Mr Parrett spoke severely, and looked as good as his word. He had carefully weighed his words beforehand, and he knew tolerably well the boys with whom he had to deal. They were noisy boys, and troublesome boys, and cheeky boys, and idle boys, but they were honest on the whole, and the master calculated pretty shrewdly on the effect which this last decision would have on their conduct.
As long as it was a mere question of getting his own particular self into a row, not one of these boys fixed any precise limit to his disorderly instincts; but when it came to getting a whole lot of other boys into the row too, a new and very embarrassing difficulty arose which was fairly insurmountable.
Mr Parrett dismissed the boys sternly, and then, trusting he had done right, and trusting still more to be able to turn the better qualities of his noisy young pupils to some good purpose, he went straight to the doctor and told him what he had done.
Dr Patrick fully approved of the decision of his colleague, and while on the subject opened his mind to him on the question of the discipline of Willoughby generally.
“Have you been able to judge at all of the order of the school lately, Parrett?” he said.
“Well, sir,” said Mr Parrett, “I’m not sure that it is as good as it should be. Of course, it was an experiment making Riddell captain, particularly as he is not generally popular.”
“His unpopularity arises from no cause in himself,” said the doctor; “if it did I would not have put him in the post. But he will live it down — in fact, he is doing so now, I fancy.”
“I think he is,” said Mr Parrett. “The great difficulty is to get him to assert himself.”
“I trust,” said the doctor, after a pause, “there is no truth in the report that Bloomfield and the monitors of your house are trying to set up a counter authority to Riddell’s.”
“It is true,” said Mr Parrett; “and it is the secret of most of the bad order in the school. But I am not sure, sir, whether it is a matter you would do well to notice. It is one of the difficulties which Riddell has to live down, and which bring him out more than anything else. He has made his mark already on the usurpers.”
“You are quite right,” said the doctor. “I would rather leave a difficulty like that to right itself. And I dare say the reason Riddell is so slow in asserting himself, as you say, is that in his own house he really has not much to do.”
“Exactly,” said Mr Parrett.
The doctor paused for a moment and then started on an apparently fresh topic.
“I am afraid Welch’s house is no better than it was.”
“How can it be?” said Mr Parrett. “It has not a single senior of influence or even character in it.”
“And more than that,” added the doctor, “it contains a few boys — one or two only, I hope — whose influence is distinctly bad.”
Mr Parrett nodded.
“A change of some sort must be made,” said the doctor. “It has occurred to me, Parrett, quite recently, that Riddell might do better there.”
Mr Parrett opened his eyes wide.
“You are astonished,” said the doctor. “So was I when I first thought of it. But Riddell is a safe man, if slow, and his influence is just what is wanted in Welch’s. Besides, Fairbairn would make an excellent head for the schoolhouse. What do you think?”
“Without doubt Riddell, as far as character goes, is the best boy you could choose. I’m not quite sure, though, whether he has sufficient force.”
“But, as you say, his force answers to his difficulties. At any rate I am disposed to try him. A few weeks will show how he gets on. I have not much fear myself.”
And so the head master and his lieutenant separated.
Little dreaming of the changes in store for them, Silk and Gilks were sitting together in the study of the latter, furtively consuming cigar-ends and looking decidedly glum as they conversed together in low and mysterious and not very amicable tones.
“Think he’ll do it?” said Silk.
“He had a letter from home this morning,” replied Gilks, “I know, because he sat next to me at breakfast while he was reading it.”
“Did you see what it said,” inquired Silk, as naturally as if looking over another fellow’s letters were an ordinary proceeding.
“No, but it was from his brother, and it had a post-office order in it.”
“It had? that’s lucky. How much was it for?”
“I couldn’t see,” said Gilks.
“Where is he now?” asked Silk, after a pause.
“I don’t know. Probably in his Holiness’s study — or, no, it’s library night — he’ll be there.”
“What a nuisance that library is. The young beggar’s always pottering about there,” said Silk. “Think he’ll look us up before bedtime?”
“Don’t know,” said Gilks.
“You’d better know,” said Silk. “He must come, and you’d better see he does.”
This last was spoken in a somewhat menacing voice, and Gilks sulkily replied, “What are you in such a hurry to-night for? The morning will do, won’t it?”
“No,” said Silk, “it won’t, there; and if it did, I choose to see him to-night.”
“I don’t know what makes you so precious disagreeable,” growled Gilks. “I don’t want to be ordered about by you, I can tell you.”
Silk sneered. “I’m under great obligations to you, I know,” he said.
“Well,” said Gilks, who winced visibly under the satire, “however could I help it? It wasn’t my fault, I tell you. I’m awfully sorry you lost on the race, but—”
“But you’d better look alive and do what I tell you,” said Silk, viciously.
It was curious, to say the least of it, that in so short a time the Welcher should have so completely got the upper hand of his confederate that the latter departed meekly without another word on his errand.
He found Wyndham, as he had expected, in the library, busy getting together the books for distribution next day.
“Hullo!” said Gilks, with a show of cordiality; “here you are again. You seem to live here.”
“No, I don’t,” said Wyndham, looking not very pleased to be interrupted; “but I always have to get ready an evening before the day, or the fellows kick up such a jolly row when they’re kept waiting.”
“How long shall you be?” asked Gilks.
“I don’t know. Why?” asked Wyndham.
“Only Silk wants to speak to you.”
Wyndham’s face clouded. He had come fresh from Riddell’s study an hour ago. His brother’s friend had been as kind as ever. In a hundred ways he had shown it without sermon or lecture, and Wyndham had felt stung with a sense of his own ingratitude and dishonesty as he accepted the help and goodness of his mentor.
Now, consequently, this summons to present himself before Silk was more than usually distasteful.
“I can’t come, tell him. It will take me all the evening to finish this.”
“You’d better go, though,” said Gilks.
“I can’t. Why had I better go?” asked Wyndham, looking uncomfortable.
“It’s something important he wants you for. You’d better go, young un.”
Wyndham flung down the book in his hand with a baffled air, and muttering, “I hate the fellow!” walked miserably off. Gilks called him back for a moment.
“I say,” he said, “don’t you be such a fool as to rile Silk, young un. He could make it precious awkward for you and me too if it came to a row. Take my advice and keep in with him.”
Wyndham answered nothing, but went off moodily to Silk. “Ah, Wyndham,” said the latter, cordially, as his young protégé entered, “I was just wondering if you’d give me a look up.”