Clowes, on the other hand, was in the habit of forming his views on his own account, and expressing them. If people agreed with them, well and good: it afforded strong presumptive evidence of their sanity. If they disagreed, it was unfortunate, but he was not going to alter his opinions for that, unless convinced at great length that they were unsound. He summed things up, and gave you the result. You could take it or leave it, as you preferred.
“I thought he was bad,” said Clowes.
“Bad!” exclaimed Trevor, “he was a disgrace. One can understand a chap having his off-days at any game, but one doesn't expect a man in the Wrykyn first to funk. He mucked five out of every six passes I gave him, too, and the ball wasn't a bit slippery. Still, I shouldn't mind that so much if he had only gone for his man properly. It isn't being out of practice that makes you funk. And even when he did have a try at you, Paget, he always went high.”
“That,” said Clowes thoughtfully, “would seem to show that he was game.”
Nobody so much as smiled. Nobody ever did smile at Clowes' essays in wit, perhaps because of the solemn, almost sad, tone of voice in which he delivered them. He was tall and dark and thin, and had a pensive eye, which encouraged the more soulful of his female relatives to entertain hopes that he would some day take orders.
“Well,” said Paget, relieved at finding that he did not stand alone in his views on Rand-Brown's performance, “I must say I thought he was awfully bad myself.”
“I shall try somebody else next match,” said Trevor. “It'll be rather hard, though. The man one would naturally put in, Bryce, left at Christmas, worse luck.”
Bryce was the other wing three-quarter of the second fifteen.
“Isn't there anybody in the third?” asked Paget.
“Barry,” said Clowes briefly.
“Clowes thinks Barry's good,” explained Trevor.
“He is good,” said Clowes. “I admit he's small, but he can tackle.”
“The question is, would he be any good in the first? A chap might do jolly well for the third, and still not be worth trying for the first.”
“I don't remember much about Barry,” said Paget, “except being collared by him when we played Seymour's last year in the final. I certainly came away with a sort of impression that he could tackle. I thought he marked me jolly well.”
“There you are, then,” said Clowes. “A year ago Barry could tackle Paget. There's no reason for supposing that he's fallen off since then. We've seen that Rand-Brown can't tackle Paget. Ergo, Barry is better worth playing for the team than Rand-Brown. Q.E.D.”
“All right, then,” replied Trevor. “There can't be any harm in trying him. We'll have another scratch game on Thursday. Will you be here then, Paget?”
“Oh, yes. I'm stopping till Saturday.”
“Good man. Then we shall be able to see how he does against you. I wish you hadn't left, though, by Jove. We should have had Ripton on toast, the same as last term.”
Wrykyn played five schools, but six school matches. The school that they played twice in the season was Ripton. To win one Ripton match meant that, however many losses it might have sustained in the other matches, the school had had, at any rate, a passable season. To win two Ripton matches in the same year was almost unheard of. This year there had seemed every likelihood of it. The match before Christmas on the Ripton ground had resulted in a win for Wrykyn by two goals and a try to a try. But the calculations of the school had been upset by the sudden departure of Paget at the end of term, and also of Bryce, who had hitherto been regarded as his understudy. And in the first Ripton match the two goals had both been scored by Paget, and both had been brilliant bits of individual play, which a lesser man could not have carried through.
The conclusion, therefore, at which the school reluctantly arrived, was that their chances of winning the second match could not be judged by their previous success. They would have to approach the Easter term fixture from another—a non-Paget—standpoint. In these circumstances it became a serious problem: who was to get the fifteenth place? Whoever played in Paget's stead against Ripton would be certain, if the match were won, to receive his colours. Who, then, would fill the vacancy?
“Rand-Brown, of course,” said the crowd.
But the experts, as we have shown, were of a different opinion.
II. THE GOLD BAT
Trevor did not take long to resume a garb of civilisation. He never wasted much time over anything. He was gifted with a boundless energy, which might possibly have made him unpopular had he not justified it by results. The football of the school had never been in such a flourishing condition as it had attained to on his succeeding to the captaincy. It was not only that the first fifteen was good. The excellence of a first fifteen does not always depend on the captain. But the games, even down to the very humblest junior game, had woken up one morning—at the beginning of the previous term—to find themselves, much to their surprise, organised going concerns. Like the immortal Captain Pott, Trevor was “a terror to the shirker and the lubber”. And the resemblance was further increased by the fact that he was “a toughish lot", who was “little, but steel and india-rubber”. At first sight his appearance was not imposing. Paterfamilias, who had heard his son's eulogies on Trevor's performances during the holidays, and came down to watch the school play a match, was generally rather disappointed on seeing five feet six where he had looked for at least six foot one, and ten stone where he had expected thirteen. But then, what there was of Trevor was, as previously remarked, steel and india-rubber, and he certainly played football like a miniature Stoddart. It was characteristic of him that, though this was the first match of the term, his condition seemed to be as good as possible. He had done all his own work on the field and most of Rand-Brown's, and apparently had not turned a hair. He was one of those conscientious people who train in the holidays.
When he had changed, he went down the passage to Clowes' study. Clowes was in the position he frequently took up when the weather was good—wedged into his window in a sitting position, one leg in the study, the other hanging outside over space. The indoor leg lacked a boot, so that it was evident that its owner had at least had the energy to begin to change. That he had given the thing up after that, exhausted with the effort, was what one naturally expected from Clowes. He would have made a splendid actor: he was so good at resting.
“Hurry up and dress,” said Trevor; “I want you to come over to the baths.”
“What on earth do you want over at the baths?”
“I want to see O'Hara.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. Dexter's are camping out there, aren't they? I heard they were. Why is it?”
“One of the Dexter kids got measles in the last week of the holidays, so they shunted all the beds and things across, and the chaps went back there instead of to the house.”
In the winter term the baths were always boarded over and converted into a sort of extra gymnasium where you could go and box or fence when there was no room to do it in the real gymnasium. Socker and stump-cricket were also largely played there, the floor being admirably suited to such games, though the light was always rather tricky, and prevented heavy scoring.
“I should think,” said Clowes, “from what I've seen of Dexter's beauties, that Dexter would like them to camp out at the bottom of the baths all the year round. It would be a happy release for him if they were all drowned. And I suppose if he had to choose any one of them for a violent death, he'd pick O'Hara. O'Hara must be a boon to a house-master. I've known chaps break rules when the spirit moved them, but he's the only one I've met who breaks them all day long and well into the night simply for amusement. I've often thought of writing to the S.P.C.A. about it. I suppose you could call Dexter an animal all right?”