like a sub-First Former. I just rescued him from a crowd of Lower Schoolers that were putting it to him particularly nastily. I gave Ducky Thornton, that wallowing white elephant of the Third, a kick that I reckon’ll make his sitting down uncomfortable for a week. But Finch is such a gloomy little toad that I was almost sorry I’d done it.”Tony smiled. “That must have been good fun. But I am sorry the Doctor took him here; can’t understand it, in fact. He’ll never do, poor rat!”“Well, hardly.”“By the by, kiddo, what——Come in!” he interrupted himself to cry in response to a knock at the door.Morris entered and was welcomed by the boys in a manner that bespoke both familiarity and deference. The master waved them back into their comfortable chairs. “Thanks, no; I am not going to rob the lot of you of these precious moments of study. I should like to speak to you, Tony, for a few minutes in my study.”“Certainly, sir.” Tony followed the master down the hallway to the familiar cheerful study—Tony had really got to know his house-master more intimately the year before.“Make yourself comfortable,” said Morris, “for I want to talk with you for a little while—quite seriously.”Tony sat down upon the couch, leaned back amongst the pillows and put his hands beneath his head, looking up at Morris who stood on the hearth rug with his back to the open wood fire. “All right, O wise man!” he laughed. “I am very comfy, and all attention.”Morris looked down at the boy and seemed to study him afresh. He liked Deering very much indeed, better he felt than he had ever liked a boy before. And as he stood there, he told himself that the reason was, that beside Tony’s personal charm, the brightness and lovableness of his sunshiny open nature, there were depths of feeling and purpose that one ordinarily did not find. “Well, Tony, I want you to do something—something quite out of the ordinary—something indeed that I think will be particularly hard and disagreeable.”“What is it?” asked the boy, “I don’t exactlycrave hardship, but there isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do if you specially asked me.”“Well, I count on that; that’s partly the reason I am asking you rather than another. I want you to make a special effort to look out for Finch.”“Gee whiz! Mr. Morris,” exclaimed Tony, sitting upright, and assuming an expression of exaggerated horror. “I’ve seen him! I’ll be decent, of course. But really, I don’t see how I can possibly stand taking that little scarecrow under my wing. Why, Jimmie and Kit would——”“Oh, yes, I know their attitude; but you know as well as I that they would back you up in the matter. I want you to be more than decent. The boy is here, and the Head has strong reasons for wanting him to make good. As you know, all the chances are against his doing so. In truth, I should say, that the boy has no chance unless an old boy, more or less of your caliber, will definitely take him up and befriend him.”“Nobody is going to hurt him,” protested Tony. “Why, Kit just now rescued him from Ducky Thornton and a crowd of little bullies.”“That’s good,” answered Morris, “but that is only a drop in the bucket. That boy’s life will be unbearable unless he makes a friend. And I do not believe there is a boy in the school who would be his friend,really his friend,—except you.”“His friend, Mr. Morris?...!”“Nothing else helps you know—nothing.”Tony grew serious. He thought of what friendship had meant to him:—Jimmie—his eyes moistened at the thought of him; Carroll; Morris, the man beforehim, whose deep kind gray eyes were looking at him now so confidently. “Mr. Morris,” he said at last, “you do know me, I reckon; you bank on my being clay in your hands.” Then he laughed, “What’s the brat’s name?—Pinch?”“No, Finch, Jacob Finch.”“Well, all right—Finch.... The dickens fly away with him. Good-night, maestro.”“Good-night, my boy.” They clasped hands for a moment, and Tony was gone.“I am an ass,” he said, flinging himself on the couch by the side of Kit, when he returned to Number Five. “I’ve promised Bill to be a guardian angel to that new kid.”CHAPTER XITHE DISCOMFITURE OF DUCKY THORNTONFifth Form year in a school like Deal usually marks a decided change in the boys; they have grown more mature, have become more serious in various ways, have definitely put away—the most of them—the childish things of school life, and are to be counted as standing for the most part on the side of the powers of law and order. They are used to the ways of the place, are thoroughly imbued with the school spirit and tradition, and consciously aim at keeping themselves and their fellows in the good old ways.Tony’s first year at Deal in the Third Form, as we have seen, had been a varied one. After the exciting events of the Michaelmas and Lent terms, his life had pursued a more even tenor of way. Chapin’s detection and expulsion had served to reinstate Deering in the confidence of both masters and boys, and his genial sunshiny nature was winning for him a deserved popularity. He and Carroll, the latter now a Sixth Former, though they no longer roomed together, were excellent friends, but his real intimates were Kit Wilson and Jimmie Lawrence, the latter of whom shared his room in Standerland, while Kit lived but a few doors down the corridor. With Mr. Morris, the house master, he was on very good terms indeed.He had made his place in the football team in Fourth Form year, and had played a good game but he had not distinguished himself that year. Now again in the Michaelmas term of the Fifth Form year he was engaged in daily football practice, and was again looking forward to the exciting contest in November.It is scarcely necessary to say that Tony’s two friends had not taken his declaration of making a friend of Finch very seriously, though they decided with him in a good-natured way to protect the new boy from the thoughtless or ill-natured hazing he was like to get at the hands of lower formers.A night or so after Finch’s arrival at school, Reggie Carroll dropped in at Number Five Standerland to see his younger friends. Jimmie was working in the study, but Tony had turned in early. Reggie stuck his head into the door of Deering’s bedroom and discovered its occupant, having got ready for bed, just about to turn off the light. “Come in,” said Tony, “and find something comfortable to sit down on—the bed will do. Where are you wandering this time of night?”“Well, it is only nine o’clock,” said Reggie, “and as a matter of fact, I was wandering over to have a ‘jaw’ with you, as you sometimes so delicately term a heart to heart talk.”“Well, fire away,” said Tony, but in tones that did not hint he expected to find the conversation interesting. He was rather pensive, unwontedly silent, and looked out of his window over the dark fields.Reggie essayed several topics of conversation, butwithout much success. He was about to take his leave, when something in Tony’s expression arrested his attention.“What on earth is the matter with you, boy?” he asked at last, as he playfully grabbed Tony by the shoulder and began to maul him.“Let up!” cried Tony. “Can’t you see I’m thinking out the problems of the universe? You mess me all up and I don’t know where I’m at.”“Well, compose yourself, and let me offer you advice.”“Let up then, do! And consider the appropriateness of the figures of speech, as Gumshoe would say. Bill Morris has been darn white to me——”“Rather,” commented Reggie, with a smile, “we are all green with envy at his whiteness.”“Don’t interrupt; as I was trying to say, Mr. Morris has been exceedingly white to me; so much so that I have often wondered how I might show him I appreciate it. Well, the fact is, he has asked me to do something just lately that I don’t in the least want to do, and I don’t see how in the deuce I am to get out of it.”“Knowing Morris,” commented Carroll, lazily, “I don’t in the least fancy you are going to get out of it. He lays his plans too well. What does he want?”“Have you seen Finch, the new boy?”“Finch?—oh! the kid they call Pinch. Yes, boy, I have seen him; one look was too much. It’s awful.” Then Reggie’s eyes lighted, and he gave an exclamation. “By Jove, I see it all—the whole thing—Bill wants you to be his guardian angel.”“Precisely,” said Tony, with an expression of infinite disgust.“And you, my child, fully mean to be.”“Hang it!” said Tony. “I suppose I do.”For a moment Carroll was silent and his expression changed from one of good-natured raillery to one of subtle sadness.“Poor little devil!” he said at last, “why not?” Tony looked at him to see if he were joking. “Oh, I know I couldn’t do it,” Reggie went on. “I haven’t the knack or the grace, or whatever it is called. But old Bill is right; you have. Why, kiddo, the world’s a hell for a lot of people just because the rest of us, who have had more of a chance, sit tight and comfy and don’t care.”“I suppose it is,” said Tony grimly, “but to tell the truth, I hate to think about such things—for a while yet, anyway.”“There is one thing to be said,” Carroll continued, without paying any attention to Tony’s remark, “if you do it, do it from the bottom up. Make a good job of it.”“It’s sheer asininity,” protested Tony. “I can’t do it. Oh, Reggie, I hate him! he’s a loathsome little reptile.”“Naturally he is that, or Bill would not be so extraordinary on the subject. He doesn’t mess with our affairs very often, you know.”“Yes, I know,” Tony muttered.“Do you chance to know why the Head took him?”“Not really—some family obligation, I believe.The kid was left to him by unspeakable parents who died of disgust at their work.”Carroll smiled. “Have you begun yet?” he asked.“No. I have sworn fifty times a day that I’d have nothing to do with it. And now I am going to get up this blessed minute and go in and have a talk with him. Talk to Jim a bit, and I’ll be back and tell you about it.”“All right,” said Carroll with a smile. Tony jumped out of bed, folded his blue wrapper about him tragically, struck a dramatic attitude, and stalked out of the room. Reggie joined Lawrence in the study.Half an hour later Tony returned.“How’s Pinch?” exclaimed Lawrence.“How did it go?” asked Carroll.Tony flopped down on a couch with an air of exhaustion. “Oh, so, so. I found him greasing on his confounded Virgil in a blue funk for fear I’d come to haze him. I made him read me twenty-five lines to give him a chance to recover himself, while I looked to see if I could find a redeeming feature. But Nature left that out. After a while I began firing questions at him, and when he gradually grew accustomed to the idea that I was only trying to be decent, he thawed a bit, and told me a little about himself. He’s had a tough time generally since he had the misfortune to come into the world at all. His father, who was an old college chum of the Doctor’s, seems to have turned out a sort of a rotter. He did something or other that disgraced them, and then he died and left that kid and his mother to face the music alone. She, poor woman, didn’t last long, andthen the Head stepped in, for old time’s sake, and out of mistaken kindness of his stupid old heart brought Finch here.... All the spirit has been kicked out of him. He’ll do at his books—he read the Virgil pretty well—but he hasn’t the spunk to resent being kicked by a First Former. He seems to live in a perpetual terror of his own shadow. I suspect Ducky Thornton and his gang have been ragging him on the quiet, and if I catch that fat loafer at it, I promise you he’ll be sorry. I think I’ll give him a good kicking to-morrow on general principles.”“Do!” said Reggie, “that will be good for him in any case.... It might be well for you both to keep an eye on Ducky’s whereabouts in the afternoons. I have a notion that he skulks in the fives court till the master of the day is out of the way, and then sneaks back into the house. I have seen him half-a-dozen times inside, and if I had been a prefect I should have kicked him out myself.”“Oh, hang being a prefect where kicking Ducky is concerned. To do that would be good for both our souls.”Carroll laughed. “Well, at it, boy.” He said good-night then, and left them.The next day—a bright fair day in mid-November, only a few days before the Boxford game, when the first team were laying off from practice, Tony and Kit, instead of going out early for a walk with their team-mates, went into the fives court after dinner and began a game, keeping an eye, however, on the on-lookers. It rejoiced them to see Thornton’s fat ill-natured face amongst a crowd of loafers on the benches.The bell rang for call-over, and the boys ran out to report to the master of the day, who was accustomed to take his stand at the Gymnasium door. To-day Mr. Roylston happened to be on duty. The roll call over, most of the boys went off to engage upon some form of exercise or game for the afternoon; but a few lazy ones, disdaining the occupations open to them, straggled back into the fives court to watch the games going on there. Later they would swim in the tank, and then stand for half-an-hour under a steaming hot shower, unless a vigilant master happened to catch them and send them about better things. Among these stragglers was Ducky Thornton.About half-an-hour later Mr. Roylston, beginning to make his rounds of the various houses—a customary duty of the master in charge—came into the fives courts. He stood at the door, noting on his rollslip the boys who were present. By this time only Tony and Kit were playing and some half-a-dozen smaller boys were squabbling on the benches. Tony glanced at the master, and saw beyond him, standing outside on the deserted tennis-courts, the forlorn Finch who looked about him in a bewildered fashion as if he did not know what to do.As Mr. Roylston finished making his notes, he fixed Tony and Kit with a glare of unmitigated contempt. “The delight of doing nothing for some boys,” he said in a sharp, jerky tone, “is only equalled by their incapacity to do anything. Get out into the air, and take some manly exercise, or I shall send the lot of you for a walk to the end of the point.”The younger boys sheepishly slipped out, thescowling Thornton amongst them, who, Tony noticed, stopped outside and spoke to Finch for a moment. Suddenly he realized that Mr. Roylston was still speaking. “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said quickly. “I did not understand that you were speaking to us.”“If you would condescend occasionally, Deering,” said the master, “to abstract yourself from the depths of self-satisfaction into which you are habitually plunged, you would not make it necessary for me to take your inattention for mere bad manners.”Tony flushed, started to speak, bit his tongue, and kept silent. He met Mr. Roylston’s glance unflinchingly. “Did you wish to say anything, sir?” he said at last, with tantalizing politeness.Mr. Roylston’s eyes turned aside from the cool but perfectly courteous gaze with which the boy regarded him. “Merely,” he added, as he turned away, “that I think you older boys—members of the first team at that—set a very bad example by frowsing in the fives court on a glorious autumn afternoon like this.”“Why, it’s the first game we’ve played this year,” cried impulsive Kit. “It’s come to a pretty pass if Fifth Formers can’t play a game of fives without being accused of setting a bad example.”“That will do, Wilson,” exclaimed Mr. Roylston sharply, facing them again with an indignant glare in his eye. “You have not yet got over your unpleasant habit of impertinence when occasion offers. Be good enough, please, to leave the courts immediately.”Kit reached for his coat, and as he did so he flungthe fives ball with a vicious twist against the side of the courts, so that it bounced back with a tremendous spring, and narrowly escaped collision with the master’s head as he was passing through the doorway. But Mr. Roylston, having scored, as he thought, did not give them the satisfaction of looking back. “Gosh!” exclaimed Kit, “I wish it had hit him.”“Wish it had!” said Tony. “Come on; time’s up anyway. Gumshoe’ll go through the Old School now, and we’ll have a look to see what has become of Ducky.... I’ll wager Finch has sneaked back to his own room. He mopes there all free times, and has about fifty marks already for doing it. If Ducky’s not there, we’ll send him out for a run. If Ducky is—well, kiddo—?”“Come on,” said Kit, significantly stuffing a long leathern strap into his trousers pocket.They turned out of the courts. No one was in sight; the small boys under the influence of Mr. Roylston’s “suggestions” had vanished; even Finch, who had been annihilated by a sarcastic phrase as the master passed him, had crept somewhere to hide till it was time for afternoon school. Tony and Kit watched Mr. Roylston until he disappeared into the Old School, then they started on a run for Standerland.