"I-I-I t-tell you, a boy in a kindergarten could get it right—a g-g-guttersnipe could. I-I-I-I—"

This was so much like what they yell from a fire-engine that, though I struggled hard, I could not contain a giggle.

"I-I-I'll do it for you."

He got it wrong, which elicited a bursting giggle from me. Fillet turned on me like a barking dog.

"Go to your place, boy, and take your vulgar guffaws with you!"

Surprised at Fillet's taking it to heart in this way, I went, much abashed, to my seat, and tried to control my fit of giggling. But it so possessed me that finally it made a very horrible noise in my nose. Carpet Slippers raised his little head that was a hybrid between a peach and a billiard ball—a peach as to the face, and a billiard ball as to the cranium—and when he saw me sitting with lips tightly set and my desk trembling with my internal laughter, anger put a fresh coating of red upon both peach and ball. But he took no action at present.

"I-I'll d-do one of these sums on the board for you."

Getting up, he turned his back on us and, facing the board, wrote with his chalk the number 10. Now, as he wrote on a level with his eyes, his fat little head quite eclipsed his writing. So, simply to show that I was no longer laughing, I called out loudly:

"What number, sir?"

Round swung Carpet Slippers, his peach-face assuming the tint of a tomato.

"What number? I-I'll t-teach you to ask 'what number' when I've written '10' on the board. I-I've heard what you do in other class-rooms. D-don't think you're going to introduce your hooliganism here. Go and ask the p-porter to let me have a cane."

The boys pricked up their ears and looked at me. Penny let his jaw drop in amazement and, leaving his mouth open, maintained an expression like that of the village idiot. I stared, flabbergasted, into Carpet Slippers' face.

"But, sir—" I ventured. Tears and temper began to rise in me.

"D-don't argue. Do what you're told."

"But, sir—" And then, like a cloud, sullen obstinacy came down upon me. I was certain that he had been longing for an excuse to flog me. The pride and the relish of the martyr supported me as, without telling him that his head had obstructed my view, I walked out to do my message.

Finding the porter in his office, I politely inquired if he could spare a cane for Mr. Fillet; and, at my query, he grinned—the blithering idiot. The cane that he handed me I took, and, being at that moment a youngster who wouldn't have let his spirits sink for all the Fillets in the world, I offered back the cane and suggested:

"I say, are you sure you couldn't lose this?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Well, look here, do you really think you can manage to part with it?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Well, don't you think that, for a man of your age, you look rather a fool standing up there and saying 'Quite sure' to everything that's said to you? Don't you think it's rather a fat and silly thing to do?"

I put it to him as man to man.

"Quite sure, sir," he replied with a laugh.

"Go to blazes," I said, "and take your vulgar guffaws with you."

On my way back I stayed to admire the classical busts and statues that lined the deserted corridors like exhibits in a museum. All the life-size ones I whacked with my cane. I took a wistful pleasure in giving the naked ones two good strokes each. As I drew near the class-room door I certainly felt uncomfortable, for I knew Fillet intended to sting. But my sense of martyrdom carried me through. I gathered my dignity about me and knocked heavily on the door. Annoyed that my hand had trembled and spoilt the effect, I opened the door briskly and shut it briskly. With a calm step and fearless look, both studied, for I copied Doe in these matters, I walked towards Carpet Slippers. The little man was pretending he had forgotten all about me, while really he had prepared a sarcasm with which to poison my wounds.

"Oh, indeed. You've b-been a long time gone; but thrashings are like good wine—they improve with keeping."

He sucked in his breath with satisfaction.

"Yes, sir," replied I. If there was any trembling about me it was inside and not visible.

He took the cane from my hand and examined its effectiveness. Then, intending a pretty little jest, he faced the class and commanded:

"St-stand out, that boy who asked the number of the sum after I had put it on the board."

"Swine!" hissed somebody. I fancy it was Edgar Doe.

"I'm here, sir," replied I from his side, white.

Pennybet, who all this time had kept his mouth agape and impersonated the village idiot, laid down his pen, closed his book, and disposed himself to watch out the matter. He was always callous when in pursuit of his object; and his object now was to suck the humour out of my painful position. He put his elbow on the desk, rested his head at a graceful angle on the palm of his hand, and half closed his Arab eyes. He looked like an earnest parson posing for a photograph.

Our engaging little master, having bent me over and arranged me for punishment, gave me ten strokes instead of the usual six—the number of the sum had been "ten."

When I rose from my bended posture, how I hated Carpet Slippers, and was happy in my hate! I hated the silkiness of his chestnut beard; I hated the sheen of his pink cranium; I hated his soft rotundity and his little curvilinear features; I hated, above all, his poisonous speeches. As I walked to my seat, my body stinging still, I resolved to go to war with Fillet. I declared with all a child's power of make-believe that a state of war existed between Rupert Ray and Carpet Slippers. War, then, war, open or understood!

And when that class closed, no boy was more forcedly loud and lively than I: no boy shut his books with greater claps; no boy banged his desk more carelessly. Nor would I listen to sympathising friends, but laughed out in Fillet's hearing: "You don't think I care, do you?"

Fillet noticed my ostentatious display of indifference and perhaps felt apprehensive of the latent devil that he had aroused, but his inward comment, I doubt not, was: "We'll see who's going to be master here. He can feel the weight of my hand again, if he likes. We can't let a bad-spirited little boy have all his own way. I think we'll break his defiance. I think we will." And possibly, as he said it, he sucked in his breath with satisfaction. Fillet realised that it was War and the first shots had been exchanged.

Sec.3

This was the preliminary skirmish. Real and bloody battle was joined twenty-four hours later. But, in the meantime, there was an early-evening lull which enclosed a delightful cricket match. A team of junior Kensingtonians, that included Doe and myself, was going across Kensingtowe High Road to play the First Eleven of the Preparatory School, an academy flippantly known as the "Nursery," its boys being "Suckers." Edgar Doe had been a certain choice. Brought up in the midst of a great cricketing family, the Grays of Surrey tradition, in his beautiful Falmouth home which boasted cricket pitches of its own, he was as polished a bat as the Nursery had ever known. I came to be selected as a promising change-bowler.

