‘Pity. I wish we could swop places.’
‘So do I for some things. To start with, I shouldn’t mind having made that century of yours against Charchester.’
Pringle beamed. The least hint that his fellow-man was taking him at his own valuation always made him happy.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘No, but what I meant was that I wished I was in for this poetry prize. I bet I could turn out a rattling good screed. Why, last year I almost got the prize. I sent in fearfully hot stuff.’
‘Think so?’ said Lorimer doubtfully, in answer to the ‘rattling good screed’ passage of Pringle’s speech. ‘Well, I wish you’d have a shot. You might as well.’
‘What, really? How about the prize?’
‘Oh, hang the prize. We’ll have to chance that.’
‘I thought you were keen on getting it.’
‘Oh, no. Second or third will do me all right, and satisfy my people. They only want to know for certain that I’ve got the poetic afflatus all right. Will you take it on?’
‘All right.’
‘Thanks, awfully.’
‘I say, Lorimer,’ said Pringle after a pause.
‘Yes?’
‘Are your people coming down for the O.B.s’ match?’
The Old Beckfordians’ match was the great function of the Beckford cricket season. The Headmaster gave a garden-party. The School band played; the School choir sang; and sisters, cousins, aunts, and parents flocked to the School in platoons.
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Lorimer. ‘Why?’
‘Is your sister coming?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ A brother’s utter lack of interest in his sister’s actions is a weird and wonderful thing for an outsider to behold.
‘Well, look here, I wish you’d get her to come. We could give them tea in here, and have rather a good time, don’t you think?’
‘All right. I’ll make her come. Look here, Pringle, I believe you’re rather gone on Mabel.’
This was Lorimer’s vulgar way.
‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Pringle, with a laugh which should have been careless, but was in reality merely feeble. ‘She’s quite a kid.’
Miss Mabel Lorimer’s exact age was fifteen. She had brown hair, blue eyes, and a smile which disclosed to view a dimple. There are worse things than a dimple. Distinctly so, indeed. When ladies of fifteen possess dimples, mere man becomes but as a piece of damp blotting-paper. Pringle was seventeen and a half, and consequently too old to take note of such frivolous attributes; but all the same he had a sort of vague, sketchy impression that it would be pleasanter to run up a lively century against the O.B.s with Miss Lorimer as a spectator than in her absence. He felt pleased that she was coming.
‘I say, about this poem,’ said Lorimer, dismissing a subject which manifestly bored him, and returning to one which was of vital interest, ‘you’re sure you can write fairly decent stuff? It’s no good sending in stuff that’ll turn the examiner’s hair grey. Can you turn out something really decent?’
Pringle said nothing. He smiled gently as who should observe, ‘I and Shakespeare.’
[5]
FARNIE GETS INTO TROUBLE—
It was perhaps only natural that Farnie, having been warned so strongly of the inadvisability of having anything to do with Monk, should for that very reason be attracted to him. Nobody ever wants to do anything except what they are not allowed to do. Otherwise there is no explaining the friendship that arose between them. Jack Monk was not an attractive individual. He had a slack mouth and a shifty eye, and his complexion was the sort which friends would have described as olive, enemies (with more truth) as dirty green. These defects would have mattered little, of course, in themselves. There’s many a bilious countenance, so to speak, covers a warm heart. With Monk, however, appearances were not deceptive. He looked a bad lot, and he was one.
It was on the second morning of term that the acquaintanceship began. Monk was coming downstairs from his study with Danvers, and Farnie was leaving the fags’ day-room.
‘See that kid?’ said Danvers. ‘That’s the chap I was telling you about. Gethryn’s uncle, you know.’
‘Not really? Let’s cultivate him. I say, old chap, don’t walk so fast.’ Farnie, rightly concluding that the remark was addressed to him, turned and waited, and the three strolled over to the School buildings together.
They would have made an interesting study for the observer of human nature, the two seniors fancying that they had to deal with a small boy just arrived at his first school, and in the grip of that strange, lost feeling which attacks the best of new boys for a day or so after their arrival; and Farnie, on the other hand, watching every move, as perfectly composed and at home as a youth should be with the experience of three public schools to back him up.
When they arrived at the School gates, Monk and Danvers turned to go in the direction of their form-room, the Remove, leaving Farnie at the door of the Upper Fourth. At this point a small comedy took place. Monk, after feeling hastily in his pockets, requested Danvers to lend him five shillings until next Saturday. Danvers knew this request of old, and he knew the answer that was expected of him. By replying that he was sorry, but he had not got the money, he gave Farnie, who was still standing at the door, his cue to offer to supply the deficiency. Most new boys—they had grasped this fact from experience—would have felt it an honour to oblige a senior with a small loan. As Farnie made no signs of doing what was expected of him, Monk was obliged to resort to the somewhat cruder course of applying for the loan in person. He applied. Farnie with the utmost willingness brought to light a handful of money, mostly gold. Monk’s eye gleamed approval, and he stretched forth an itching palm. Danvers began to think that it would be rash to let a chance like this slip. Ordinarily the tacit agreement between the pair was that only one should borrow at a time, lest confidence should be destroyed in the victim. But here was surely an exception, a special case. With a young gentleman so obviously a man of coin as Farnie, the rule might well be broken for once.
‘While you’re about it, Farnie, old man,’ he said carelessly, you might let me have a bob or two if you don’t mind. Five bob’ll see me through to Saturday all right.’
‘Do you mean tomorrow?’ enquired Farnie, looking up from his heap of gold.
‘No, Saturday week. Let you have it back by then at the latest. Make a point of it.’
‘How would a quid do?’
‘Ripping,’ said Danvers ecstatically.
‘Same here,’ assented Monk.
‘Then that’s all right,’ said Farnie briskly; ‘I thought perhaps you mightn’t have had enough. You’ve got a quid, I know, Monk, because I saw you haul one out at breakfast. And Danvers has got one too, because he offered to toss you for it in the study afterwards. And besides, I couldn’t lend you anything in any case, because I’ve only got about fourteen quid myself.’
With which parting shot he retired, wrapped in gentle thought, into his form-room; and from the noise which ensued immediately upon his arrival, the shrewd listener would have deduced, quite correctly, that he had organized and taken the leading part in a general rag.
Monk and Danvers proceeded upon their way.
‘You got rather left there, old chap,’ said Monk at length.
‘I like that,’ replied the outraged Danvers. ‘How about you, then? It seemed to me you got rather left, too.’
Monk compromised.
‘Well, anyhow,’ he said, ‘we shan’t get much out of that kid.’
‘Little beast,’ said Danvers complainingly. And they went on into their form-room in silence.
‘I saw your young—er—relative in earnest conversation with friend Monk this morning,’ said Marriott, later on in the day, to Gethryn; ‘I thought you were going to give him the tip in that direction?’
‘So I did,’ said the Bishop wearily; ‘but I can’t always be looking after the little brute. He only does it out of sheer cussedness, because I’ve told him not to. It stands to reason that he can’t like Monk.’