“I’ll bet the brute has got Finch in his room. It’s just the time for it; besides Bill has gone over to the Woods with a lot of kids. Softly, Kit,” he said, as they pushed open the big doorway leading into the main hallway of Standerland House. They tiptoed cautiously upstairs, and when they got to the head, stopped to listen, holding their breath.“Sish! what’s that?” whispered Kit.They heard a clear long wail in a high shrill voice—“Pleaseeeee!” ending in a squeal, followed by a deeper guffah, and the sound of a whip’s lash.“Hurry!” said Tony. “We’ll make that bully sweat for this.” Quick as a flash he was at Finch’s door, trying the handle. It was locked; so he pounded vigorously. “Open up!” he called, “and the sooner the better. Open up, you fellows—do you hear?” There was a scuffle within; then silence. Some one crossed the room rapidly, and opened the door. It was a Third Form boy by the name of Clausen—a surly bad-complexioned lad. His face showed white now through the ugly blotches. Tony and Kit stepped quickly within, and closed and locked the door behind them.Finch was sitting on the edge of the bed, whimpering. His coat and shirt were lying on the floor. Across his back were the welts of several long lashes. Another boy—Dunstan, a Fourth Former, in bad odor with the prefects, one of Thornton’s satellites—was by the window, as if he were on the point of jumping out. Fortunately the room was on the second storey of the building. No one else was in sight. Kit grabbed Dunstan and flung him on the bed; but Tony, strangely cool, his eyes glittering, restrained him.“Wait, Wilson,” he said. “Take the key out of the door. Now, you Dunstan, where is Thornton?”The boy did not answer. “Where’s Thornton?” repeated Tony, grasping Dunstan by the neck and wringing it. “He’s here, I know; or he was here. He couldn’t get out. Here, Kit, tie this animal whileI look in the closets,” and he slung a bit of cord to his companion. They made short work of the Fourth Former, who indeed made scarcely any show of resistance; and then, having slung him helpless on the bed, they began to search for Thornton. As Kit opened the closet in Finch’s bedroom, Ducky darted out, and made for the hall door. But Tony was too quick for him. He grasped him from behind, pinioned his arms behind his back, and dug his knees into Thornton’s hips. The fat boy went to the floor like a log, and in a second Tony was kneeling over him with sharp knees digging into the soft flesh about his armpits. Kit gathered the boy’s sprawling feet together and tied them with a big muffler that he took from Finch’s bureau.Finch himself, during the struggle, had stopped crying, and was now putting on his shirt and coat. He had just begun to realize that this was a rescue, not a fresh attack upon himself.“Now, Finch,” said Tony, opening the door into the hall, “cut across to my room, and stay there until we come. Kit, take that little beast Clausen, and kick him down stairs. We won’t bother any further with him.” Kit executed this order with dispatch and thoroughness, and Clausen thanked his stars that he had got off so easily. Having got rid of Finch and Clausen, they relocked the door. “Now, you big fat bully,” said Deering, “you are going to get it. Get up and pull off your coat and shirt.”As Thornton struggled to his feet—the operation was a clumsy one, as his ankles were lashed close together,—he began volubly: “You big bullies!” Buthe did not go far. “Here,” said Kit, “wash his mouth out, Tony.” And Tony washed it out with plenty of Castile soap and very little water. “Now strip!” said Tony. The bully slowly took off his coat, and then his shirt. “It’s not a pretty sight, is it, Kit?” laughed Tony. “Nevertheless it will hurt as much as Finch’s back. Bend over.”“Please, please, let me off. ’Pon honor, I’ll never do it again—I swear—I swear—please don’t lick me; please,pleasedon’t lick—ouch!” He suddenly collapsed with a squeal of anguish, as Tony brought the leathern strap across his shoulders with an unmerciful swish. “You wouldn’t let Finch off when he blubbered, would you? Well, we won’t let you off. Ready? Coming.”“Ouch! ouch!!—oh, I swear—please—oh, you bullies, you—ouch! owhhh!” Then Kit stuffed a towel in his soap-suddy mouth and stilled the noise. When he had been well punished, they flung him on the bed, and let him howl there while they administered a like thrashing to Dunstan. He bore it a little more manfully, and consequently got off more easily. Suddenly they were all startled by a sharp knock on the door. “Gumshoe! by the great horn spoon!” exclaimed Kit. “Yes,” he called, “who is it?”“Open, open this door instantly,” came in the well-known tones of Mr. Ebenezer Roylston. “Open instantly, or I shall send for the servants to break it in.”“All right, sir,” called Kit, addingsotto voce, “It would be a jolly good stunt if we let him do it. Get on your coats,” he hissed at the two Fourth Formers. Instinct prompted them to quickness; but not quick enough to satisfy Mr. Roylston, for the order wasrepeated, and the handle of the door rattled impatiently.Kit unlocked the door at last, and Mr. Roylston entered. “What is the meaning of this unseemly commotion? What are you doing with locked doors when you are supposed to be out? What is the meaning of this strap? Why are these two Fourth Formers here crying? There has been bullying?”Kit laughed. “That’s about it,” he said. An angry flush suffused Mr. Roylston’s countenance, as he exaggerated Kit’s laugh into impertinence. “You are going too far, Wilson. I shall report you to the Head for bullying and gross impertinence. You also, Deering——”“You might as well take the trouble to find out what you are going to report us for,” said Kit.“Shut up, Kit,” said Tony. “If you——”“Silence, Deering,” interrupted Mr. Roylston. “I am perfectly capable of rebuking a boy for insolence without your assistance. You, Thornton and Dunstan, come with me. You, Deering and Wilson, go to your rooms, and wait there until you are sent for.”He waited until they had crossed the hall and gone into Tony’s room; then he took Thornton and Dunstan into Mr. Morris’s study at the end of the hall and was closeted with them for half an hour. Later the boys saw him leave Standerland House, cross the quadrangle and disappear within the Old School. Then they sent Finch back to his room, reconnoitred, but found that Dunstan and Thornton had disappeared.An hour later there came a tap on their door. Kit opened it, and admitted Mr. Roylston. The master took his place with his back toward the window, and made them stand in the light before him. He cleared his throat once or twice, as though he were at a loss quite how to begin. “I have made an investigation,” he said at last, “and have carefully thought over this afternoon’s affair.” He waited as if for a reply, but as the boys made none, he continued in a moment, a little more sharply and confidently. “I find that you are both guilty of the most wanton cruelty to boys younger and smaller than yourselves; though, I understand—they were singularly frank and direct with me—that you are not without what you will probably pretend is justification. Thornton admits that he had been horsing Finch——”“Horsing Finch!” began Kit.“Silence, Wilson; if there is any occasion for either of you to speak, pray, let Deering speak for you. I have endured about as much of your impertinence to-day as I can well stand. You undertook to punish younger boys, and did so cruelly. In my opinion your conduct is indefensible. However, I shall take into consideration your mistaken motives in the matter, and not report you to the Head, as I was at first convinced it was my duty to do. Doctor Forester is wont to deal severely with bullying. Instead, I shall gate you for a month, and require you to do a thousand lines of Virgil apiece for me within the next fortnight.”“Mr. Roylston,” Tony spoke up quickly, to prevent Kit from uttering the ill-chosen words that he feltwere on his lips. “You are probably much misinformed as to the facts, and if you will permit me to say so, with entire respect, you have not asked us a question. As for me, I would very much prefer that you referred the matter to the Head as you suggested.”For once in his life Mr. Roylston was at loss for what to say. He looked at Tony as though he could not believe the evidence of his senses. He started to speak several times, and each time changed his mind. Finally, he said, “I think that I am competent to settle this matter without troubling Doctor Forester. I warn you that refusal to do my impositions will result in the usual penalties. Deliberate and prolonged disobedience will subject you to suspension or expulsion.”“Very well, sir,” said Tony.Mr. Roylston turned thereupon, and with what dignity he could muster, walked out.“By Jove, Tony old boy, you got him. Bless you for keeping me from blurting out. I’d have spoiled it all.”“Yes, kiddo, you certainly would. As a matter of fact, you have not been specially impertinent, considering the provocation; and what’s jolly well certain is that Gumshoe doesn’t want the matter to get to the Head. He knows who’s to blame, but he has it in for us. Painful person, isn’t he? Virgil’ll rot before I do his thousand lines or pay any attention to his gating. I wish he would take us to the Head. Well, I reckon Thornton will let Finch alone now. Let’s find Jimmie, and go and wash the blood off in the tank.”So saying, they locked arms, and went singing “Up above the school-topp’d hill” down the corridor. They met Mr. Morris at the outer door of Standerland House. “Well, you seem to be particularly frisky this afternoon,” said he, “what’s up?”“Absolutely nothing,” laughed Kit; “we’re just two good pure innocent happy schoolboys. Come on, magister; come for a dip with us in the tank.”“Well, wait a second, while I stow sweater and stick, and I’ll be with you.”
CHAPTER IXAN ENDING“Well, Sandy,” said the Doctor to his head prefect the next morning, as he waved the embarrassed Maclaren to a comfortable chair, himself standing with his back to the fire, “I am afraid I have been near making a very bad mistake.” And he related in a few words, without involving Carroll, the revelation that had been made to him the night before.“I see, sir,” said Sandy. “I suppose of course, sir, that you can’t give me the name of your informant. I should like to do a little investigating on my own responsibility.”“No, I can’t,” responded the Head decisively. “And for some reasons I am sorry; but it was such a manly and unselfish course for the boy to take, that I freely forgave him and promised him immunity. So far as he is concerned, I have no doubt that is the best course. But there are others—the ringleaders, I suspect. I want the investigation made, of course, if you can do it without acting on mere suspicion. If you can get me evidence in a straightforward way, I shall act on it. Just now, I wish you would find Deering and ask him to come in here to see me.”“Yes, sir.”Maclaren took his leave then, and the Head Master turned to his morning mail.Within fifteen minutes Tony stood before him. He had not slept well and the strain through which he had been passing had told on his appearance—his freshness was dulled, there were circles under his eyes, his usually eager manner was unwontedly quiet and subdued.The Head put the matter very briefly and frankly. “The evidence seemed very strong against you, my boy,” he concluded; “though I will say in justice to you that even when things looked darkest I never ceased to believe in you. I felt the difficulty, but I saw no way out but to push things on.”“I understand, sir,” Tony replied. The weight was off his heart now, but he was still a little constrained and self-conscious. He was thinking how much he would like to say many things to Reggie and wondering if he could say them when the opportunity came.“I must say, taking it all in all,” resumed the Doctor, “that heredity seems to demonstrate itself afresh in your case with unusual force. You remind me uncommonly of your grandfather. There was an affair at Kingsbridge in his sophomore year—a piece of brutal hazing. It was rather bad, you know, in our day. But Basil had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was captured by the proctors under suspicious though in reality perfectly innocent circumstances, and to save a guilty friend, he maintained a stubborn silence to the verge of expulsion. The friend’s confession at last saved him also.”Tony smiled. “That’s like my grandfather, certainly.”“I admire the trait, you know,” continued Doctor Forester, “but I think there are limits to its indulgence. There is a point, as a boy seldom can realize, at which the authorities must probe very much as the law probes, with a fine disregard for personal feelings. Things that deeply concern the moral welfare of the boys here I must sometimes be inquisitorial about in a way that I little like. I think it well to suffer for a friend, but not to the extent of permitting untruth to establish itself in the minds of those who after all are responsible for your welfare.”“I am afraid, sir, I don’t know where to draw the line.”“No, my boy, I am afraid you do not.”“I think it was pretty fine of Carroll to come to you, sir,” ventured Tony upon this.“Yes, yes, so do I. But I think also that it would have been uncommonly mean if he had not. I have forgiven Reginald, partly because of his confession, partly too because I feel quite confident that he is not the ringleader, that he too has been to some extent a victim. I am not quite sure that he altogether deserves the immunity I have promised him—the complete immunity was a concession to you.”“To me, sir?”“Yes——”“I don’t see how, sir?”“No? Well, perhaps some time you will. You may go now. I am sorry for what has occurred; sorry to have felt it my duty to accuse you, to probeyour replies. You will consider yourself, however, gated until further notice, and so will your friends, Wilson and Lawrence. I do not propose to overlook your breaking bounds at midnight. If that happens again, look out for more serious trouble.”“Thank you, sir.”They shook hands then, and Tony left.How, how, mused the Head, as he looked after the boy, was one to put pressure upon the keenness of that sense of honor; and should one, if one could? Sometimes even a head master realizes that there are limits to his wisdom. One of the indications that the limits of Doctor Forester’s wisdom were less restricted than is often the case was the sincerity with which he frequently questioned his own actions.After dinner Tony found his cronies waiting in the quadrangle back of the Old School for a report on his interview with the Head. He informed them briefly of the fact that he had been cleared and discharged on the several items of the accusations, but also of the penalty of gating that had been imposed upon the trio.“Well, that’s all very nice and jolly,” said Kit, as the three sat and kicked their heels against a bench outside their form common-room, “and really not much of a soak for the provocation we undoubtedly gave ‘em. I only hoped in the old gentleman’s excitement about the shanty that he’d forget our minor sins. Not he! But, on the other hand, considering that they spoiled the best part of the lark and insulted you uncommonly by supposing all manner of rotten immoral things, I’m equally torn as to whether it’snot an awful roast and with wondering how we get off at all, at all.”“Say, kiddo, you are all tangled up,” said Tony, feeling Kit’s head for indications of unsuspected abnormalities.“I am, I confess it,” that youth blandly responded. “Kindly inform Jim and me, who’ve been unfeelingly omitted from these interesting interviews, who was the victim that went so willingly to the sacrifice?”“Well,” interrupted Jimmie, “not Arty Chapin—”“No, Chapin’s a bounder.”“Not Hen Marsh.”“No, Hen’s a shadow of Arty’s, and a poor measly sort of shadow at that.”“Nor Buster Thorndyke.”“Rather not,” assented Kit; “Buster’s just plain garden variety of no good.”“Well, there are other candidates, of course, for the honor; but though nameless I guess we can count on them failing to qualify—all of which rather narrows the possibilities to Reginald Carter Westover Carroll.”“Now look here!” exclaimed Tony. “It’s to Reggie’s credit or I wouldn’t admit it. Reggie’s a peach. I can’t stand for a word against him. He’s made everything all right.”