We were walking in our flannels towards the Nursery gates, when Doe, referring with bad taste to the Fillet incident just closed, began to chastise me with his cricket bat. I returned the treatment with a pair of pads. So we went along, full in the public view, each trying to "get in a good one" on the other. I managed to knock Doe's bat out of his hand, and, as he stooped to pick it up, he received my pads upon his person. This was actually in the middle of the High Street. He laughed loudly, and crying "O you young beast!" started to belabour me with his fists. Suddenly we stopped, let our hands fall to our sides, and began to walk like nuns in a cloister. Radley had joined us.

"If you're so anxious to whack each other," said he pleasantly, "won't you commission me to do it in both cases?"

We grinned sheepishly and said nothing. My mind formulated the sentence "Good Lord, no!" and, quickly constructing what would have happened had I uttered it aloud, I tittered uncomfortably and looked away. There was an awkward pause as we walked along with our master between us.

"Well, Ray," he said, endeavouring to put us at our ease, "are you a great batsman?"

"No, sir," replied I. "Doe is."

"So I've heard. I'm coming to see what he's made of."

Doe could find nothing to say in reply, but lifted up his face and looked at Radley with the gratitude of a dog. For my part I felt a pleasing, squirmy excitement to think that we were to walk on to the Nursery field in the company of the great Middlesex amateur; and, incidentally, I took the opportunity of measuring myself against him.

We arrived on the ground, creating less sensation than I would have liked. Radley took a deck-chair in front of the pavilion next to Dr. Chapman, or "Chappy," surely the stoutest and jolliest of school doctors. The fact that Chappy, occupying so withdrawn a position as medical officer to the two schools, should have been such a memorable figure in the life of the boys testifies to the largeness of his personality. And, not being the most modest of stout and hearty doctors, he was always willing himself to testify to the largeness of his personality. He dearly loved cricket, he would tell you, for he had been a cricketer himself and seen many worse; and he dearly loved boys, for he had been a boy himself and never seen any worse: so, where there was a boys' cricket match, there, old man, you would find Dr. Chapman. Besides, when boys played cricket, it was well to have a doctor on the field, and he was a doctor and had never met a better. Would you have a cigar? All tobacco, in his opinion, led to the overthrow of body and soul—believe him; it did—but you would never see him without a cigar. Not he!

Such was Chappy, the medicine man. He was right, about the cigar. As I figure him in my mind, the things that I immediately associate with his stout, jolly presence are a chewed cigar drooping from his mouth and a huge white waistcoat soiled by the tumbled ash. I sum him up as a genial soul whose religion was to seek comfort, to find popularity a comfortable thing, and to love popularity among young things as the most comfortable of all. And, if that last dogma of his be not Heaven's truth, then my outlook on life is all wrong, and this book's a failure!

As Radley placed his muscular frame in the deck-chair, Chappy greeted him with these regrettable remarks: "Hallo, Radley, aren't you dead yet? How the devil are you? My word, how you've grown!"

The match started, Doe and our captain opening the Kensingtowe innings. I left the other boys and lay down upon the grass a little behind Radley's chair. Converging reasons led me there: one—I desired that my old friends, the Suckers, should know of my intimacy with S.T. Radley, of Middlesex; two—I felt Chappy's conversation would certainly be entertaining; and three—I should soon have to go in to bat, and was feeling too nervous to talk to offensively happy boys who were unworried by such imminent publicity.

"So they've sent us a cricketer in young Doe," Radley was saying to Dr. Chapman.

Chappy turned in his chair, which creaked alarmingly, and composed himself to talk comfortably.

"Oh, the Gray Doe—yes, charming little squirt—best bat the Nursery had last year. And, though nobody but myself recognised it, the Gem was the best bowler."

"The Gem?" queried Radley. "Who was the 'Gem'?"

"Don't you know the Gem? Why, Ray, the little snipe with eyes something between a diamond and a turquoise. The ladies here called him 'The Gem' because of this affliction. He'd be a great bowler, only he's too shy."

At this point I rolled on to my stomach so as to appear unaware of their conversation, which was even more entertaining than I had hoped. Radley turned round and, having seen me, said something in an undertone to Chappy. I imagine he drew attention to my proximity, for Chappy laughed out: "O law! Glory be!" and continued in a lower voice.

My sense of honour was not so nice that it prevented me from trying to catch the rest of their conversation. They had opened so promisingly: and now Chappy was getting quite enthusiastic, and the rapid motion of his lips was causing the cigar to be so restless that it constantly changed its position and scattered ash down his expanse of white waistcoat. I had no need, however, to strain my ears, for Chappy was incapable of speaking softly for any length of time. I caught him proceeding:

"He's clever, his masters say, and got a big future. Handsome little rogue, too. He's none of your ordinary boys. He's a twig from the cedar-top."

For two reasons—first, that this was a fine rhetorical flourish on which to close; and secondly, that his breath was giving out—Chappy concluded his remarks, swept his waistcoat, and re-arranged his position in the deck-chair. I was feeling horribly anxious lest I should die without knowing whether it was of Doe or of me that he had spoken, when Radley cleared up the matter by saying:

"He's playing a straight bat, isn't he?"

So it was Doe. Well, he was clever, I supposed, but not as clever as all that.

"Straight bat, rather!" agreed Chappy.

"Does he play a straight bat in all things?"

"My dear fellow, what the la-diddly-um do you mean?"

"Why, he seems to be a bit of an actor—to do things because he wants to appear in a favourable light."

"I say, that's doocid ungenerous of you," said Chappy. "And, by jove, if he likes to imagine himself very noble and heroic, and tries to act accordingly, very fine of him."

"Very," endorsed Radley, cryptically.

"I've a great liking for him."

"So have I."

"Good. Now, what first attracted you—his good looks or his virtues?"

"Neither. His vices."

