He walked on till he came to the road that led to St Austin’s. The secretary of the Old Crockfordians stalked beside him with determined stride.
‘Now,’ said Charteris, when they were on the road, ‘you mustn’t mind if I walk rather fast. I’m in a hurry.’
Charteris’s idea of walking rather fast was to dash off down the road at quarter-mile pace. The move took the man by surprise, but, after a moment, he followed with much panting. It was evident that he was not in training. Charteris began to feel that the walk home might be amusing in its way. After they had raced some three hundred yards he slowed down to a walk again. It was at this point that his companion evinced a desire to do the rest of the journey with a hand on the collar of his coat.
‘If you touch me,’ observed Charteris with a surprising knowledge of legal minutiae, ‘it’ll be a technical assault, and you’ll get run in; and you’ll get beans anyway if you try it on.’
The man reconsidered matters, and elected not to try it on.
Half a mile from the College Charteris began to walk rather fast again. He was a good half-miler, and his companion was bad at every distance. After a game struggle he dropped to the rear, and finished a hundred yards behind in considerable straits. Charteris shot in at Merevale’s door with five minutes to spare, and went up to his study to worry Welch by telling him about it.
‘Welch, you remember the Bargee who scragged Tony? Well, there have been all sorts of fresh developments. He’s just been pacing me all the way from Stapleton.’
‘Stapleton! Have you been to Stapleton? Did Merevale give you leave?’
‘No. I didn’t ask him.’
‘You are an idiot. And now this Bargee man will go straight to the Old Man and run you in. I wonder you didn’t think of that.’
‘Curious I didn’t.’
‘I suppose he saw you come in here?’
‘Rather. He couldn’t have had a better view if he’d paid for a seat. Half a second; I must just run up with these volumes to Tony.’
When he came back he found Welch more serious than ever.
‘I told you so,’ said Welch. ‘You’re to go to the Old Man at once. He’s just sent over for you. I say, look here, if it’s only lines I don’t mind doing some of them, if you like.’
Charteris was quite touched by this sporting offer.
‘It’s awfully good of you,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t matter, really. I shall be all right.’
Ten minutes later he returned, beaming.
‘Well,’ said Welch, ‘what’s he given you?’
‘Only his love, to give to you. It was this way. He first asked me if I wasn’t perfectly aware that Stapleton was out of bounds. “Sir,” says I, “I’ve known it from childhood’s earliest hour.” “Ah,” says he to me, “did Mr Merevale give you leave to go in this afternoon?” “No,” says I, “I never consulted the gent you mention.”’
‘Well?’
‘Then he ragged me for ten minutes, and finally told me I must go into extra the next two Saturdays.’
‘I thought so.’
‘Ah, but mark the sequel. When he had finished, I said that I was sorry I had mistaken the rules, but I had thought that a chap was allowed to go into Stapleton if he got leave from a master. “But you said that Mr Merevale did not give you leave,” said he. “Friend of my youth,” I replied courteously, “you are perfectly correct. As always. Mr Merevale did not give me leave, but,” I added suavely, “Mr Dacre did.” And I came away, chanting hymns of triumph in a mellow baritone, and leaving him in a dead faint on the sofa. And the Bargee, who was present during the conflict, swiftly and silently vanished away, his morale considerably shattered. And that, my gentle Welch,’ concluded Charteris cheerfully, ‘put me one up. So pass the biscuits, and let us rejoice if we never rejoice again.’
Chapter 3
The Easter term was nearing its end. Football, with the exception of the final House-match, which had still to come off, was over, and life was in consequence a trifle less exhilarating than it might have been. In some ways the last few weeks before the Easter holidays are quite pleasant. You can put on running shorts and a blazer and potter about the grounds, feeling strong and athletic, and delude yourself into the notion that you are training for the sports. Ten minutes at the broad jump, five with the weight, a few sprints on the track—it is all very amusing and harmless, but it is apt to become monotonous after a time. And if the weather is at all inclined to be chilly, such an occupation becomes impossible.
Charteris found things particularly dull. He was a fair average runner, but there were others far better at every distance, so that he saw no use in mortifying the flesh with strict training. On the other hand, in view of the fact that the final House-match had yet to be played, and that Merevale’s was one of the two teams that were going to play it, it behoved him to keep himself at least moderately fit. The genial muffin and the cheery crumpet were still things to be avoided. He thus found himself in a position where, apparently, the few things which it was possible for him to do were barred, and the net result was that he felt slightly dull.
To make matters worse, all the rest of his set were working full time at their various employments, and had no leisure for amusing him. Welch practised hundred-yard sprints daily, and imagined that it would be quite a treat for Charteris to be allowed to time him. So he gave him the stopwatch, saw him safely to the end of the track, and at a given signal dashed off in the approved American style. By the time he reached the tape, dutifully held by two sporting Merevalian juniors, Charteris’s attention had generally been attracted elsewhere. ‘What time?’ Welch would pant. ‘By Jove,’ Charteris would observe blandly, ‘I forgot to look. About a minute and a quarter, I fancy.’ At which Welch, who always had a notion that he had done it in ten and a fifth that time, at any rate, would dissemble his joy, and mildly suggest that somebody else should hold the watch. Then there was Jim Thomson, generally a perfect mine of elevating conversation. He was in for the mile and also the half, and refused to talk about anything except those distances, and the best methods for running them in the minimum of time. Charteris began to feel a blue melancholy stealing over him. The Babe, again. He might have helped to while away the long hours, but unfortunately the Babe had been taken very bad with a notion that he was going to win the ‘cross-country run, and when, in addition to this, he was seized with a panic with regard to the prospects of the House team in the final, and began to throw out hints concerning strict training, Charteris regarded him as a person to be avoided. If he fled to the Babe for sympathy now, the Babe would be just as likely as not to suggest that he should come for a ten-mile spin with him, to get him into condition for the final Houser. The very thought of a ten-mile spin made Charteris feel faint. Lastly, there was Tony. But Tony’s company was worse than none at all. He went about with his arm in a sling, and declined to be comforted. But for his injury, he would by now have been training hard for the Aldershot Boxing Competition, and the fact that he was now definitely out of it had a very depressing effect upon him. He lounged moodily about the gymnasium, watching Menzies, who was to take his place, sparring with the instructor, and refused consolation. Altogether, Charteris found life a distinct bore.
He was reduced to such straits for amusement, that one Wednesday afternoon, finding himself with nothing else to do, he was working at a burlesque and remarkably scurrilous article on ‘The Staff, by one who has suffered’, which he was going to insert in The Glow Worm, an unofficial periodical which he had started for the amusement of the School and his own and his contributors’ profit. He was just warming to his work, and beginning to enjoy himself, when the door opened without a preliminary knock. Charteris deftly slid a piece of blotting-paper over his MS., for Merevale occasionally entered a study in this manner. And though there was nothing about Merevale himself in the article, it would be better perhaps, thought Charteris, if he did not see it. But it was not Merevale. It was somebody far worse. The Babe.