“Oh, Reggie’s all right,” admitted Kit soothingly. “Reggie is certainly all right. Haven’t I always said so? Haven’t I deplored from the very beginning that he was in with such a crowd of bounders. This only proves that he’s too good for them. I only hope,” he added, with mock gravity, “that this will have taught him a lesson and that in the future he will model himself upon us.”Upon this Tony turned and with a powerful swing of his left arm swept Kit out off the bench onto the snow. But Wilson, in his sudden descent, reached out instinctively, grabbed Tony by an arm and a leg, and pulled him down on top of him. Jimmie joyously fell on the heap. For several blissful moments there was wonderful rough-house. Tony emerged at last, sent Jimmie sprawling, and established himself for a brief triumphant moment on Kit’s stomach.“Swear you’ll never tell any of it, or I’ll stuff your mouth full of dirty snow. Swear!”“I swear,” yelled Kit. “Let me up, you white trash! Jim, to the rescue!”But Tony was up and at bay, and by whirlwind sparring was keeping Jimmie at his distance. Kit was ludicrously slow, and had a bad thump on his knee, which he rubbed ruefully as he arose with exaggerated dignity.“Cut it,” he bellowed. “Come on, do let’s crawl back in the sun and be nice and quiet and comfy again.”The other two quickly desisted and helped the wounded warrior to his seat. “I’m sorry, kid,” began Tony. “Didn’t mean to hurt you. Does it hurtsomuch, old man?” he added, teasingly.Kit could not resist, but lumbered forward, despite the thumped knee, and fell afresh on the light-footed Deering.“Keep off, Jim!” yelled Tony, and again they wentcrashing to the ground. “He has got to eat that nice clean white snow.”“No—! I swear,” protested Kit. But they were in for it, and with Jimmie standing by, after a few moments of furious wrestling, both fed the other handfuls of snow, until exhausted with laughter and the effort, they lay supine and called on Lawrence piteously to help them up.“I’m off,” said Jimmie, “call-over bell is ringing, and the Gumshoe’s on deck.”“Oh, hang, oh hang the Gumshoe,” pleaded Kit.They picked themselves up, cheeks glowing, eyes glistening, clothes and hair tossed.“Such is life,” said Wilson, ostentatiously rubbing his knee.At this moment Mr. Roylston emerged from the door of the Old School and was passing them on his way to the Gymnasium to hold call-over. He glanced at their disheveled clothes and paused.“Will you take our names, sir?” asked Lawrence.“Hm—yes,” replied the master at length. “And may I ask, do you propose to wallow for the rest of the afternoon in the dirt and snow?”“Not much else to do, sir,” answered Kit ruefully, “we’re gated.”“Ah!” murmured Mr. Roylston, not making the pretense of concealing his satisfaction, “to whom is the credit of having awarded you with your just deserts? I may ask?”“Certainly, sir,” responded Kit blithely, “the Head.”“Ah, indeed. Well, I will note your names.” And with that he passed quickly on.“Ain’t he the tender-hearted elder brother?” said Kit, with a not altogether pleasant glance in the direction of the master’s retreating figure. “Well, I vote we play fox and geese and keep the amiable Gumshoe chasin’ us through the houses. ‘Twill be our only means of getting exercise.”And fox and geese it was, and Mr. Roylston and they had plenty of exercise, and that night Deering and Lawrence and Wilson had a good long rest as they stood outside of Mr. Roylston’s study-door in Howard House until the clock struck twelve.The gating, however, did not last many weeks, and before long our friends were back at their old haunts again.Sandy Maclaren meanwhile was pursuing his investigation with both ardor and discretion. He felt certain of his victims, if he only had patience to watch their doings carefully. Chapin and Marsh were in his house, so that he could note their absences up to lights without deliberately spying. After lights Sandy was at a loss, for he did not believe in going into a boy’s bedroom to see if he were there. Nor on the other hand was it possible often to visit the shanty. However he gained an unexpected ally in his house master, Mr. Roylston. The doings at the shanty in Lovel’s Woods had come to that gentleman’s ears; he also had his suspicions; and he did not share Sandy’s scruples about quietly making sure half-an-hour after lights that none of his boys were out of their rooms.He came one evening toward the end of the term to Maclaren’s study about half-past ten. Sandy was almost ready for bed. “Chapin and Marsh are not in their rooms, Maclaren,” he said.“What, sir?” exclaimed Sandy, starting to his feet, “how do you know, sir?”“That is of no consequence. Chapin and Marsh are out of their rooms.”“Do you know where they are, sir?”“I have some reason to suspect that they are playing poker in that wretched shanty in the Woods.”“Oh, but we raided that, you know; took all their stuff,—if it was they.”“Yes, but a clever criminal goes directly back to commit his crimes in the same place. After a little time he is nowhere so safe. Most fools think lightning never strikes in the same place twice. I have suspected them for some time, but I have not before been sure that they were missing. I am sorry to ask you to make a journey over to the Woods at this time of night, but I cannot well leave the House. You will probably find them, I think; in which case you will direct them to report to me at once. I will wait up until your return.”Poor Sandy began to pull on his clothes. He did not like the job, not merely because it was cold and dark, but because he would have preferred to have received the information from another master. He was not adverse to catching Chapin and Marsh, if he was to catch them, but he felt a little sorry for himself as well as them that it all had to come on such a night. He routed out Larry Cummings to go withthem, and they started on the dismal journey. After all, duty was duty, they reflected; and if that gang could be broken up it would be a good thing for the school.It was nearly midnight when Sandy, Larry and their victims—Chapin, Thorndyke and Marsh—returned to Mr. Roylston’s study. The master received them with a quiet satisfaction. It was a good, and thought Sandy a little unkindly, an easy night’s work for him.“You will all retire at once,” he said in grave judicial tones, “and in the morning you will accompany me to the Rectory.”It was a clear case for the Head Master on the morrow, though he singularly failed to congratulate Mr. Roylston on the success of his detective work. He suspended judgment until he could talk with Mr. Morris about Reggie Carroll’s connection with the affair.Morris, when the Head had sent for him, was convinced that Carroll deserved the leniency; that there were chances for him in the school of making good that did not exist for Chapin, that were doubtful for Thorndyke and Marsh. Carroll certainly had improved, markedly improved, since his confession. He had broken, Morris felt, with his old crowd.“Besides,” he added, “as for Chapin there is an old score against him that should perhaps weigh with you in your decision, Doctor Forester.”“Yes?—what is that?”Morris told the story of the Boxford game of the year before.“Ah, I see,” said Doctor Forester, and he did seewith an admirable lucidity. “And Deering held his tongue about that too?”“About that too,” answered Morris.“Unusual boy!”“A very fine boy, sir.”“Yes, a fine boy. Well, I think that settles it. After Chapin is gone I shall tell the prefects the whole story, and I think perhaps it will be well that the school should know it too, at least through them. We can trust them to do justice to the football episode, anyway.”“I agree with you, sir,—now; but for a long time I wanted to let things take their course. It has been good for Deering. It has deepened his easy-going pleasant nature; or rather it has served to bring out the deep things that are in his nature.”“Yes, yes—that was right, I dare say. But that you have told me now makes my course perfectly clear. I am glad you have done so.”Chapin was shortly summoned to the Rectory. He had a brief and uncomfortable interview with Doctor Forester, and an hour later he boarded a train bound for Coventry, and was heard of at Deal School no more. Marsh and Thorndyke and one or two others were suspended for the rest of the term, and after this house-cleaning the school settled down to its normal life.One afternoon not long after these events Doctor Forester paused on the terrace of the Old School and looked over the playing-fields. The snows had melted, the frost was out of the ground, it was one of the first warm days of the Spring shortly before theEaster vacation, and the boys were playing ball for the first time, rushing the season as they commonly do. Doctor Forester liked baseball, for it gave him less anxiety than some other games.Morris had joined him as he stood on the terrace in the pleasant sunlight. Morris was an Old Boy, and the Head had a special feeling for him that for the most part he carefully concealed. He welcomed him now with a sympathetic nod.Just below them a rod or so away Jimmie Lawrence and Tony Deering were passing ball.“Good to see the baseball starting, eh? Who are those two boys just below us? Deering and Lawrence? I am getting blind, I fancy. I wish Deering were as good a baseball player as he is a good football player. Oh, yes, I know you like the other game. Look, how quick he is! I like that. By the by, I have thought often of what you told me of his keeping his mouth shut about Chapin’s trick in the Boxford game. It was like a Deering. His grandfather was just such a chivalrous fool—such a good Christian, Morris! I like a boy like that here. He will do something. I wonder what?”“Who knows, sir? We can count on him, I feel sure of that.”“And that is much. One muses of these boys now and then—what the future has for them. Yes—you do, I know. I envy you sometimes knowing them as you can and do. How much one wants to do for them, eh? That Deering, now—we must watch him. He will be worth while.”“Yes, I think so. We shall see, sir, just how.”“Yes, we shall see.” And still musing, the Doctor turned away.Morris stayed on for a long time watching the boys on the playing-fields.The Head Master had turned as he was about to enter the Old School and glanced again at his younger colleague, and a smile of quiet affection and satisfaction stole over his keen kindly face.
AN ENDING
“Well, Sandy,” said the Doctor to his head prefect the next morning, as he waved the embarrassed Maclaren to a comfortable chair, himself standing with his back to the fire, “I am afraid I have been near making a very bad mistake.” And he related in a few words, without involving Carroll, the revelation that had been made to him the night before.
“I see, sir,” said Sandy. “I suppose of course, sir, that you can’t give me the name of your informant. I should like to do a little investigating on my own responsibility.”
“No, I can’t,” responded the Head decisively. “And for some reasons I am sorry; but it was such a manly and unselfish course for the boy to take, that I freely forgave him and promised him immunity. So far as he is concerned, I have no doubt that is the best course. But there are others—the ringleaders, I suspect. I want the investigation made, of course, if you can do it without acting on mere suspicion. If you can get me evidence in a straightforward way, I shall act on it. Just now, I wish you would find Deering and ask him to come in here to see me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Maclaren took his leave then, and the Head Master turned to his morning mail.
Within fifteen minutes Tony stood before him. He had not slept well and the strain through which he had been passing had told on his appearance—his freshness was dulled, there were circles under his eyes, his usually eager manner was unwontedly quiet and subdued.
The Head put the matter very briefly and frankly. “The evidence seemed very strong against you, my boy,” he concluded; “though I will say in justice to you that even when things looked darkest I never ceased to believe in you. I felt the difficulty, but I saw no way out but to push things on.”
“I understand, sir,” Tony replied. The weight was off his heart now, but he was still a little constrained and self-conscious. He was thinking how much he would like to say many things to Reggie and wondering if he could say them when the opportunity came.
“I must say, taking it all in all,” resumed the Doctor, “that heredity seems to demonstrate itself afresh in your case with unusual force. You remind me uncommonly of your grandfather. There was an affair at Kingsbridge in his sophomore year—a piece of brutal hazing. It was rather bad, you know, in our day. But Basil had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was captured by the proctors under suspicious though in reality perfectly innocent circumstances, and to save a guilty friend, he maintained a stubborn silence to the verge of expulsion. The friend’s confession at last saved him also.”
Tony smiled. “That’s like my grandfather, certainly.”
“I admire the trait, you know,” continued Doctor Forester, “but I think there are limits to its indulgence. There is a point, as a boy seldom can realize, at which the authorities must probe very much as the law probes, with a fine disregard for personal feelings. Things that deeply concern the moral welfare of the boys here I must sometimes be inquisitorial about in a way that I little like. I think it well to suffer for a friend, but not to the extent of permitting untruth to establish itself in the minds of those who after all are responsible for your welfare.”
“I am afraid, sir, I don’t know where to draw the line.”
“No, my boy, I am afraid you do not.”
“I think it was pretty fine of Carroll to come to you, sir,” ventured Tony upon this.
“Yes, yes, so do I. But I think also that it would have been uncommonly mean if he had not. I have forgiven Reginald, partly because of his confession, partly too because I feel quite confident that he is not the ringleader, that he too has been to some extent a victim. I am not quite sure that he altogether deserves the immunity I have promised him—the complete immunity was a concession to you.”
“To me, sir?”
“Yes——”
“I don’t see how, sir?”
“No? Well, perhaps some time you will. You may go now. I am sorry for what has occurred; sorry to have felt it my duty to accuse you, to probeyour replies. You will consider yourself, however, gated until further notice, and so will your friends, Wilson and Lawrence. I do not propose to overlook your breaking bounds at midnight. If that happens again, look out for more serious trouble.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They shook hands then, and Tony left.
How, how, mused the Head, as he looked after the boy, was one to put pressure upon the keenness of that sense of honor; and should one, if one could? Sometimes even a head master realizes that there are limits to his wisdom. One of the indications that the limits of Doctor Forester’s wisdom were less restricted than is often the case was the sincerity with which he frequently questioned his own actions.
After dinner Tony found his cronies waiting in the quadrangle back of the Old School for a report on his interview with the Head. He informed them briefly of the fact that he had been cleared and discharged on the several items of the accusations, but also of the penalty of gating that had been imposed upon the trio.
“Well, that’s all very nice and jolly,” said Kit, as the three sat and kicked their heels against a bench outside their form common-room, “and really not much of a soak for the provocation we undoubtedly gave ‘em. I only hoped in the old gentleman’s excitement about the shanty that he’d forget our minor sins. Not he! But, on the other hand, considering that they spoiled the best part of the lark and insulted you uncommonly by supposing all manner of rotten immoral things, I’m equally torn as to whether it’snot an awful roast and with wondering how we get off at all, at all.”
“Say, kiddo, you are all tangled up,” said Tony, feeling Kit’s head for indications of unsuspected abnormalities.
“I am, I confess it,” that youth blandly responded. “Kindly inform Jim and me, who’ve been unfeelingly omitted from these interesting interviews, who was the victim that went so willingly to the sacrifice?”
“Well,” interrupted Jimmie, “not Arty Chapin—”
“No, Chapin’s a bounder.”
“Not Hen Marsh.”
“No, Hen’s a shadow of Arty’s, and a poor measly sort of shadow at that.”
“Nor Buster Thorndyke.”
“Rather not,” assented Kit; “Buster’s just plain garden variety of no good.”
“Well, there are other candidates, of course, for the honor; but though nameless I guess we can count on them failing to qualify—all of which rather narrows the possibilities to Reginald Carter Westover Carroll.”
“Now look here!” exclaimed Tony. “It’s to Reggie’s credit or I wouldn’t admit it. Reggie’s a peach. I can’t stand for a word against him. He’s made everything all right.”