"Here, hang me, Radley," said Chappy, "you want examining. You're not only a shocking bad conversationalist, but also a little mad. That's your doctor's opinion; that'll be a guinea, please."

After this I ceased to listen. The talk was all about Doe, and rather silly. And I wanted to think over the little fact, which Chappy had let fall, that certain ladies called me the "Gem." I chewed a blade of grass and ruminated. That flattering little disclosure balanced the weight of Fillet's dislike. I wished it could be brought to his knowledge; and I imagined conversations in which he was told. This was the first time that it dawned upon me that there was anything in my looks to admire. Pennybet I conceived to be dark and handsome, Doe fair and pretty, and myself drab and plain. But now I got up and took myself, completely thrilled, to a mirror in the changing room to have a look at these same eyes. I was prepared for something good. The result was that I became almost sick with disappointment. A close examination showed them to be quite commonplace. I could not really detect that they were blue. I even thought they looked a little foolish. And, as I gazed at them, they certainly turned very sad.

I strolled back to the pavilion just as a burst of applause announced a fine drive by Doe.

"Oh, pretty stroke!" shouted Chappy, sprinkling quantities of ash. "Pretty play! By jove, the little fool's a genius!"

"He may be a genius of some other sort," said Radley, "but he's not a genius at cricket. Look at his diffidence in the treatment of swift balls. He's a cricketer made, not born. He has imagination and a sense of artistic effect, and a natural grace—that's all. They'll make him a poet, perhaps, but not a cricketer."

"Don't talk such flapdoodle!" grumbled Chappy. "Look at that!"

All that Doe did then was to direct the ball with perfect ease between Point and Short Slip and to glance quickly towards the pavilion to see if the stroke had been noticed. The sight of him batting there made me feel another squirmy sensation at the thought that he was my especial friend. He had given, I recall, his grey hat to the umpire to hold, and the wind was playing with his hair. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, showing arms smooth and round like a woman's.

Just then, however, my attention was attracted by a new arrival. The boy Freedham, having listlessly wandered across from Kensingtowe, slouched on to the Nursery playground. He was a tall, weedy youth of sixteen; and the unhealthiness of his growth was shown by the long, graceless neck, the spare chest, and the thin wrists. There was a weakness, too, at his knees which caused me to think that they had once worked on springs which now were broken. But the greatest abnormality was seen in his eyes. Startlingly large, startlingly bright, they were sometimes beautiful and always uncanny.

This Freedham, with his slack gait and carriage, strolled towards a railing and, resting both elbows on it, watched Doe at his cricket. The whole picture is very clear on my mind. A sunny afternoon seemed to have forgotten the time and only just made up its mind to merge into a mellow evening: the boys, watching the game, were sending their young and lively sounds upon the air; those of the smaller cattle, whose interest had waned, were engaging with the worst taste in noisy French cricket: the flannelled figures of the players, with their wide little chests, neat waists, and round hips, promised fine things for the manhood of England ten years on: at the wicket stood the attractive figure of Edgar Doe in an occupation very congenial to him—that of shining: and Chappy had just said: "I say, Radley, don't you think this generation of boys is the most shapely lot England has turned out? I wonder what use she'll make of them," when he saw Freedham's entry and opened a new conversation.

"That's old Freedham's boy over there, isn't it?" he asked. "Shocking specimen."

"Yes, he's a day-boy. You know his father, the doctor?"

"Doctor be damned!" answered Chappy. "He's no more a doctor than a Quaker's a Christian. Old Freedham's surgery is a bally schism-shop. He's one of those homoeopathic Johnnies, and would be blackballed on societies of which I'm a vice-president. You know—just as I can never go into dissenting chapels without feeling certain of the presence of evil spirits—my wife says it's the stuffiness of the atmosphere, but I say: 'No, my dear, it's evil spirits; I know what's evil spirits and what's bad air'—well, just so I could never go into old Freedham's—but I'm not likely to be asked. Doctor—bah!"

And Chappy flung away the moist and masticated end of his cigar and all such nonsensical ideas with it. Then he took a new cigar from his case, proceeding:

"And the man's not only a nonconformist in the Medicine Creed, but he's actually a deacon in a Presbyterian chapel—or something equally heathen—and a fluent one at that, I expect. I make a point of never trusting those people. Look at his sickening son and heir yonder. Did you ever see an orthodox doctor produce a cockchafer like that? That's homoeopathy, that is—"

And Chappy flourished his new cigar towards Freedham.

Doe, too, had seen Freedham's entry, and some sign of recognition passed between them. The next ball came swiftly and threateningly down upon the leg side, and Doe, perhaps with the nervousness consequent upon the arrival of a new critic before whom he would fain do well, stepped back. A shout went up as it was seen that the ball had taken the leg bail. Doe looked flurried at this sudden dismissal and a bit upset. He involuntarily shot a glance at Freedham and after some hesitation left the crease. He rather dragged his bat and drooped his head as he walked to the pavilion, till, realising that this might be construed into an ungracious acceptance of defeat, he brought his head erect and swung his bat with a careless freedom.

"Heavens!" murmured Radley. "Isn't he self-conscious?"

Chappy didn't hear. He was taken up in applauding the stylish innings of the retiring batsman, and swearing he would stand the boy a liquor.

"Bravo, Doe!" he shouted. "Don't think you can play cricket, 'cos you can't. So there!"

Doe entered blushing and stood nervously by an empty chair near Radley, who read his meaning and said: "Sit there, if you like."

My friend put the chair very close to his hero and, having sat in it, began to remove his pads. I think Radley was pleased with this action and liked having the worshipping youth beside him. The fall of Doe's wicket had brought my innings nearer and started a fresh attack of stage-fright. In my agitation movement seemed imperative. So I came and reclined on the ground by Edgar, intruding myself on his notice by asking:

"That beastly tapeworm Freedham spoilt your game, didn't he?"

Edgar heard my question, and his lips fumbled with a reply. The face that he turned upon me was a deep plum-pink from recent running and surmounted with fair hair whose disordered ends were darkened with moisture.