“Oh, Reggie’s all right,” admitted Kit soothingly. “Reggie is certainly all right. Haven’t I always said so? Haven’t I deplored from the very beginning that he was in with such a crowd of bounders. This only proves that he’s too good for them. I only hope,” he added, with mock gravity, “that this will have taught him a lesson and that in the future he will model himself upon us.”
Upon this Tony turned and with a powerful swing of his left arm swept Kit out off the bench onto the snow. But Wilson, in his sudden descent, reached out instinctively, grabbed Tony by an arm and a leg, and pulled him down on top of him. Jimmie joyously fell on the heap. For several blissful moments there was wonderful rough-house. Tony emerged at last, sent Jimmie sprawling, and established himself for a brief triumphant moment on Kit’s stomach.
“Swear you’ll never tell any of it, or I’ll stuff your mouth full of dirty snow. Swear!”
“I swear,” yelled Kit. “Let me up, you white trash! Jim, to the rescue!”
But Tony was up and at bay, and by whirlwind sparring was keeping Jimmie at his distance. Kit was ludicrously slow, and had a bad thump on his knee, which he rubbed ruefully as he arose with exaggerated dignity.
“Cut it,” he bellowed. “Come on, do let’s crawl back in the sun and be nice and quiet and comfy again.”
The other two quickly desisted and helped the wounded warrior to his seat. “I’m sorry, kid,” began Tony. “Didn’t mean to hurt you. Does it hurtsomuch, old man?” he added, teasingly.
Kit could not resist, but lumbered forward, despite the thumped knee, and fell afresh on the light-footed Deering.
“Keep off, Jim!” yelled Tony, and again they wentcrashing to the ground. “He has got to eat that nice clean white snow.”
“No—! I swear,” protested Kit. But they were in for it, and with Jimmie standing by, after a few moments of furious wrestling, both fed the other handfuls of snow, until exhausted with laughter and the effort, they lay supine and called on Lawrence piteously to help them up.
“I’m off,” said Jimmie, “call-over bell is ringing, and the Gumshoe’s on deck.”
“Oh, hang, oh hang the Gumshoe,” pleaded Kit.
They picked themselves up, cheeks glowing, eyes glistening, clothes and hair tossed.
“Such is life,” said Wilson, ostentatiously rubbing his knee.
At this moment Mr. Roylston emerged from the door of the Old School and was passing them on his way to the Gymnasium to hold call-over. He glanced at their disheveled clothes and paused.
“Will you take our names, sir?” asked Lawrence.
“Hm—yes,” replied the master at length. “And may I ask, do you propose to wallow for the rest of the afternoon in the dirt and snow?”
“Not much else to do, sir,” answered Kit ruefully, “we’re gated.”
“Ah!” murmured Mr. Roylston, not making the pretense of concealing his satisfaction, “to whom is the credit of having awarded you with your just deserts? I may ask?”
“Certainly, sir,” responded Kit blithely, “the Head.”
“Ah, indeed. Well, I will note your names.” And with that he passed quickly on.
“Ain’t he the tender-hearted elder brother?” said Kit, with a not altogether pleasant glance in the direction of the master’s retreating figure. “Well, I vote we play fox and geese and keep the amiable Gumshoe chasin’ us through the houses. ‘Twill be our only means of getting exercise.”
And fox and geese it was, and Mr. Roylston and they had plenty of exercise, and that night Deering and Lawrence and Wilson had a good long rest as they stood outside of Mr. Roylston’s study-door in Howard House until the clock struck twelve.
The gating, however, did not last many weeks, and before long our friends were back at their old haunts again.
Sandy Maclaren meanwhile was pursuing his investigation with both ardor and discretion. He felt certain of his victims, if he only had patience to watch their doings carefully. Chapin and Marsh were in his house, so that he could note their absences up to lights without deliberately spying. After lights Sandy was at a loss, for he did not believe in going into a boy’s bedroom to see if he were there. Nor on the other hand was it possible often to visit the shanty. However he gained an unexpected ally in his house master, Mr. Roylston. The doings at the shanty in Lovel’s Woods had come to that gentleman’s ears; he also had his suspicions; and he did not share Sandy’s scruples about quietly making sure half-an-hour after lights that none of his boys were out of their rooms.
He came one evening toward the end of the term to Maclaren’s study about half-past ten. Sandy was almost ready for bed. “Chapin and Marsh are not in their rooms, Maclaren,” he said.
“What, sir?” exclaimed Sandy, starting to his feet, “how do you know, sir?”
“That is of no consequence. Chapin and Marsh are out of their rooms.”
“Do you know where they are, sir?”
“I have some reason to suspect that they are playing poker in that wretched shanty in the Woods.”
“Oh, but we raided that, you know; took all their stuff,—if it was they.”
“Yes, but a clever criminal goes directly back to commit his crimes in the same place. After a little time he is nowhere so safe. Most fools think lightning never strikes in the same place twice. I have suspected them for some time, but I have not before been sure that they were missing. I am sorry to ask you to make a journey over to the Woods at this time of night, but I cannot well leave the House. You will probably find them, I think; in which case you will direct them to report to me at once. I will wait up until your return.”
Poor Sandy began to pull on his clothes. He did not like the job, not merely because it was cold and dark, but because he would have preferred to have received the information from another master. He was not adverse to catching Chapin and Marsh, if he was to catch them, but he felt a little sorry for himself as well as them that it all had to come on such a night. He routed out Larry Cummings to go withthem, and they started on the dismal journey. After all, duty was duty, they reflected; and if that gang could be broken up it would be a good thing for the school.
It was nearly midnight when Sandy, Larry and their victims—Chapin, Thorndyke and Marsh—returned to Mr. Roylston’s study. The master received them with a quiet satisfaction. It was a good, and thought Sandy a little unkindly, an easy night’s work for him.
“You will all retire at once,” he said in grave judicial tones, “and in the morning you will accompany me to the Rectory.”
It was a clear case for the Head Master on the morrow, though he singularly failed to congratulate Mr. Roylston on the success of his detective work. He suspended judgment until he could talk with Mr. Morris about Reggie Carroll’s connection with the affair.
Morris, when the Head had sent for him, was convinced that Carroll deserved the leniency; that there were chances for him in the school of making good that did not exist for Chapin, that were doubtful for Thorndyke and Marsh. Carroll certainly had improved, markedly improved, since his confession. He had broken, Morris felt, with his old crowd.
“Besides,” he added, “as for Chapin there is an old score against him that should perhaps weigh with you in your decision, Doctor Forester.”
“Yes?—what is that?”
Morris told the story of the Boxford game of the year before.
“Ah, I see,” said Doctor Forester, and he did seewith an admirable lucidity. “And Deering held his tongue about that too?”
“About that too,” answered Morris.
“Unusual boy!”
“A very fine boy, sir.”
“Yes, a fine boy. Well, I think that settles it. After Chapin is gone I shall tell the prefects the whole story, and I think perhaps it will be well that the school should know it too, at least through them. We can trust them to do justice to the football episode, anyway.”
“I agree with you, sir,—now; but for a long time I wanted to let things take their course. It has been good for Deering. It has deepened his easy-going pleasant nature; or rather it has served to bring out the deep things that are in his nature.”
“Yes, yes—that was right, I dare say. But that you have told me now makes my course perfectly clear. I am glad you have done so.”
Chapin was shortly summoned to the Rectory. He had a brief and uncomfortable interview with Doctor Forester, and an hour later he boarded a train bound for Coventry, and was heard of at Deal School no more. Marsh and Thorndyke and one or two others were suspended for the rest of the term, and after this house-cleaning the school settled down to its normal life.
One afternoon not long after these events Doctor Forester paused on the terrace of the Old School and looked over the playing-fields. The snows had melted, the frost was out of the ground, it was one of the first warm days of the Spring shortly before theEaster vacation, and the boys were playing ball for the first time, rushing the season as they commonly do. Doctor Forester liked baseball, for it gave him less anxiety than some other games.
Morris had joined him as he stood on the terrace in the pleasant sunlight. Morris was an Old Boy, and the Head had a special feeling for him that for the most part he carefully concealed. He welcomed him now with a sympathetic nod.
Just below them a rod or so away Jimmie Lawrence and Tony Deering were passing ball.
“Good to see the baseball starting, eh? Who are those two boys just below us? Deering and Lawrence? I am getting blind, I fancy. I wish Deering were as good a baseball player as he is a good football player. Oh, yes, I know you like the other game. Look, how quick he is! I like that. By the by, I have thought often of what you told me of his keeping his mouth shut about Chapin’s trick in the Boxford game. It was like a Deering. His grandfather was just such a chivalrous fool—such a good Christian, Morris! I like a boy like that here. He will do something. I wonder what?”
“Who knows, sir? We can count on him, I feel sure of that.”
“And that is much. One muses of these boys now and then—what the future has for them. Yes—you do, I know. I envy you sometimes knowing them as you can and do. How much one wants to do for them, eh? That Deering, now—we must watch him. He will be worth while.”
“Yes, I think so. We shall see, sir, just how.”
“Yes, we shall see.” And still musing, the Doctor turned away.
Morris stayed on for a long time watching the boys on the playing-fields.
The Head Master had turned as he was about to enter the Old School and glanced again at his younger colleague, and a smile of quiet affection and satisfaction stole over his keen kindly face.
CHAPTER XFINCHOne stormy night in the early autumn, two years after the events narrated in the last chapter, a group of masters were sitting in their common-room at Deal School. Supper was just concluded; a cheerful fire burned on the hearth, and the crackling of the flames was a pleasing contrast to the roar of the wind and the dashing of the rain without. Two of the masters were playing chess under the light of a lamp, the others were sitting before the fire, smoking and talking.“Well,” remarked Beverly, one of the younger men, noted among his colleagues for his readiness to express an opinion upon any subject in the universe, “what do you think of the Head’s latest departure?”Mr. Roylston pursed his thin close-shaven lips as though he were about to reply, but before doing so he carefully pressed the tobacco into his pipe, and struck a match and applied it. “I don’t know,” he muttered, between the puffs, in rather a high jerky voice, “that it makes very much difference what we think. But I am inclined to characterize it as an arrival rather than a departure.”“It is certainly very much with us,” commented Gray, with an absent-minded glance into the fire.“Well, I predict its speedy extinction,” resumed Beverly. “It is difficult for me to conceive how the Doctor can suppose that Finch will ever get on here. Upon my word, did you ever see such an object?”“Uponmyword, I did not,” answered Gray. “But here it certainly is, and in a sense it is bound to get on. I am entrusted with its table manners, if one may speak of what does not exist.”“I believe that Morris is to have it in his house,” said Roylston, looking over at the chess players.“It? who? Oh, you are talking about Finch, eh? Queer little duffer, isn’t he?”“Queer?” murmured Beverly in a tone that spoke volumes of intense pity for the limits of Morris’s vocabulary. “Perhaps you can really tell us something about it, Mr. Morris?”“Nothing much, I’m afraid,” Morris replied. “The Doctor has some special interest,—he’s a trust, I understand, from a very old friend. It is very much up to us, I fancy, to help make things easy for the poor kid. I shall speak to some of the boys in my house about him, and ask them to go out of their way to be a bit decent.”“Speedy execution were the more merciful, I should say,” commented Mr. Roylston, taking a comfortable pull at his pipe.“Nonsense! he’ll make good,” said Morris, a shade of irritation crossing his face, “that is, if we give him half a chance.”“I don’t precisely see why we should be supposed to give him less or more chance than we give to everyboy,” said Beverly, a little pompously. “I am sure we all——”“Wecan’t perhaps,” Roylston rejoined, “but doubtless Mr. Morris, who has the advantage of certain confidential relations with the boys of his house which we do not enjoy, probably can.”“Oh, come, Roylston,” exclaimed Morris, making a bad move in his game with Stenton. “Of course, I shall use my influence with the boys in my house to make things easy for poor Finch. Why should I not?”“Echo answers ‘why,’” replied Mr. Roylston, somewhat annoyed; and then he added with an air of indulgence, “but be assured, my dear fellow, I have no intention of criticising your extraordinary theories afresh.”“Thank you,” said Morris and gave his attention to his game. “Your move, Stenton, I think.”Mr. Roylston sent a characteristic glance of patient suffering in the direction of his colleague, and then held up his hands for the benefit of the company as though to say, “You see how useless it is to discuss these things with our friend over there.” He then bade them all a tart good-night, and went off to keep his duty in the schoolroom.His way led across the Gymnasium. There, in the center of a crowd of boys engaged in making his life miserable, stood the new boy, Finch, who had just been the subject of conversation in the masters’ common-room. He was a sorry specimen of a boy, to be sure; the sorriest probably that through mistaken kindness had ever found his way to a great schoolof wholesome, healthy youngsters. He was thin, he was pallid, he was ugly. He had the face of a little old man, weak light eyes, a high dome-like forehead, over which straggled little wisps of thin yellow hair. His ill-formed mouth was parted now in a snarl half of rage, half of terror, as he glanced from one jibing boy to another, like a hunted rat. His clothes were too small for him, and his thin little legs, which long since should have been concealed by long trousers, were incased in bright red knitted stockings. These had acted upon the imagination of his schoolmates like the proverbial red rag upon a bull, and were the subject of the stream of jibes and jokes that were being heaped upon him. It was not a representative crowd of boys that surrounded him, but a miscellaneous crew of lower schoolers who had followed in the wake of a fat Third Form boy, known as Ducky Thornton, the self-appointed chief inquisitor of the moment. The noise was unduly loud, consisting for the most part of catcalls and strange and weird squeaks from the throats of a dozen excited small boys. It was the sort of commotion that under ordinary circumstances Mr. Roylston would have promptly checked and rewarded with a liberal distribution of pensums. Such indeed had been his immediate impulse, but as he started to carry out his purpose, he had caught sight of Finch and there had flashed into his mind the irritating exchange of words about him in the common-room. He checked the feeling of compassion for the new boy and his annoyance at the disturbance, and passed quickly into the cloister that led into the schoolroom.Fortunately for Finch a more resolute champion now appeared upon the scene. It was Kit Wilson—on his way across the Gymnasium. Quick as a flash he took in the situation, and, crossing the room with a leap and a stride, he landed in the midst of the party of “horsers.” He grabbed one small boy by the collar of his coat and sent him spinning out into the middle of the Gymnasium, another he pushed out of his way with something of his football manner, and ended by applying a kick to Ducky Thornton that even that well-cushioned individual was apt to remember. “Here, you infernal cads!” he cried, “cut this out! what the deuce do you think you’re up to?” The crowd of small boys scattered instantly, leaving poor Ducky, with rueful face and painful limp, to hobble away by himself, pursued by a volley of Kit’s variegated vocabulary that was more picturesque than elegant.Finch stood still where Kit had found him as if transfixed. He was relieved, thankful for the rescue, but incapable of saying so. His face looked hideous in the bright glare of the electric light, drawn as it was by anguish and blazing with what seemed like superhuman hate. Kit stared at him a moment, amazed by the passion of the boy’s face; almost shocked by its weird uncanny venom. Conquering the instinctive feeling of revulsion, he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You poor little duffer,” he said, “I’m sorry for you. Don’t take it too hard. They’re a crowd of little curs, but their bark is worse than their bite.”“I hate them,” snarled the boy. “I hate them.” Then his face relaxed, and the light faded in his little blue eyes, as they suffused with tears. “Thank you all the same,” he added, his voice still trembling with passion.“What’s your name?” asked Kit.“Jacob Finch.”“Oh! you’re the new boy, eh? Where do you come from?”“Coventry. I wish I was back. I can’t stand it here.”“Rot!” exclaimed Kit, with the easy-going philosophy of popularity and success. “Cut along to the schoolroom now, and let me know if Ducky Thornton bothers you again.”“All right,” Finch murmured, and dropping his head, he stole off through the cloister, keeping well within the shadow of the wall until he reached the schoolroom. There he was received by Mr. Roylston, who showed him a seat, and immediately afterwards called the room to order.Kit, having watched Finch out of sight, stalked off grandly across the Gymnasium, dropping a word of warning here and there to the groups of small boys who had watched the encounter from a safe distance. Ducky Thornton witnessed his departure from an angle in the wall, whither he had retired with a few of his satellites. His face, at no time very attractive, wore now a most repulsive expression of contempt. “By golly,” was his comment, “he’s the swell head, ain’t he? I wonder if he hurts?”“Not as much as you do, Ducky, I guess,” squeaked a premature wit and got his ears cuffed for his effort.A few minutes later Wilson dropped into the study of Number Five Standerland, which Deering and Lawrence were sharing that year, Carroll having been promoted to the Old School, a privilege of the Sixth. The two boys were sitting at their desks, books open, it is true, but rather deeper in football than Virgil. Kit received a characteristic welcome.“Hello, old sport, drape yourself on a couch, and listen to this fairy tale about the pious Æneas. Tony’s boned it out.”“Oh, chuck the stuff!” growled Kit. “I’ll do it after breakfast with a trot. I’ve only got ten minutes now for a pow-wow. Have you seen the new kid?”“Well, rather,” answered Jimmie, “the Doctor has loaded him onto Bill. He’s to have Number Three single right across the hall. The little beast is in the Fifth.”“Pon honor?” said Kit. “Why, he looks like a sub-First Former. I just rescued him from a crowd of Lower Schoolers that were putting it to him particularly nastily. I gave Ducky Thornton, that wallowing white elephant of the Third, a kick that I reckon’ll make his sitting down uncomfortable for a week. But Finch is such a gloomy little toad that I was almost sorry I’d done it.”Tony smiled. “That must have been good fun. But I am sorry the Doctor took him here; can’t understand it, in fact. He’ll never do, poor rat!”“Well, hardly.”“By the by, kiddo, what——Come in!” he interrupted himself to cry in response to a knock at the door.Morris entered and was welcomed by the boys in a manner that bespoke both familiarity and deference. The master waved them back into their comfortable chairs. “Thanks, no; I am not going to rob the lot of you of these precious moments of study. I should like to speak to you, Tony, for a few minutes in my study.”“Certainly, sir.” Tony followed the master down the hallway to the familiar cheerful study—Tony had really got to know his house-master more intimately the year before.“Make yourself comfortable,” said Morris, “for I want to talk with you for a little while—quite seriously.”Tony sat down upon the couch, leaned back amongst the pillows and put his hands beneath his head, looking up at Morris who stood on the hearth rug with his back to the open wood fire. “All right, O wise man!” he laughed. “I am very comfy, and all attention.”Morris looked down at the boy and seemed to study him afresh. He liked Deering very much indeed, better he felt than he had ever liked a boy before. And as he stood there, he told himself that the reason was, that beside Tony’s personal charm, the brightness and lovableness of his sunshiny open nature, there were depths of feeling and purpose that one ordinarily did not find. “Well, Tony, I want you to do something—something quite out of the ordinary—something indeed that I think will be particularly hard and disagreeable.”“What is it?” asked the boy, “I don’t exactlycrave hardship, but there isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do if you specially asked me.”“Well, I count on that; that’s partly the reason I am asking you rather than another. I want you to make a special effort to look out for Finch.”“Gee whiz! Mr. Morris,” exclaimed Tony, sitting upright, and assuming an expression of exaggerated horror. “I’ve seen him! I’ll be decent, of course. But really, I don’t see how I can possibly stand taking that little scarecrow under my wing. Why, Jimmie and Kit would——”“Oh, yes, I know their attitude; but you know as well as I that they would back you up in the matter. I want you to be more than decent. The boy is here, and the Head has strong reasons for wanting him to make good. As you know, all the chances are against his doing so. In truth, I should say, that the boy has no chance unless an old boy, more or less of your caliber, will definitely take him up and befriend him.”“Nobody is going to hurt him,” protested Tony. “Why, Kit just now rescued him from Ducky Thornton and a crowd of little bullies.”“That’s good,” answered Morris, “but that is only a drop in the bucket. That boy’s life will be unbearable unless he makes a friend. And I do not believe there is a boy in the school who would be his friend,really his friend,—except you.”“His friend, Mr. Morris?...!”“Nothing else helps you know—nothing.”Tony grew serious. He thought of what friendship had meant to him:—Jimmie—his eyes moistened at the thought of him; Carroll; Morris, the man beforehim, whose deep kind gray eyes were looking at him now so confidently. “Mr. Morris,” he said at last, “you do know me, I reckon; you bank on my being clay in your hands.” Then he laughed, “What’s the brat’s name?—Pinch?”“No, Finch, Jacob Finch.”“Well, all right—Finch.... The dickens fly away with him. Good-night, maestro.”“Good-night, my boy.” They clasped hands for a moment, and Tony was gone.“I am an ass,” he said, flinging himself on the couch by the side of Kit, when he returned to Number Five. “I’ve promised Bill to be a guardian angel to that new kid.”
FINCH
One stormy night in the early autumn, two years after the events narrated in the last chapter, a group of masters were sitting in their common-room at Deal School. Supper was just concluded; a cheerful fire burned on the hearth, and the crackling of the flames was a pleasing contrast to the roar of the wind and the dashing of the rain without. Two of the masters were playing chess under the light of a lamp, the others were sitting before the fire, smoking and talking.
“Well,” remarked Beverly, one of the younger men, noted among his colleagues for his readiness to express an opinion upon any subject in the universe, “what do you think of the Head’s latest departure?”
Mr. Roylston pursed his thin close-shaven lips as though he were about to reply, but before doing so he carefully pressed the tobacco into his pipe, and struck a match and applied it. “I don’t know,” he muttered, between the puffs, in rather a high jerky voice, “that it makes very much difference what we think. But I am inclined to characterize it as an arrival rather than a departure.”
“It is certainly very much with us,” commented Gray, with an absent-minded glance into the fire.
“Well, I predict its speedy extinction,” resumed Beverly. “It is difficult for me to conceive how the Doctor can suppose that Finch will ever get on here. Upon my word, did you ever see such an object?”
“Uponmyword, I did not,” answered Gray. “But here it certainly is, and in a sense it is bound to get on. I am entrusted with its table manners, if one may speak of what does not exist.”
“I believe that Morris is to have it in his house,” said Roylston, looking over at the chess players.
“It? who? Oh, you are talking about Finch, eh? Queer little duffer, isn’t he?”
“Queer?” murmured Beverly in a tone that spoke volumes of intense pity for the limits of Morris’s vocabulary. “Perhaps you can really tell us something about it, Mr. Morris?”
“Nothing much, I’m afraid,” Morris replied. “The Doctor has some special interest,—he’s a trust, I understand, from a very old friend. It is very much up to us, I fancy, to help make things easy for the poor kid. I shall speak to some of the boys in my house about him, and ask them to go out of their way to be a bit decent.”
“Speedy execution were the more merciful, I should say,” commented Mr. Roylston, taking a comfortable pull at his pipe.
“Nonsense! he’ll make good,” said Morris, a shade of irritation crossing his face, “that is, if we give him half a chance.”
“I don’t precisely see why we should be supposed to give him less or more chance than we give to everyboy,” said Beverly, a little pompously. “I am sure we all——”
“Wecan’t perhaps,” Roylston rejoined, “but doubtless Mr. Morris, who has the advantage of certain confidential relations with the boys of his house which we do not enjoy, probably can.”
“Oh, come, Roylston,” exclaimed Morris, making a bad move in his game with Stenton. “Of course, I shall use my influence with the boys in my house to make things easy for poor Finch. Why should I not?”
“Echo answers ‘why,’” replied Mr. Roylston, somewhat annoyed; and then he added with an air of indulgence, “but be assured, my dear fellow, I have no intention of criticising your extraordinary theories afresh.”
“Thank you,” said Morris and gave his attention to his game. “Your move, Stenton, I think.”
Mr. Roylston sent a characteristic glance of patient suffering in the direction of his colleague, and then held up his hands for the benefit of the company as though to say, “You see how useless it is to discuss these things with our friend over there.” He then bade them all a tart good-night, and went off to keep his duty in the schoolroom.
His way led across the Gymnasium. There, in the center of a crowd of boys engaged in making his life miserable, stood the new boy, Finch, who had just been the subject of conversation in the masters’ common-room. He was a sorry specimen of a boy, to be sure; the sorriest probably that through mistaken kindness had ever found his way to a great schoolof wholesome, healthy youngsters. He was thin, he was pallid, he was ugly. He had the face of a little old man, weak light eyes, a high dome-like forehead, over which straggled little wisps of thin yellow hair. His ill-formed mouth was parted now in a snarl half of rage, half of terror, as he glanced from one jibing boy to another, like a hunted rat. His clothes were too small for him, and his thin little legs, which long since should have been concealed by long trousers, were incased in bright red knitted stockings. These had acted upon the imagination of his schoolmates like the proverbial red rag upon a bull, and were the subject of the stream of jibes and jokes that were being heaped upon him. It was not a representative crowd of boys that surrounded him, but a miscellaneous crew of lower schoolers who had followed in the wake of a fat Third Form boy, known as Ducky Thornton, the self-appointed chief inquisitor of the moment. The noise was unduly loud, consisting for the most part of catcalls and strange and weird squeaks from the throats of a dozen excited small boys. It was the sort of commotion that under ordinary circumstances Mr. Roylston would have promptly checked and rewarded with a liberal distribution of pensums. Such indeed had been his immediate impulse, but as he started to carry out his purpose, he had caught sight of Finch and there had flashed into his mind the irritating exchange of words about him in the common-room. He checked the feeling of compassion for the new boy and his annoyance at the disturbance, and passed quickly into the cloister that led into the schoolroom.
Fortunately for Finch a more resolute champion now appeared upon the scene. It was Kit Wilson—on his way across the Gymnasium. Quick as a flash he took in the situation, and, crossing the room with a leap and a stride, he landed in the midst of the party of “horsers.” He grabbed one small boy by the collar of his coat and sent him spinning out into the middle of the Gymnasium, another he pushed out of his way with something of his football manner, and ended by applying a kick to Ducky Thornton that even that well-cushioned individual was apt to remember. “Here, you infernal cads!” he cried, “cut this out! what the deuce do you think you’re up to?” The crowd of small boys scattered instantly, leaving poor Ducky, with rueful face and painful limp, to hobble away by himself, pursued by a volley of Kit’s variegated vocabulary that was more picturesque than elegant.
Finch stood still where Kit had found him as if transfixed. He was relieved, thankful for the rescue, but incapable of saying so. His face looked hideous in the bright glare of the electric light, drawn as it was by anguish and blazing with what seemed like superhuman hate. Kit stared at him a moment, amazed by the passion of the boy’s face; almost shocked by its weird uncanny venom. Conquering the instinctive feeling of revulsion, he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You poor little duffer,” he said, “I’m sorry for you. Don’t take it too hard. They’re a crowd of little curs, but their bark is worse than their bite.”
“I hate them,” snarled the boy. “I hate them.” Then his face relaxed, and the light faded in his little blue eyes, as they suffused with tears. “Thank you all the same,” he added, his voice still trembling with passion.
“What’s your name?” asked Kit.
“Jacob Finch.”
“Oh! you’re the new boy, eh? Where do you come from?”
“Coventry. I wish I was back. I can’t stand it here.”
“Rot!” exclaimed Kit, with the easy-going philosophy of popularity and success. “Cut along to the schoolroom now, and let me know if Ducky Thornton bothers you again.”
“All right,” Finch murmured, and dropping his head, he stole off through the cloister, keeping well within the shadow of the wall until he reached the schoolroom. There he was received by Mr. Roylston, who showed him a seat, and immediately afterwards called the room to order.
Kit, having watched Finch out of sight, stalked off grandly across the Gymnasium, dropping a word of warning here and there to the groups of small boys who had watched the encounter from a safe distance. Ducky Thornton witnessed his departure from an angle in the wall, whither he had retired with a few of his satellites. His face, at no time very attractive, wore now a most repulsive expression of contempt. “By golly,” was his comment, “he’s the swell head, ain’t he? I wonder if he hurts?”
“Not as much as you do, Ducky, I guess,” squeaked a premature wit and got his ears cuffed for his effort.
A few minutes later Wilson dropped into the study of Number Five Standerland, which Deering and Lawrence were sharing that year, Carroll having been promoted to the Old School, a privilege of the Sixth. The two boys were sitting at their desks, books open, it is true, but rather deeper in football than Virgil. Kit received a characteristic welcome.
“Hello, old sport, drape yourself on a couch, and listen to this fairy tale about the pious Æneas. Tony’s boned it out.”
“Oh, chuck the stuff!” growled Kit. “I’ll do it after breakfast with a trot. I’ve only got ten minutes now for a pow-wow. Have you seen the new kid?”
“Well, rather,” answered Jimmie, “the Doctor has loaded him onto Bill. He’s to have Number Three single right across the hall. The little beast is in the Fifth.”