"No," he said; "at least, I don't know him. But what's it to do with you?"

This remark was sufficiently discouraging to impel me on to my feet and to send me to districts where I should be less unpopular. I conceived the idea of examining Freedham at nearer range. Perhaps I was jealous of him. Though as yet I had no unordinary love for Doe, I had a sense of proprietorship in him which was quickened the minute it was disturbed. So I moored myself on the railing about three yards from Freedham. This could easily be managed, Freedham being one of those boys who were always alone. For a little I pretended to watch the game and then stole a furtive, sideways glance at his lank profile. I had immediate cause to wish I had done nothing of the sort, for he turned his unholy eyes on mine and so disconcerted me that I swung my face back upon the cricket field and affected complete indifference. I even hummed a little ditty to show that if any mind was free from the designs of the private detective, mine was. But my acting was not made easier by the certainty that Freedham's eyes were steadily examining my burning cheek. And, if it be possible to see a question in eyes which you are only imagining, I saw in Freedham's: "What the blazes do you want?" After giving him time to forget me, I turned again to look at him. But once more I caught his weird orbs full upon mine, and muttering. "Oh, dash!" concentrated my attention on the cricket.

A few minutes later the heavy wooden rail on which I was leaning began to vibrate horribly. I looked in alarm at Freedham. He was standing rigid, as though sudden death had stiffened him upright. His left hand was grasping the railing, and through this channel an electric trembling of his whole frame had communicated itself to the wood. His face was unnaturally red, and his right hand had passed over his heart which it was pressing. His eyes were fixed on the cricket match.

My first sensation, I confess, was one of pride at being the boy to discover Freedham in what appeared to be a fit. I went quickly to him and said: "I say, Freedham. Freedham, what's the matter?"

"N-nothing," he replied, still stiff and trembling. "But it's all—right. I shall be quite—fit again in a minute. Don't look at me."

"But shall I get you water or something?"

"No. It's all right. I've had these attacks before. In class sometimes and—I've conquered them, and—no one's known anything about them. So don't tell anyone about this. Promise."

It cost me something to throw away the prospect of telling this thrilling story of which I had exclusive information, but the man in pain is master of us all, so I readily promised.

"All right, Freedham. That's all right."

Though some years his junior, I said it much as a mother would soothe a frightened child to sleep.

"Thanks awfully," said Freedham gratefully.

"Oh, by the by, there's old Dr. Chapman over there. Should I fetch him?"

"No, damn you!" cried my patient with extraordinary conviction. "Can't you mind your own infernal business and leave me to mind mine?"

This was so rude that I felt quite justified in leaving him to mind his own infernal business, whatever it might be. I strolled away.

Now, with this interesting performance of Freedham's, my desire to describe this cricket match ends. There was a hot finish, but, in spite of some fortunate overs from myself, the Suckers won. The last wicket down, Chappy got out of his deck-chair with a sudden quickness which suggested that such was the only method of successfully getting his fat self upon his feet; and, when he had shaken down his white waistcoat and said: "Bye-bye, Radley. Reg'lar meals, no smoke, and you may grow into a fine lad yet," carried himself off with the awkward leg-work of a heavy-bodied man, cheerily acknowledging the greetings of the little Sucker boys, and prodding the fattest of them in the ribs. Radley strolled away, followed by the wondering looks of boys who were told that this big man was S.T. Radley, of Middlesex. Freedham, quite recovered, returned to his day-boy roof among the endless roofs of Kensingtowe Town. And I plied homeward to Bramhall House, depressed by the prospect of Preparation for the rest of the evening, and by the restored consciousness of Fillet's hostility, which, forgotten during the cricket match, now came back upon me like a sense of foreboding.



CHAPTER III

AWFUL ROUT OF RAY

Sec.1

The following afternoon I was looking rather glumly out of a window at the broad playing fields which, in the greyness of a rainy day, seemed as deserted as myself. From my place I could see nearly all the red-brick wall that surrounds Kensingtowe grounds; I could see the iron railings which, at long intervals, break the monotony of the wall. Now the railings of Kensingtowe, like all places with sad memories, have an honourable place in my heart.

Naturally it was a rule, strictly enforced, that boys must make their exit from the fields by going through the Bramhall gate rather than over the railings. Naturally, too, this rule was sometimes disregarded, for the architect, whom I deem a desirable soul, had made the passage over the railings invitingly possible by means of some well-placed cross-pieces, which he sketched into his designs, saying (I imagine): "We shall have the lads climbing over at this point—well, God bless 'em—I hope they're not caught and whopped for it." Right at the farthest corner of the field was the Bramhall gate, which—But the Bramhall gate needn't interest us: we leave by the railings.

The noise of a footstep disturbing the gravel caused me to look down. A boy, hatless, ran across to the wall and walked guiltily beneath it till he reached the railings. The fairness of his hair arrested my attention. And, while I was wondering what any boy might be doing hatless in the rain, my friend Doe had grasped the railings, pulled himself to their top, and dropped on to the pavement beyond.

Now, my dear Watson, here was a case of exceptional interest. In all the annals of criminal investigation I know of none that presented possibilities more bizarre, none that called more urgently for the subtlest qualities of the private detective. I rushed out of the building, letting doors slam behind me. Quickly I reached the railings, raised myself to the top, and glanced down the road in time to see Doe join the lank and sinister figure of Freedham at the corner.

But alas! just over the road was Bramhall House, Fillet's own kingdom, and even at that moment I saw a bald head emerge from its central doorway. A feeling that was partly terror and partly temper manacled me to the top of the railings; and after a few tense seconds I was gazing fascinated into a little bearded face which was staring with interest up at me. It was Carpet Slippers, and he may be said to have been round a corner.

"Oh, dash!" I muttered. And then, as I stared down at him, thinking it right that he, by virtue of his seniority, should open the conversation, I gradually began to feel better, for I remembered that it was War.

"Hallo, Ray," said Fillet, "what may you be d-d-doing up there?"

"Climbing over, sir." (Indeed, what more obvious?)