“Pon honor?” said Kit. “Why, he looks like a sub-First Former. I just rescued him from a crowd of Lower Schoolers that were putting it to him particularly nastily. I gave Ducky Thornton, that wallowing white elephant of the Third, a kick that I reckon’ll make his sitting down uncomfortable for a week. But Finch is such a gloomy little toad that I was almost sorry I’d done it.”
Tony smiled. “That must have been good fun. But I am sorry the Doctor took him here; can’t understand it, in fact. He’ll never do, poor rat!”
“Well, hardly.”
“By the by, kiddo, what——Come in!” he interrupted himself to cry in response to a knock at the door.
Morris entered and was welcomed by the boys in a manner that bespoke both familiarity and deference. The master waved them back into their comfortable chairs. “Thanks, no; I am not going to rob the lot of you of these precious moments of study. I should like to speak to you, Tony, for a few minutes in my study.”
“Certainly, sir.” Tony followed the master down the hallway to the familiar cheerful study—Tony had really got to know his house-master more intimately the year before.
“Make yourself comfortable,” said Morris, “for I want to talk with you for a little while—quite seriously.”
Tony sat down upon the couch, leaned back amongst the pillows and put his hands beneath his head, looking up at Morris who stood on the hearth rug with his back to the open wood fire. “All right, O wise man!” he laughed. “I am very comfy, and all attention.”
Morris looked down at the boy and seemed to study him afresh. He liked Deering very much indeed, better he felt than he had ever liked a boy before. And as he stood there, he told himself that the reason was, that beside Tony’s personal charm, the brightness and lovableness of his sunshiny open nature, there were depths of feeling and purpose that one ordinarily did not find. “Well, Tony, I want you to do something—something quite out of the ordinary—something indeed that I think will be particularly hard and disagreeable.”
“What is it?” asked the boy, “I don’t exactlycrave hardship, but there isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do if you specially asked me.”
“Well, I count on that; that’s partly the reason I am asking you rather than another. I want you to make a special effort to look out for Finch.”
“Gee whiz! Mr. Morris,” exclaimed Tony, sitting upright, and assuming an expression of exaggerated horror. “I’ve seen him! I’ll be decent, of course. But really, I don’t see how I can possibly stand taking that little scarecrow under my wing. Why, Jimmie and Kit would——”
“Oh, yes, I know their attitude; but you know as well as I that they would back you up in the matter. I want you to be more than decent. The boy is here, and the Head has strong reasons for wanting him to make good. As you know, all the chances are against his doing so. In truth, I should say, that the boy has no chance unless an old boy, more or less of your caliber, will definitely take him up and befriend him.”
“Nobody is going to hurt him,” protested Tony. “Why, Kit just now rescued him from Ducky Thornton and a crowd of little bullies.”
“That’s good,” answered Morris, “but that is only a drop in the bucket. That boy’s life will be unbearable unless he makes a friend. And I do not believe there is a boy in the school who would be his friend,really his friend,—except you.”
“His friend, Mr. Morris?...!”
“Nothing else helps you know—nothing.”
Tony grew serious. He thought of what friendship had meant to him:—Jimmie—his eyes moistened at the thought of him; Carroll; Morris, the man beforehim, whose deep kind gray eyes were looking at him now so confidently. “Mr. Morris,” he said at last, “you do know me, I reckon; you bank on my being clay in your hands.” Then he laughed, “What’s the brat’s name?—Pinch?”
“No, Finch, Jacob Finch.”
“Well, all right—Finch.... The dickens fly away with him. Good-night, maestro.”
“Good-night, my boy.” They clasped hands for a moment, and Tony was gone.
“I am an ass,” he said, flinging himself on the couch by the side of Kit, when he returned to Number Five. “I’ve promised Bill to be a guardian angel to that new kid.”
CHAPTER XITHE DISCOMFITURE OF DUCKY THORNTONFifth Form year in a school like Deal usually marks a decided change in the boys; they have grown more mature, have become more serious in various ways, have definitely put away—the most of them—the childish things of school life, and are to be counted as standing for the most part on the side of the powers of law and order. They are used to the ways of the place, are thoroughly imbued with the school spirit and tradition, and consciously aim at keeping themselves and their fellows in the good old ways.Tony’s first year at Deal in the Third Form, as we have seen, had been a varied one. After the exciting events of the Michaelmas and Lent terms, his life had pursued a more even tenor of way. Chapin’s detection and expulsion had served to reinstate Deering in the confidence of both masters and boys, and his genial sunshiny nature was winning for him a deserved popularity. He and Carroll, the latter now a Sixth Former, though they no longer roomed together, were excellent friends, but his real intimates were Kit Wilson and Jimmie Lawrence, the latter of whom shared his room in Standerland, while Kit lived but a few doors down the corridor. With Mr. Morris, the house master, he was on very good terms indeed.He had made his place in the football team in Fourth Form year, and had played a good game but he had not distinguished himself that year. Now again in the Michaelmas term of the Fifth Form year he was engaged in daily football practice, and was again looking forward to the exciting contest in November.It is scarcely necessary to say that Tony’s two friends had not taken his declaration of making a friend of Finch very seriously, though they decided with him in a good-natured way to protect the new boy from the thoughtless or ill-natured hazing he was like to get at the hands of lower formers.A night or so after Finch’s arrival at school, Reggie Carroll dropped in at Number Five Standerland to see his younger friends. Jimmie was working in the study, but Tony had turned in early. Reggie stuck his head into the door of Deering’s bedroom and discovered its occupant, having got ready for bed, just about to turn off the light. “Come in,” said Tony, “and find something comfortable to sit down on—the bed will do. Where are you wandering this time of night?”“Well, it is only nine o’clock,” said Reggie, “and as a matter of fact, I was wandering over to have a ‘jaw’ with you, as you sometimes so delicately term a heart to heart talk.”“Well, fire away,” said Tony, but in tones that did not hint he expected to find the conversation interesting. He was rather pensive, unwontedly silent, and looked out of his window over the dark fields.Reggie essayed several topics of conversation, butwithout much success. He was about to take his leave, when something in Tony’s expression arrested his attention.“What on earth is the matter with you, boy?” he asked at last, as he playfully grabbed Tony by the shoulder and began to maul him.“Let up!” cried Tony. “Can’t you see I’m thinking out the problems of the universe? You mess me all up and I don’t know where I’m at.”“Well, compose yourself, and let me offer you advice.”“Let up then, do! And consider the appropriateness of the figures of speech, as Gumshoe would say. Bill Morris has been darn white to me——”“Rather,” commented Reggie, with a smile, “we are all green with envy at his whiteness.”“Don’t interrupt; as I was trying to say, Mr. Morris has been exceedingly white to me; so much so that I have often wondered how I might show him I appreciate it. Well, the fact is, he has asked me to do something just lately that I don’t in the least want to do, and I don’t see how in the deuce I am to get out of it.”“Knowing Morris,” commented Carroll, lazily, “I don’t in the least fancy you are going to get out of it. He lays his plans too well. What does he want?”“Have you seen Finch, the new boy?”“Finch?—oh! the kid they call Pinch. Yes, boy, I have seen him; one look was too much. It’s awful.” Then Reggie’s eyes lighted, and he gave an exclamation. “By Jove, I see it all—the whole thing—Bill wants you to be his guardian angel.”“Precisely,” said Tony, with an expression of infinite disgust.“And you, my child, fully mean to be.”“Hang it!” said Tony. “I suppose I do.”For a moment Carroll was silent and his expression changed from one of good-natured raillery to one of subtle sadness.“Poor little devil!” he said at last, “why not?” Tony looked at him to see if he were joking. “Oh, I know I couldn’t do it,” Reggie went on. “I haven’t the knack or the grace, or whatever it is called. But old Bill is right; you have. Why, kiddo, the world’s a hell for a lot of people just because the rest of us, who have had more of a chance, sit tight and comfy and don’t care.”“I suppose it is,” said Tony grimly, “but to tell the truth, I hate to think about such things—for a while yet, anyway.”“There is one thing to be said,” Carroll continued, without paying any attention to Tony’s remark, “if you do it, do it from the bottom up. Make a good job of it.”“It’s sheer asininity,” protested Tony. “I can’t do it. Oh, Reggie, I hate him! he’s a loathsome little reptile.”“Naturally he is that, or Bill would not be so extraordinary on the subject. He doesn’t mess with our affairs very often, you know.”“Yes, I know,” Tony muttered.“Do you chance to know why the Head took him?”“Not really—some family obligation, I believe.The kid was left to him by unspeakable parents who died of disgust at their work.”Carroll smiled. “Have you begun yet?” he asked.“No. I have sworn fifty times a day that I’d have nothing to do with it. And now I am going to get up this blessed minute and go in and have a talk with him. Talk to Jim a bit, and I’ll be back and tell you about it.”“All right,” said Carroll with a smile. Tony jumped out of bed, folded his blue wrapper about him tragically, struck a dramatic attitude, and stalked out of the room. Reggie joined Lawrence in the study.Half an hour later Tony returned.“How’s Pinch?” exclaimed Lawrence.“How did it go?” asked Carroll.Tony flopped down on a couch with an air of exhaustion. “Oh, so, so. I found him greasing on his confounded Virgil in a blue funk for fear I’d come to haze him. I made him read me twenty-five lines to give him a chance to recover himself, while I looked to see if I could find a redeeming feature. But Nature left that out. After a while I began firing questions at him, and when he gradually grew accustomed to the idea that I was only trying to be decent, he thawed a bit, and told me a little about himself. He’s had a tough time generally since he had the misfortune to come into the world at all. His father, who was an old college chum of the Doctor’s, seems to have turned out a sort of a rotter. He did something or other that disgraced them, and then he died and left that kid and his mother to face the music alone. She, poor woman, didn’t last long, andthen the Head stepped in, for old time’s sake, and out of mistaken kindness of his stupid old heart brought Finch here.... All the spirit has been kicked out of him. He’ll do at his books—he read the Virgil pretty well—but he hasn’t the spunk to resent being kicked by a First Former. He seems to live in a perpetual terror of his own shadow. I suspect Ducky Thornton and his gang have been ragging him on the quiet, and if I catch that fat loafer at it, I promise you he’ll be sorry. I think I’ll give him a good kicking to-morrow on general principles.”“Do!” said Reggie, “that will be good for him in any case.... It might be well for you both to keep an eye on Ducky’s whereabouts in the afternoons. I have a notion that he skulks in the fives court till the master of the day is out of the way, and then sneaks back into the house. I have seen him half-a-dozen times inside, and if I had been a prefect I should have kicked him out myself.”“Oh, hang being a prefect where kicking Ducky is concerned. To do that would be good for both our souls.”Carroll laughed. “Well, at it, boy.” He said good-night then, and left them.The next day—a bright fair day in mid-November, only a few days before the Boxford game, when the first team were laying off from practice, Tony and Kit, instead of going out early for a walk with their team-mates, went into the fives court after dinner and began a game, keeping an eye, however, on the on-lookers. It rejoiced them to see Thornton’s fat ill-natured face amongst a crowd of loafers on the benches.The bell rang for call-over, and the boys ran out to report to the master of the day, who was accustomed to take his stand at the Gymnasium door. To-day Mr. Roylston happened to be on duty. The roll call over, most of the boys went off to engage upon some form of exercise or game for the afternoon; but a few lazy ones, disdaining the occupations open to them, straggled back into the fives court to watch the games going on there. Later they would swim in the tank, and then stand for half-an-hour under a steaming hot shower, unless a vigilant master happened to catch them and send them about better things. Among these stragglers was Ducky Thornton.About half-an-hour later Mr. Roylston, beginning to make his rounds of the various houses—a customary duty of the master in charge—came into the fives courts. He stood at the door, noting on his rollslip the boys who were present. By this time only Tony and Kit were playing and some half-a-dozen smaller boys were squabbling on the benches. Tony glanced at the master, and saw beyond him, standing outside on the deserted tennis-courts, the forlorn Finch who looked about him in a bewildered fashion as if he did not know what to do.As Mr. Roylston finished making his notes, he fixed Tony and Kit with a glare of unmitigated contempt. “The delight of doing nothing for some boys,” he said in a sharp, jerky tone, “is only equalled by their incapacity to do anything. Get out into the air, and take some manly exercise, or I shall send the lot of you for a walk to the end of the point.”The younger boys sheepishly slipped out, thescowling Thornton amongst them, who, Tony noticed, stopped outside and spoke to Finch for a moment. Suddenly he realized that Mr. Roylston was still speaking. “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said quickly. “I did not understand that you were speaking to us.”“If you would condescend occasionally, Deering,” said the master, “to abstract yourself from the depths of self-satisfaction into which you are habitually plunged, you would not make it necessary for me to take your inattention for mere bad manners.”Tony flushed, started to speak, bit his tongue, and kept silent. He met Mr. Roylston’s glance unflinchingly. “Did you wish to say anything, sir?” he said at last, with tantalizing politeness.Mr. Roylston’s eyes turned aside from the cool but perfectly courteous gaze with which the boy regarded him. “Merely,” he added, as he turned away, “that I think you older boys—members of the first team at that—set a very bad example by frowsing in the fives court on a glorious autumn afternoon like this.”“Why, it’s the first game we’ve played this year,” cried impulsive Kit. “It’s come to a pretty pass if Fifth Formers can’t play a game of fives without being accused of setting a bad example.”“That will do, Wilson,” exclaimed Mr. Roylston sharply, facing them again with an indignant glare in his eye. “You have not yet got over your unpleasant habit of impertinence when occasion offers. Be good enough, please, to leave the courts immediately.”Kit reached for his coat, and as he did so he flungthe fives ball with a vicious twist against the side of the courts, so that it bounced back with a tremendous spring, and narrowly escaped collision with the master’s head as he was passing through the doorway. But Mr. Roylston, having scored, as he thought, did not give them the satisfaction of looking back. “Gosh!” exclaimed Kit, “I wish it had hit him.”“Wish it had!” said Tony. “Come on; time’s up anyway. Gumshoe’ll go through the Old School now, and we’ll have a look to see what has become of Ducky.... I’ll wager Finch has sneaked back to his own room. He mopes there all free times, and has about fifty marks already for doing it. If Ducky’s not there, we’ll send him out for a run. If Ducky is—well, kiddo—?”“Come on,” said Kit, significantly stuffing a long leathern strap into his trousers pocket.They turned out of the courts. No one was in sight; the small boys under the influence of Mr. Roylston’s “suggestions” had vanished; even Finch, who had been annihilated by a sarcastic phrase as the master passed him, had crept somewhere to hide till it was time for afternoon school. Tony and Kit watched Mr. Roylston until he disappeared into the Old School, then they started on a run for Standerland.“I’ll bet the brute has got Finch in his room. It’s just the time for it; besides Bill has gone over to the Woods with a lot of kids. Softly, Kit,” he said, as they pushed open the big doorway leading into the main hallway of Standerland House. They tiptoed cautiously upstairs, and when they got to the head, stopped to listen, holding their breath.“Sish! what’s that?” whispered Kit.They heard a clear long wail in a high shrill voice—“Pleaseeeee!” ending in a squeal, followed by a deeper guffah, and the sound of a whip’s lash.“Hurry!” said Tony. “We’ll make that bully sweat for this.” Quick as a flash he was at Finch’s door, trying the handle. It was locked; so he pounded vigorously. “Open up!” he called, “and the sooner the better. Open up, you fellows—do you hear?” There was a scuffle within; then silence. Some one crossed the room rapidly, and opened the door. It was a Third Form boy by the name of Clausen—a surly bad-complexioned lad. His face showed white now through the ugly blotches. Tony and Kit stepped quickly within, and closed and locked the door behind them.Finch was sitting on the edge of the bed, whimpering. His coat and shirt were lying on the floor. Across his back were the welts of several long lashes. Another boy—Dunstan, a Fourth Former, in bad odor with the prefects, one of Thornton’s satellites—was by the window, as if he were on the point of jumping out. Fortunately the room was on the second storey of the building. No one else was in sight. Kit grabbed Dunstan and flung him on the bed; but Tony, strangely cool, his eyes glittering, restrained him.“Wait, Wilson,” he said. “Take the key out of the door. Now, you Dunstan, where is Thornton?”The boy did not answer. “Where’s Thornton?” repeated Tony, grasping Dunstan by the neck and wringing it. “He’s here, I know; or he was here. He couldn’t get out. Here, Kit, tie this animal whileI look in the closets,” and he slung a bit of cord to his companion. They made short work of the Fourth Former, who indeed made scarcely any show of resistance; and then, having slung him helpless on the bed, they began to search for Thornton. As Kit opened the closet in Finch’s bedroom, Ducky darted out, and made for the hall door. But Tony was too quick for him. He grasped him from behind, pinioned his arms behind his back, and dug his knees into Thornton’s hips. The fat boy went to the floor like a log, and in a second Tony was kneeling over him with sharp knees digging into the soft flesh about his armpits. Kit gathered the boy’s sprawling feet together and tied them with a big muffler that he took from Finch’s bureau.Finch himself, during the struggle, had stopped crying, and was now putting on his shirt and coat. He had just begun to realize that this was a rescue, not a fresh attack upon himself.“Now, Finch,” said Tony, opening the door into the hall, “cut across to my room, and stay there until we come. Kit, take that little beast Clausen, and kick him down stairs. We won’t bother any further with him.” Kit executed this order with dispatch and thoroughness, and Clausen thanked his stars that he had got off so easily. Having got rid of Finch and Clausen, they relocked the door. “Now, you big fat bully,” said Deering, “you are going to get it. Get up and pull off your coat and shirt.”As Thornton struggled to his feet—the operation was a clumsy one, as his ankles were lashed close together,—he began volubly: “You big bullies!” Buthe did not go far. “Here,” said Kit, “wash his mouth out, Tony.” And Tony washed it out with plenty of Castile soap and very little water. “Now strip!” said Tony. The bully slowly took off his coat, and then his shirt. “It’s not a pretty sight, is it, Kit?” laughed Tony. “Nevertheless it will hurt as much as Finch’s back. Bend over.”“Please, please, let me off. ’Pon honor, I’ll never do it again—I swear—I swear—please don’t lick me; please,pleasedon’t lick—ouch!” He suddenly collapsed with a squeal of anguish, as Tony brought the leathern strap across his shoulders with an unmerciful swish. “You wouldn’t let Finch off when he blubbered, would you? Well, we won’t let you off. Ready? Coming.”“Ouch! ouch!!—oh, I swear—please—oh, you bullies, you—ouch! owhhh!” Then Kit stuffed a towel in his soap-suddy mouth and stilled the noise. When he had been well punished, they flung him on the bed, and let him howl there while they administered a like thrashing to Dunstan. He bore it a little more manfully, and consequently got off more easily. Suddenly they were all startled by a sharp knock on the door. “Gumshoe! by the great horn spoon!” exclaimed Kit. “Yes,” he called, “who is it?”“Open, open this door instantly,” came in the well-known tones of Mr. Ebenezer Roylston. “Open instantly, or I shall send for the servants to break it in.”“All right, sir,” called Kit, addingsotto voce, “It would be a jolly good stunt if we let him do it. Get on your coats,” he hissed at the two Fourth Formers. Instinct prompted them to quickness; but not quick enough to satisfy Mr. Roylston, for the order wasrepeated, and the handle of the door rattled impatiently.Kit unlocked the door at last, and Mr. Roylston entered. “What is the meaning of this unseemly commotion? What are you doing with locked doors when you are supposed to be out? What is the meaning of this strap? Why are these two Fourth Formers here crying? There has been bullying?”Kit laughed. “That’s about it,” he said. An angry flush suffused Mr. Roylston’s countenance, as he exaggerated Kit’s laugh into impertinence. “You are going too far, Wilson. I shall report you to the Head for bullying and gross impertinence. You also, Deering——”“You might as well take the trouble to find out what you are going to report us for,” said Kit.“Shut up, Kit,” said Tony. “If you——”“Silence, Deering,” interrupted Mr. Roylston. “I am perfectly capable of rebuking a boy for insolence without your assistance. You, Thornton and Dunstan, come with me. You, Deering and Wilson, go to your rooms, and wait there until you are sent for.”He waited until they had crossed the hall and gone into Tony’s room; then he took Thornton and Dunstan into Mr. Morris’s study at the end of the hall and was closeted with them for half an hour. Later the boys saw him leave Standerland House, cross the quadrangle and disappear within the Old School. Then they sent Finch back to his room, reconnoitred, but found that Dunstan and Thornton had disappeared.An hour later there came a tap on their door. Kit opened it, and admitted Mr. Roylston. The master took his place with his back toward the window, and made them stand in the light before him. He cleared his throat once or twice, as though he were at a loss quite how to begin. “I have made an investigation,” he said at last, “and have carefully thought over this afternoon’s affair.” He waited as if for a reply, but as the boys made none, he continued in a moment, a little more sharply and confidently. “I find that you are both guilty of the most wanton cruelty to boys younger and smaller than yourselves; though, I understand—they were singularly frank and direct with me—that you are not without what you will probably pretend is justification. Thornton admits that he had been horsing Finch——”“Horsing Finch!” began Kit.“Silence, Wilson; if there is any occasion for either of you to speak, pray, let Deering speak for you. I have endured about as much of your impertinence to-day as I can well stand. You undertook to punish younger boys, and did so cruelly. In my opinion your conduct is indefensible. However, I shall take into consideration your mistaken motives in the matter, and not report you to the Head, as I was at first convinced it was my duty to do. Doctor Forester is wont to deal severely with bullying. Instead, I shall gate you for a month, and require you to do a thousand lines of Virgil apiece for me within the next fortnight.”“Mr. Roylston,” Tony spoke up quickly, to prevent Kit from uttering the ill-chosen words that he feltwere on his lips. “You are probably much misinformed as to the facts, and if you will permit me to say so, with entire respect, you have not asked us a question. As for me, I would very much prefer that you referred the matter to the Head as you suggested.”For once in his life Mr. Roylston was at loss for what to say. He looked at Tony as though he could not believe the evidence of his senses. He started to speak several times, and each time changed his mind. Finally, he said, “I think that I am competent to settle this matter without troubling Doctor Forester. I warn you that refusal to do my impositions will result in the usual penalties. Deliberate and prolonged disobedience will subject you to suspension or expulsion.”“Very well, sir,” said Tony.Mr. Roylston turned thereupon, and with what dignity he could muster, walked out.“By Jove, Tony old boy, you got him. Bless you for keeping me from blurting out. I’d have spoiled it all.”“Yes, kiddo, you certainly would. As a matter of fact, you have not been specially impertinent, considering the provocation; and what’s jolly well certain is that Gumshoe doesn’t want the matter to get to the Head. He knows who’s to blame, but he has it in for us. Painful person, isn’t he? Virgil’ll rot before I do his thousand lines or pay any attention to his gating. I wish he would take us to the Head. Well, I reckon Thornton will let Finch alone now. Let’s find Jimmie, and go and wash the blood off in the tank.”So saying, they locked arms, and went singing “Up above the school-topp’d hill” down the corridor. They met Mr. Morris at the outer door of Standerland House. “Well, you seem to be particularly frisky this afternoon,” said he, “what’s up?”“Absolutely nothing,” laughed Kit; “we’re just two good pure innocent happy schoolboys. Come on, magister; come for a dip with us in the tank.”“Well, wait a second, while I stow sweater and stick, and I’ll be with you.”
THE DISCOMFITURE OF DUCKY THORNTON
Fifth Form year in a school like Deal usually marks a decided change in the boys; they have grown more mature, have become more serious in various ways, have definitely put away—the most of them—the childish things of school life, and are to be counted as standing for the most part on the side of the powers of law and order. They are used to the ways of the place, are thoroughly imbued with the school spirit and tradition, and consciously aim at keeping themselves and their fellows in the good old ways.
Tony’s first year at Deal in the Third Form, as we have seen, had been a varied one. After the exciting events of the Michaelmas and Lent terms, his life had pursued a more even tenor of way. Chapin’s detection and expulsion had served to reinstate Deering in the confidence of both masters and boys, and his genial sunshiny nature was winning for him a deserved popularity. He and Carroll, the latter now a Sixth Former, though they no longer roomed together, were excellent friends, but his real intimates were Kit Wilson and Jimmie Lawrence, the latter of whom shared his room in Standerland, while Kit lived but a few doors down the corridor. With Mr. Morris, the house master, he was on very good terms indeed.He had made his place in the football team in Fourth Form year, and had played a good game but he had not distinguished himself that year. Now again in the Michaelmas term of the Fifth Form year he was engaged in daily football practice, and was again looking forward to the exciting contest in November.
It is scarcely necessary to say that Tony’s two friends had not taken his declaration of making a friend of Finch very seriously, though they decided with him in a good-natured way to protect the new boy from the thoughtless or ill-natured hazing he was like to get at the hands of lower formers.
A night or so after Finch’s arrival at school, Reggie Carroll dropped in at Number Five Standerland to see his younger friends. Jimmie was working in the study, but Tony had turned in early. Reggie stuck his head into the door of Deering’s bedroom and discovered its occupant, having got ready for bed, just about to turn off the light. “Come in,” said Tony, “and find something comfortable to sit down on—the bed will do. Where are you wandering this time of night?”
“Well, it is only nine o’clock,” said Reggie, “and as a matter of fact, I was wandering over to have a ‘jaw’ with you, as you sometimes so delicately term a heart to heart talk.”
“Well, fire away,” said Tony, but in tones that did not hint he expected to find the conversation interesting. He was rather pensive, unwontedly silent, and looked out of his window over the dark fields.
Reggie essayed several topics of conversation, butwithout much success. He was about to take his leave, when something in Tony’s expression arrested his attention.
“What on earth is the matter with you, boy?” he asked at last, as he playfully grabbed Tony by the shoulder and began to maul him.
“Let up!” cried Tony. “Can’t you see I’m thinking out the problems of the universe? You mess me all up and I don’t know where I’m at.”
“Well, compose yourself, and let me offer you advice.”
“Let up then, do! And consider the appropriateness of the figures of speech, as Gumshoe would say. Bill Morris has been darn white to me——”
“Rather,” commented Reggie, with a smile, “we are all green with envy at his whiteness.”
“Don’t interrupt; as I was trying to say, Mr. Morris has been exceedingly white to me; so much so that I have often wondered how I might show him I appreciate it. Well, the fact is, he has asked me to do something just lately that I don’t in the least want to do, and I don’t see how in the deuce I am to get out of it.”
“Knowing Morris,” commented Carroll, lazily, “I don’t in the least fancy you are going to get out of it. He lays his plans too well. What does he want?”
“Have you seen Finch, the new boy?”
“Finch?—oh! the kid they call Pinch. Yes, boy, I have seen him; one look was too much. It’s awful.” Then Reggie’s eyes lighted, and he gave an exclamation. “By Jove, I see it all—the whole thing—Bill wants you to be his guardian angel.”
“Precisely,” said Tony, with an expression of infinite disgust.
“And you, my child, fully mean to be.”
“Hang it!” said Tony. “I suppose I do.”
For a moment Carroll was silent and his expression changed from one of good-natured raillery to one of subtle sadness.
“Poor little devil!” he said at last, “why not?” Tony looked at him to see if he were joking. “Oh, I know I couldn’t do it,” Reggie went on. “I haven’t the knack or the grace, or whatever it is called. But old Bill is right; you have. Why, kiddo, the world’s a hell for a lot of people just because the rest of us, who have had more of a chance, sit tight and comfy and don’t care.”
“I suppose it is,” said Tony grimly, “but to tell the truth, I hate to think about such things—for a while yet, anyway.”
“There is one thing to be said,” Carroll continued, without paying any attention to Tony’s remark, “if you do it, do it from the bottom up. Make a good job of it.”
“It’s sheer asininity,” protested Tony. “I can’t do it. Oh, Reggie, I hate him! he’s a loathsome little reptile.”
“Naturally he is that, or Bill would not be so extraordinary on the subject. He doesn’t mess with our affairs very often, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Tony muttered.
“Do you chance to know why the Head took him?”
“Not really—some family obligation, I believe.The kid was left to him by unspeakable parents who died of disgust at their work.”
Carroll smiled. “Have you begun yet?” he asked.
“No. I have sworn fifty times a day that I’d have nothing to do with it. And now I am going to get up this blessed minute and go in and have a talk with him. Talk to Jim a bit, and I’ll be back and tell you about it.”
“All right,” said Carroll with a smile. Tony jumped out of bed, folded his blue wrapper about him tragically, struck a dramatic attitude, and stalked out of the room. Reggie joined Lawrence in the study.
Half an hour later Tony returned.
“How’s Pinch?” exclaimed Lawrence.
“How did it go?” asked Carroll.