"Oh, you-you are climbing over, are you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, indeed."

When I saw that he was trifling with me, I determined that he should know it was War. Defiantly I answered:

"Yes, sir. Climbing over. YES, SIR. *YES, SIR*."

Fillet went white, but he only sucked in his breath and said:

"Oh, indeed. And d-d-do you contemplate coming down?"

I borrowed a favourite word of Penny's. "Ultimately, sir."

"Ah! you do, do you? Well, wh-when you 'ultimately' come down, you will go straight to my study."

"Delighted, sir." The blood rushed to my face as I realised my own impudence, but I was glad that I had said it.

Fillet went his way, and I came down from my railing, combating the sickening certainty that I had made a fool of myself, and determining to believe in the splendour of my attitude and to carry it through to victory. Carry on, Rupert, carry on. Onward, Christian soldiers.

I sauntered over to Bramhall House and climbed the stairs to the house-master's study. Hearing Fillet grunt at my knock, I walked in to execution.

"Oh, let's see, Ray, you were cl-climbing over, weren't you?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Oh, indeed. Then you shall write five hundred lines of Cicero. You'll play no games till they're done."

Five hundred Latin lines! God! I had nerved myself for physical punishment, but for nothing so dreadful as this. This meant long days of confinement with hard, hard labour. A great mass of tears rose from somewhere and came dangerously near the surface. But I kept them down and tried to show, though there was a catch in my voice, that I was still unbroken.

"Yes, sir. Anything further?"

"Yes indeed." Carpet Slippers sucked in his breath. "A further hundred lines. P-p-perhaps that'll teach you that rebellion is expensive."

I swallowed the tears. "No, sir. That won't teach me."

"So? Well, let's say yet another hundred."

Mentally stunned and bleeding, but ready to do battle with the Day of Judgment itself, I retorted:

"That won't teach me either, sir."

"Oh, indeed. Then we'll add another three hundred—eh?—making a thousand in all."

And at that point I shamefully broke off the fight. It wasn't fair—he had all the artillery. I held back the tears, fast gathering in volume, and gave up the unequal contest. One day my own guns would come. Quite respectfully I said "Yes, sir," and walked out. The vanguard of that mighty array of tears had forced its way as far as my eyes, which felt suspiciously moist. In fact, as I shut the door and found myself alone—absolutely alone—they nearly came forth in full cataract. But I saved the situation by thinking hard of other things and whistling loudly.

I went to an open window in the corridor and, looking out, saw that the sun had just dispelled the rain. The railings of Kensingtowe over the roadway were still burnished and glistening with wet, as were the leaves of shrubs and trees. And the air that touched my cheek was all soft and sweet-smelling after rain. Resting my elbows on the window-sill, I told myself that I hated Carpet Slippers; that I hated Doe and it was all his fault; that I wouldn't do the lines—I wouldn't do them; that I didn't care if I was expelled; Kensingtowe was a beastly school, and Bramhall was its filthiest house.

The sound of a step in the corridor behind me arrested my thoughts. I leaned farther out of the window and muttered: "Oh, I hope he won't speak to me. I hope he'll pass by. I hate him, whoever he is. O God, make him pass by," for I knew there was a moisture in my eyes. I hurriedly held them wide open, that they might dry in the sun.

"Ray?" It was Radley's voice, but I wilfully paid no attention.

In a second he had laid violent hands on me and swung me round, so that I was held facing him.

"What? Crying, Ray? That's a luxury we men must deny ourselves."

It seems, as I recall it, a fine sentence, but at that moment, when I wanted to be a wild ass among men, it was a lie. The hot blood flooded my forehead. "I'm not crying!" I snapped, keeping my face upturned, my eyes fixed on his, and my teeth firmly set, that he might see that he had lied.

"No, of course you're not. But come, now, Ray, what's the matter? Out with it! There's nobody but me to hear you. And I understand."

I didn't want him to speak kindly to me, for I hated him. So I said in a rapid, trembling voice:

"I've got a thousand lines from Mr. Fillet. I didn't deserve them and I'm not going to do them!"

Immediately I felt that a catastrophe had occurred—that an edifice, which had been standing a second ago, was now no more. Before that sentence I had faced a kindly friend, now I faced an offended master. But, though I knew the ruin my words had wrought, I indulged a glow of self-righteousness and was prepared to relate my defiance to an approving world.

"Come with me," commanded Radley. Swinging round, he walked towards his room. At first I remained at the window without moving, and waited for him to turn his head and tell me a second time to come. But he walked on, never entertaining the thought of my not obeying him. And I followed, armed with indifference. It was a pity that walking behind him should give me so fine a view of his splendid proportions and inflate me with strange aspirations, for I hated the man and wanted to do so. I hated him—let no other thought replace that.

He led me to his room and said "Come in." I entered and, when I had closed the door, looked aimlessly about, taking little interest in the suggestive fact that Radley was opening a cupboard. There was little change in my countenance when he placed himself opposite me with his cane in his hand.

"You have been very rude to me in speaking defiantly of your house-master. Do you understand?"

There was no alternative for me but to say "Yes, sir." The answer came huskily. I was annoyed that my voice sounded hoarse.

"Put out your hand."

I obeyed, stretching out my right hand as far as I could and displaying no perturbation, though I was wondering what it would be like to be caned on the hand. This was one of Radley's surprises, and he followed it with one of his brutal remarks:

"Put that right hand down. You'll need it to be in good condition for writing your lines. Put up your left."

I held out my left hand. The cane sang in the air and whistled on to my open palm. A spasm of pain passed up my arm, my hand closed convulsively, my elbow drooped, and that vast array of tears made a tremendous effort to carry everything before them. But with all the strength at my command I got the better of them. Angry at having closed my hand, I extended the scorching palm again, and, very pale and trembling perceptibly, looked with set features straight at Radley.

He threw the cane away and, sitting on the edge of his table, took hold of the hand that he had struck and drew me towards him.