Tony flopped down on a couch with an air of exhaustion. “Oh, so, so. I found him greasing on his confounded Virgil in a blue funk for fear I’d come to haze him. I made him read me twenty-five lines to give him a chance to recover himself, while I looked to see if I could find a redeeming feature. But Nature left that out. After a while I began firing questions at him, and when he gradually grew accustomed to the idea that I was only trying to be decent, he thawed a bit, and told me a little about himself. He’s had a tough time generally since he had the misfortune to come into the world at all. His father, who was an old college chum of the Doctor’s, seems to have turned out a sort of a rotter. He did something or other that disgraced them, and then he died and left that kid and his mother to face the music alone. She, poor woman, didn’t last long, andthen the Head stepped in, for old time’s sake, and out of mistaken kindness of his stupid old heart brought Finch here.... All the spirit has been kicked out of him. He’ll do at his books—he read the Virgil pretty well—but he hasn’t the spunk to resent being kicked by a First Former. He seems to live in a perpetual terror of his own shadow. I suspect Ducky Thornton and his gang have been ragging him on the quiet, and if I catch that fat loafer at it, I promise you he’ll be sorry. I think I’ll give him a good kicking to-morrow on general principles.”
“Do!” said Reggie, “that will be good for him in any case.... It might be well for you both to keep an eye on Ducky’s whereabouts in the afternoons. I have a notion that he skulks in the fives court till the master of the day is out of the way, and then sneaks back into the house. I have seen him half-a-dozen times inside, and if I had been a prefect I should have kicked him out myself.”
“Oh, hang being a prefect where kicking Ducky is concerned. To do that would be good for both our souls.”
Carroll laughed. “Well, at it, boy.” He said good-night then, and left them.
The next day—a bright fair day in mid-November, only a few days before the Boxford game, when the first team were laying off from practice, Tony and Kit, instead of going out early for a walk with their team-mates, went into the fives court after dinner and began a game, keeping an eye, however, on the on-lookers. It rejoiced them to see Thornton’s fat ill-natured face amongst a crowd of loafers on the benches.The bell rang for call-over, and the boys ran out to report to the master of the day, who was accustomed to take his stand at the Gymnasium door. To-day Mr. Roylston happened to be on duty. The roll call over, most of the boys went off to engage upon some form of exercise or game for the afternoon; but a few lazy ones, disdaining the occupations open to them, straggled back into the fives court to watch the games going on there. Later they would swim in the tank, and then stand for half-an-hour under a steaming hot shower, unless a vigilant master happened to catch them and send them about better things. Among these stragglers was Ducky Thornton.
About half-an-hour later Mr. Roylston, beginning to make his rounds of the various houses—a customary duty of the master in charge—came into the fives courts. He stood at the door, noting on his rollslip the boys who were present. By this time only Tony and Kit were playing and some half-a-dozen smaller boys were squabbling on the benches. Tony glanced at the master, and saw beyond him, standing outside on the deserted tennis-courts, the forlorn Finch who looked about him in a bewildered fashion as if he did not know what to do.
As Mr. Roylston finished making his notes, he fixed Tony and Kit with a glare of unmitigated contempt. “The delight of doing nothing for some boys,” he said in a sharp, jerky tone, “is only equalled by their incapacity to do anything. Get out into the air, and take some manly exercise, or I shall send the lot of you for a walk to the end of the point.”
The younger boys sheepishly slipped out, thescowling Thornton amongst them, who, Tony noticed, stopped outside and spoke to Finch for a moment. Suddenly he realized that Mr. Roylston was still speaking. “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said quickly. “I did not understand that you were speaking to us.”
“If you would condescend occasionally, Deering,” said the master, “to abstract yourself from the depths of self-satisfaction into which you are habitually plunged, you would not make it necessary for me to take your inattention for mere bad manners.”
Tony flushed, started to speak, bit his tongue, and kept silent. He met Mr. Roylston’s glance unflinchingly. “Did you wish to say anything, sir?” he said at last, with tantalizing politeness.
Mr. Roylston’s eyes turned aside from the cool but perfectly courteous gaze with which the boy regarded him. “Merely,” he added, as he turned away, “that I think you older boys—members of the first team at that—set a very bad example by frowsing in the fives court on a glorious autumn afternoon like this.”
“Why, it’s the first game we’ve played this year,” cried impulsive Kit. “It’s come to a pretty pass if Fifth Formers can’t play a game of fives without being accused of setting a bad example.”
“That will do, Wilson,” exclaimed Mr. Roylston sharply, facing them again with an indignant glare in his eye. “You have not yet got over your unpleasant habit of impertinence when occasion offers. Be good enough, please, to leave the courts immediately.”
Kit reached for his coat, and as he did so he flungthe fives ball with a vicious twist against the side of the courts, so that it bounced back with a tremendous spring, and narrowly escaped collision with the master’s head as he was passing through the doorway. But Mr. Roylston, having scored, as he thought, did not give them the satisfaction of looking back. “Gosh!” exclaimed Kit, “I wish it had hit him.”
“Wish it had!” said Tony. “Come on; time’s up anyway. Gumshoe’ll go through the Old School now, and we’ll have a look to see what has become of Ducky.... I’ll wager Finch has sneaked back to his own room. He mopes there all free times, and has about fifty marks already for doing it. If Ducky’s not there, we’ll send him out for a run. If Ducky is—well, kiddo—?”
“Come on,” said Kit, significantly stuffing a long leathern strap into his trousers pocket.
They turned out of the courts. No one was in sight; the small boys under the influence of Mr. Roylston’s “suggestions” had vanished; even Finch, who had been annihilated by a sarcastic phrase as the master passed him, had crept somewhere to hide till it was time for afternoon school. Tony and Kit watched Mr. Roylston until he disappeared into the Old School, then they started on a run for Standerland.
“I’ll bet the brute has got Finch in his room. It’s just the time for it; besides Bill has gone over to the Woods with a lot of kids. Softly, Kit,” he said, as they pushed open the big doorway leading into the main hallway of Standerland House. They tiptoed cautiously upstairs, and when they got to the head, stopped to listen, holding their breath.
“Sish! what’s that?” whispered Kit.
They heard a clear long wail in a high shrill voice—“Pleaseeeee!” ending in a squeal, followed by a deeper guffah, and the sound of a whip’s lash.
“Hurry!” said Tony. “We’ll make that bully sweat for this.” Quick as a flash he was at Finch’s door, trying the handle. It was locked; so he pounded vigorously. “Open up!” he called, “and the sooner the better. Open up, you fellows—do you hear?” There was a scuffle within; then silence. Some one crossed the room rapidly, and opened the door. It was a Third Form boy by the name of Clausen—a surly bad-complexioned lad. His face showed white now through the ugly blotches. Tony and Kit stepped quickly within, and closed and locked the door behind them.
Finch was sitting on the edge of the bed, whimpering. His coat and shirt were lying on the floor. Across his back were the welts of several long lashes. Another boy—Dunstan, a Fourth Former, in bad odor with the prefects, one of Thornton’s satellites—was by the window, as if he were on the point of jumping out. Fortunately the room was on the second storey of the building. No one else was in sight. Kit grabbed Dunstan and flung him on the bed; but Tony, strangely cool, his eyes glittering, restrained him.
“Wait, Wilson,” he said. “Take the key out of the door. Now, you Dunstan, where is Thornton?”
The boy did not answer. “Where’s Thornton?” repeated Tony, grasping Dunstan by the neck and wringing it. “He’s here, I know; or he was here. He couldn’t get out. Here, Kit, tie this animal whileI look in the closets,” and he slung a bit of cord to his companion. They made short work of the Fourth Former, who indeed made scarcely any show of resistance; and then, having slung him helpless on the bed, they began to search for Thornton. As Kit opened the closet in Finch’s bedroom, Ducky darted out, and made for the hall door. But Tony was too quick for him. He grasped him from behind, pinioned his arms behind his back, and dug his knees into Thornton’s hips. The fat boy went to the floor like a log, and in a second Tony was kneeling over him with sharp knees digging into the soft flesh about his armpits. Kit gathered the boy’s sprawling feet together and tied them with a big muffler that he took from Finch’s bureau.
Finch himself, during the struggle, had stopped crying, and was now putting on his shirt and coat. He had just begun to realize that this was a rescue, not a fresh attack upon himself.
“Now, Finch,” said Tony, opening the door into the hall, “cut across to my room, and stay there until we come. Kit, take that little beast Clausen, and kick him down stairs. We won’t bother any further with him.” Kit executed this order with dispatch and thoroughness, and Clausen thanked his stars that he had got off so easily. Having got rid of Finch and Clausen, they relocked the door. “Now, you big fat bully,” said Deering, “you are going to get it. Get up and pull off your coat and shirt.”
As Thornton struggled to his feet—the operation was a clumsy one, as his ankles were lashed close together,—he began volubly: “You big bullies!” Buthe did not go far. “Here,” said Kit, “wash his mouth out, Tony.” And Tony washed it out with plenty of Castile soap and very little water. “Now strip!” said Tony. The bully slowly took off his coat, and then his shirt. “It’s not a pretty sight, is it, Kit?” laughed Tony. “Nevertheless it will hurt as much as Finch’s back. Bend over.”
“Please, please, let me off. ’Pon honor, I’ll never do it again—I swear—I swear—please don’t lick me; please,pleasedon’t lick—ouch!” He suddenly collapsed with a squeal of anguish, as Tony brought the leathern strap across his shoulders with an unmerciful swish. “You wouldn’t let Finch off when he blubbered, would you? Well, we won’t let you off. Ready? Coming.”
“Ouch! ouch!!—oh, I swear—please—oh, you bullies, you—ouch! owhhh!” Then Kit stuffed a towel in his soap-suddy mouth and stilled the noise. When he had been well punished, they flung him on the bed, and let him howl there while they administered a like thrashing to Dunstan. He bore it a little more manfully, and consequently got off more easily. Suddenly they were all startled by a sharp knock on the door. “Gumshoe! by the great horn spoon!” exclaimed Kit. “Yes,” he called, “who is it?”
“Open, open this door instantly,” came in the well-known tones of Mr. Ebenezer Roylston. “Open instantly, or I shall send for the servants to break it in.”
“All right, sir,” called Kit, addingsotto voce, “It would be a jolly good stunt if we let him do it. Get on your coats,” he hissed at the two Fourth Formers. Instinct prompted them to quickness; but not quick enough to satisfy Mr. Roylston, for the order wasrepeated, and the handle of the door rattled impatiently.
Kit unlocked the door at last, and Mr. Roylston entered. “What is the meaning of this unseemly commotion? What are you doing with locked doors when you are supposed to be out? What is the meaning of this strap? Why are these two Fourth Formers here crying? There has been bullying?”
Kit laughed. “That’s about it,” he said. An angry flush suffused Mr. Roylston’s countenance, as he exaggerated Kit’s laugh into impertinence. “You are going too far, Wilson. I shall report you to the Head for bullying and gross impertinence. You also, Deering——”
“You might as well take the trouble to find out what you are going to report us for,” said Kit.
“Shut up, Kit,” said Tony. “If you——”
“Silence, Deering,” interrupted Mr. Roylston. “I am perfectly capable of rebuking a boy for insolence without your assistance. You, Thornton and Dunstan, come with me. You, Deering and Wilson, go to your rooms, and wait there until you are sent for.”
He waited until they had crossed the hall and gone into Tony’s room; then he took Thornton and Dunstan into Mr. Morris’s study at the end of the hall and was closeted with them for half an hour. Later the boys saw him leave Standerland House, cross the quadrangle and disappear within the Old School. Then they sent Finch back to his room, reconnoitred, but found that Dunstan and Thornton had disappeared.
An hour later there came a tap on their door. Kit opened it, and admitted Mr. Roylston. The master took his place with his back toward the window, and made them stand in the light before him. He cleared his throat once or twice, as though he were at a loss quite how to begin. “I have made an investigation,” he said at last, “and have carefully thought over this afternoon’s affair.” He waited as if for a reply, but as the boys made none, he continued in a moment, a little more sharply and confidently. “I find that you are both guilty of the most wanton cruelty to boys younger and smaller than yourselves; though, I understand—they were singularly frank and direct with me—that you are not without what you will probably pretend is justification. Thornton admits that he had been horsing Finch——”
“Horsing Finch!” began Kit.
“Silence, Wilson; if there is any occasion for either of you to speak, pray, let Deering speak for you. I have endured about as much of your impertinence to-day as I can well stand. You undertook to punish younger boys, and did so cruelly. In my opinion your conduct is indefensible. However, I shall take into consideration your mistaken motives in the matter, and not report you to the Head, as I was at first convinced it was my duty to do. Doctor Forester is wont to deal severely with bullying. Instead, I shall gate you for a month, and require you to do a thousand lines of Virgil apiece for me within the next fortnight.”
“Mr. Roylston,” Tony spoke up quickly, to prevent Kit from uttering the ill-chosen words that he feltwere on his lips. “You are probably much misinformed as to the facts, and if you will permit me to say so, with entire respect, you have not asked us a question. As for me, I would very much prefer that you referred the matter to the Head as you suggested.”
For once in his life Mr. Roylston was at loss for what to say. He looked at Tony as though he could not believe the evidence of his senses. He started to speak several times, and each time changed his mind. Finally, he said, “I think that I am competent to settle this matter without troubling Doctor Forester. I warn you that refusal to do my impositions will result in the usual penalties. Deliberate and prolonged disobedience will subject you to suspension or expulsion.”
“Very well, sir,” said Tony.
Mr. Roylston turned thereupon, and with what dignity he could muster, walked out.
“By Jove, Tony old boy, you got him. Bless you for keeping me from blurting out. I’d have spoiled it all.”
“Yes, kiddo, you certainly would. As a matter of fact, you have not been specially impertinent, considering the provocation; and what’s jolly well certain is that Gumshoe doesn’t want the matter to get to the Head. He knows who’s to blame, but he has it in for us. Painful person, isn’t he? Virgil’ll rot before I do his thousand lines or pay any attention to his gating. I wish he would take us to the Head. Well, I reckon Thornton will let Finch alone now. Let’s find Jimmie, and go and wash the blood off in the tank.”
So saying, they locked arms, and went singing “Up above the school-topp’d hill” down the corridor. They met Mr. Morris at the outer door of Standerland House. “Well, you seem to be particularly frisky this afternoon,” said he, “what’s up?”
“Absolutely nothing,” laughed Kit; “we’re just two good pure innocent happy schoolboys. Come on, magister; come for a dip with us in the tank.”
“Well, wait a second, while I stow sweater and stick, and I’ll be with you.”