"Don't you think, Ray, that you, who can take a licking so pluckily, ought to face bad luck in a less cowardly fashion than you have this afternoon? You'll meet worse things than lines before you're ten years older; and, Ray, I want you always to face your fate, whatever it may be, as you faced my cane—teeth set, no wincing."

It was a stroke of master play. His gentleness, following immediately upon his severity, burst the dam. His words were an "Open Sesame" to the leaky floodgates I had held so tightly closed. I hung my head and the huge throng of tears broke forth. Wo-ho, what a cascade! My eyes overflowed with salt tears and my nose wanted wiping. Oh, waly, waly. Radley seemed indisposed to let go of my left hand, so I was compelled to search for my handkerchief with my right. After sounding the depths of four pockets, I found it, a singularly dirty one, in the fifth. And, while great internal sobs shook my frame with the regularity of minute-guns, Radley spoke so nicely that I determined I would be everything he wanted, a really beautiful character—always providing that it didn't interfere with my war with Fillet. For one day—one great and distant day—I would terribly overthrow that little old pantaloon.

"Now, Ray, we must get someone to dictate a few of these lines to you."

I looked up and smiled. "Thank you very much, sir," and I unconsciously pressed his hand.

"Doe is your friend. We'll test his metal and see whether he thinks friendship is something more than getting into scrapes together." He touched a bell. "I'll send for him."

I gave a sudden shiver. Doe was out in the world with Freedham, probably without an "exeat," and certainly without a hat. I began to wonder whether by a dramatic denouement I was to be the cause of Doe's capture.

"You rang, sir?" inquired the manservant.

"Yes; find Master Doe. He's in the house."

"Yes, sir." The door closed, and it was too late. Too late for what? I was sure I didn't know, for there was nothing I could have done to prevent the search for Doe. Late emotion had left, I suppose, my imagination in an overwrought state. And I had reason to wonder if I was moving in a dream, when, after a knock at the door, Doe walked in, his eyes sparkling at having been sent for by the object of his worship.

"Now, Doe," began Radley, with a smile—

"This life's mostly froth and bubble. Two things stand like stone: Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own.

Ray's just got a thousand lines of Cicero. But he understands all about 'courage in your own,' and you understand all about 'kindness in another's trouble.'"

"Yes, sir," agreed Doe, a bit bewildered, but instantly prepared to live up to this noble reputation.

"Well, what do you say to dictating some of the lines to him?"

"Rather, sir. I'll dictate them.... Besides, sir," he added, as if this explained everything, "Ray and I are twins."

Sec.2

And not a game did Doe play until he had dictated all those lines. It occupied a week and two days. When I dropped my pen, having written the last word, the relief of thinking that I had no more lines to write was almost painful. I felt suddenly ill. My loins, aching alarmingly, reminded me that I had been in a sitting posture for many a weary hour; and my fingers, suffering from what I judged to be rheumatism or gout, fidgeted to go on writing. My mind, too, was confused so that I found myself repeating whole lines of Cicero, sometimes aloud; and my face was pale, save for a dangerous pink flush on the forehead.

Life, however, seemed brightened by the sense of a task completed, and I began to think of someone else besides myself.

"I say, Doe," I asked, "aren't you going to tell me where you were going when you joined that knock-kneed idiot Freedham?"

"No," announced Doe.

"But look here," I began, and was just about to tell him that Freedham was an unwholesome creature who had mysterious fits like a demoniac, when I remembered my promise of silence: so I went on lamely: "You will tell me one day, won't you?"

"No," he repeated, feeling very firm and adamant and Napoleonic.

"But, my darling blighter, why not?"

"Because I don't choose to."

"Then you're a pig. But you might, Doe. Out with it. There's nobody but me to hear you. And I understand."

"No."

"Well, tell me, how did you get back so early?"

"You see," answered Doe, cryptically, "the sun came out; and when the sun came out, I came in."

It was a romantic sentence such as would delight this rudimentary poet. Why he condescended to break his mighty silence even to this extent, I don't know. It was perhaps a boyish love of hinting at a secret which he mustn't disclose. An awful idea struck me. I say it was awful because, though stirring in itself, it brought the thought that I was left out of it.

"Oh, Doe, have you—have you a SECRET SOCIETY?"

"No."

"Here, hang me, Doe," I said, "you're not only a shocking bad conversationalist, but also a little mad. That's your doctor's opinion. That'll be a guinea, please."

And I got up to take the lines to Fillet.

"I say, Rupert," said Doe, blushing and looking away.

"Well?" I asked, with my hand on the door-knob.

"I say," he stuttered, "you—you might just mention to Radley that I dictated all the lines. It would sort of—I mean—Oh, but you needn't, if you don't want to."

Sec.3

That night there happened in Bramhall House one of those strange events that are best chronicled in a few cold sentences. That night, I say, while honest men and boys slept, Mr. Fillet sat up in bed and listened. He distinctly heard movements in his study below. Jumping up, he slided into his carpet slippers and crept downstairs. There was a light in his study. He looked round the half-open door and saw the back view of a boy in pyjamas. The whole incident is much too sinister for me to remind you frivolously that little Carpet Slippers was once again round his corner. He began: "Wh-what are you doing?" and the boy at once did what any properly constituted midnight visitor should do—switched off the electric light. When Mr. Fillet, with a heart going like a motor engine, found the switch and flooded the room with light, there was, of course, no one there. But on his writing-table lay his cane, broken into pieces, and my own copy of the thousand lines torn into little bits.



CHAPTER IV

THE PREFECTS GO OVER TO THE ENEMY

Sec.1

What more exciting than for the whole school to learn by rumour the next morning that all the prefects of Bramhall House had been mysteriously withdrawn from their Olympian class-rooms to a special cabinet meeting under the presidency of Stanley, the gorgeous house-captain? Clearly some awful crime had been committed at Bramhall, and there would be a public whacking and an expulsion. We humans may or may not be brutal, but life is certainly more stimulating when there is an execution in the air.

Chattering, prophesying, and wondering who was the criminal, we found our way to our various class-rooms. It being First Period, Doe, Penny, and I were under Radley's stern rule and obliged to sit quietly in our desks, knowing that he would allow no more licence on this exciting day than on any other. Our heads were bent over our work when Bickerton, the junior prefect of Bramhall, entered the room, approached the master's desk, and spoke in an undertone to Radley.

I saw—for I was gazing at the new arrival over my work—Radley look astonished, and turn his eyes in my direction.

"Ray."

"Yes, sir."

"You're wanted in the Prefects' Room."

I remember the universal flutter of excitement and surprise; I remember Doe raising his head like a startled deer as I went out and shut the door; I remember catching, from outside, Radley's sharp rebuke, "Get on with your work." His voice sounded strangely distant, and seemed to be on the happier side of a closed door.

Bickerton, who was enjoying himself, walked in front; and I followed behind, bringing my attention to bear upon keeping in step. Rearranging my stride now and then, I marched through the empty corridors, listening to the drone of masters' voices teaching in their class-rooms, and wondering at the loudness of our footsteps. The sight of the prefects' door gave me my first sense of fear.

Being a prefect and thus mightily privileged, Bickerton turned the door-handle of the room without knocking. It was like laying a hand upon the Ark. Into the holy place Doe and I had passed before, not as prisoners, but as patronised pets who were suffered to amuse the august tenants with our "lip" until we became too disrespectful, when we would be ejected with a kick. This morning it struck strange and cold to hear Bickerton say:

"Here's the little bounder."

I entered, and saw the whole array of Bramhall prefects assembled, Stanley, their senior, presiding. Bickerton shut the door ceremoniously.

There were twelve of them, and every man was a blood. They had reached a solemn age and, in the dignity of their bloodhood, were quite unaware that they were playing at a mock-trial and enjoying it. I'm sure none of them would have missed it. Were Stanley alive now, instead of lying beneath the sea off Gallipoli, he would be twenty-seven years of age, very junior in his profession, and therefore much younger than when he was a house-captain of nineteen: and he would admit that on this famous occasion he and his fellow-prefects were highly pleased with the transaction entrusted to them. For at twenty-seven we are people who have been old and now are young again.

His team sat down two sides of a long table, and himself was enthroned at the top in front of foolscap and blotting-paper. It was a splendid tribunal.

I tried to persuade myself that I was perfectly comfortable, and could, if need be, show my easy conscience by a little old-time impudence. In reality my heart was fluttering, and a perspiration had broken out upon my head and the palms of my hands. My brows I wiped on my sleeve, and my hands I rubbed on the seat of my trousers. Nor had I lost the headache which asserted itself directly my long imposition was done. My forehead felt as if it had swollen and extended the skin across it like elastic. And for the last twelve hours my face had been warm and burning.

"Now, Rupert Ray," said Stanley, "we want you to own up to this blooming business of last night. So fire away."

"I don't know what you're gassing about," said I.

"Now don't be sulky. You'll only make matters worse by trying to bluff us. And goodness knows they're bad enough as it is."

"Oh, to think how we've been disappointed in you!" interposed Bickerton, who had taken up a position on the fender. "To think how we've cherished this viper in our bosom!" And he raised his hands in mock despair.

"Now don't be an ass, Bicky," said Stanley, who deemed that a Court of Inquiry over which he presided was much too weighty an affair to be approached with levity; "it's no joking matter. The kid's in a beastly mess, and, when he owns up, we must try to get him off as lightly as possible. I think perhaps we've let this youth and his chum, the Gray Doe, get too cheeky, and to that extent we're to blame.... Now, Ray, answer me some questions. Did you get a thousand lines from our revered housemaster, Carpet—Mr. Fillet?"

"Yes."

"When did you complete them?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"In short, on the afternoon immediately preceding the tragedy which took place in the microscopic hours of this morning?"

"Yes, I s'pose so."

"That's a remarkable coincidence, isn't it?"

"I'm bothered if I see why."

"My dear child, you really mustn't be 'bothered' in here. It's gross disrespect to my brother-prefects—my colleagues. Besides, you knew perfectly well that in the stilly night a malicious attempt was made upon—not upon the life—but upon the cane of Mr. Fillet, which is, after all, the life and soul of the little man."

There was laughter in court, in which his worship joined.

"O law!" ejaculated I, as things began to fall into shape.

"Really, child, such expressions as 'O law!' are out of order, especially when they're only so much bluff.... I must now approach a subject which may have sordid recollections for you, but in the interest of the law I am bound to allude to it. Were you whacked—ahem!—chastised a few days ago by the aforesaid Mr. Fillet?"

"Yes."

"When did the old gaffer—when did Mr. Fillet whack you?"

"Yes, tell the gentleman that," put in Kepple-Goddard, a prefect who felt that he was not playing a sufficiently imposing part and wished to have his voice heard.

"A week ago last Monday," I answered.

"Where did he whack you?" pursued Stanley.

"On the recognised spot."

"Now, don't be cheeky. In what place did he whack you?"

"Why, in his class-room, of course," I retorted. "Where do you think he'd do it? In the High Street?" As I said this I was seized with a nervous fit of giggling.

"Look here, sonny," said Kepple-Goddard, rapping on the table, "you're going the right way towards getting a prefects' whacking for contempt of court."

Stanley raised his hand for silence.

"Why did he whack you?"

"Because he couldn't get my sum right."

Here Banana-Skin, a large and overbearing prefect, so called because of his yellowish complexion, burst in with the skill of a prosecuting counsel:

"Oh, then, are we to understand that you were whacked unjustly and had reason for vindictiveness?"

"Go easy, Banana-Skin," protested Stanley. "Don't bully the kid."

"But," I said, beginning to feel that horrid array of tears mobilising again, "that was some time before he gave me the lines—"

"Don't beat about the bush," interrupted Banana-Skin. "Did you feel that you hated him?"

The question was not answered at once. I cannot explain how it was, but the figure of Radley stood very clearly before my mind's eye, and this helped me to speak the truth, though my voice broke a bit.

"Yes."

"Ah!" Everybody considered Banana-Skin to have elicited a damning admission.

"Now," continued Stanley, his curiosity superseding his sense of what was relevant, "how many cuts did he give you?"

"Ten."

"Poor little beggar! Didn't that seem to you rather a lot?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Now answer the Coroner that," commanded Kepple-Goddard.

"Yes," I replied.

"H'm!" grunted Stanley. "How did you know where you could find your thousand lines so that you could tear them up?"

"I don't know what you mean. You're bluffing now."

"Hallo!" cried Banana-Skin. "Didn't you hear him say 'You're bluffing now'? That shows that he was bluffing before."

"Oh, that's a bit too clever!" objected Stanley. "Give the kid a chance."

There's nothing like sympathy for provoking misery and starting tears, and, as Stanley uttered that sentence, I decided that God had gone over to the prefects, and I would very much like to cry. To drive back the tears I called to my aid all the callousness and sulkiness which I possess. My face was the portrait of a sulky schoolboy as Stanley continued:

"Now, Ray, which door did you leave the dormitory by?"

"I didn't leave it."

"I say," suggested Kepple-Goddard, "couldn't we send Bickerton to ask all the boys who sleep in the same dormitory whether they saw him leave it?"

"But they'd have been asleep, you ox!" put in Banana-Skin.

"Not necessarily."

"But it doesn't follow that, if they didn't see him leave the dormitory, he didn't do it," objected Banana-Skin, the self-constituted prosecuting counsel, who didn't want to see his case fall to the ground.

"Not quite. But if they did see him, it proves him a liar and pretty well shows that he did."

"There's more sense in Kepple's idea than one would expect," gave Stanley as his decision. "Dash away, Bicky, and find out."

So Bickerton—or shall I call him Mercury, the messenger of the gods?—went, and I remained. It was no matter to me what news he brought back. I stood there, in the lions' den, and counted the cracks in the ceiling. I counted, also, the number of corners that the room possessed, and remembered how these same prefects had often (as when gods disport themselves) tried to make Doe and me stand in them for what they termed "unmitigated cheek"; how, giggling, we would fight them and kick them till they surrounded us and held us with our faces to the wall; and how we would call them all the rude names we could think of till they stuffed handkerchiefs in our mouths as a gag. One of their favourite pastimes had been to do Doe's hair, which they darkened with their wet brushes. It was usually a difficult business, as Doe would treat the whole operation in a disorderly spirit and declare that it tickled.

Presently Bickerton was heard running up the corridor (rather undignified for a prefect) and came bursting into the room.

"Now listen," said he, somewhat out of breath, and looking at a sheet of paper which he held in his hand. "Two boys saw Ray get up and leave the dormitory last night. They sleep on either side of him, and their names are Pennybet and Doe. The latter isn't sure whether he dreamt it."

"Well, Ray, what have you got to say to that?" asked Stanley.

"Nothing," I answered, "except that, if it's true, I must have been walking in my sleep. I did once, when I was a small boy."

Stanley ignored my feeble defence. He submitted to his colleagues that it was all his eye and Betty Martin; and the others nodded assent. Then the Chairman, recovering from his slight relapse into the vernacular of the Fourth Form, enunciated the following remarkable sentence:

"This inquest has, you will agree, been conducted by me in a strictly impartial and disinterested way, and the proceedings have been conspicuous for the absence of any bias, prejudice, or bigotry."

"Whew!" whistled several boys. Stanley let a grin hover in a well-bred way about his lips as he recommenced, the sentence being well-prepared and worth repeating:

"There has been no bias, prejudice, or bigotry. Well, gentlemen, is the corpse guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty, the little beast!"

I went out of that cruel room resolved that "beneath all the bludgeonings of chance my head should be bloody but unbowed." I was unconquerable! I walked along the corridor, blown out with injured virtue—a King among men. We assure you, our beloved subjects, we were Rupert Head-in-Air.

Sec.2

I returned to Radley's class-room and entered jauntily. All eyes turned and followed me as I walked to the master's desk. The excitement experienced by each boy seemed communicated to me. Radley feigned indifference.

"Well?" said he.

"I've come back, sir."

"Right. Go and sit down."

Scarcely had I reached my seat before the bell rang loudly for the Interval. The boys in their anxiety to hear the latest news flowed out hurriedly. I lingered apprehensively behind. At last I summoned up courage to venture into the corridor, where I found a group of boys awaiting me. Through these I broke at a rush and went and hid.

All that Interval lip tossed to lip such remarks as: "Ray did it." "I say, have you heard Ray's the culprit?" "What'll be done to him?" "Oh, the prefects have issued an edict that anyone who holds communication with him will get a Prefects' Whacking." "Ray did it." "What? that kid? Little devil—it's good-bye to him, I suppose." "What'll Radley say? He's one of his latest bally pets." "Ray did it."

After ten minutes the Second Period began. As our form went to Herr Reinhardt, the great Mr. Caesar, and he would certainly be late, I dawdled in my hiding-place, not having the courage to face the boys in the corridor. I waited till I conjectured that Mr. Caesar must be safe in his class-room, and the boys in their desks. Then I entered his room, famous character as I was, and apologised for being late. Mr. Caesar wrote my name in the Imposition Book, but, having raised his face and given one look at my swollen, tearful eyes, he deliberately crossed the name out again. And, indeed, throughout that period he so consistently refused to see that the boys were showing detestation of my degrading presence, and was so inexpressibly gentle in his manner towards me, that now I always think of this weak-eyed German master as a quiet and Christian gentleman.

When school-hours were over I went to a window, and there, leaning on the sill, thought how badly my war was going. Fillet was winning; he had won when he caned me for asking the number of the sum; he had won when he gave me the thousand lines; and now he was assaulting in mass formation with the whole school as his allies. Ah, well! as Wellington said at Waterloo—it depended who could stand this pounding longest, gentlemen.

And, as Wellington did, I would charge at the end of the day. One splendid way of charging, I thought, would be to die immediately. That would be most effective. How Fillet would prick up his ears on Monday morning when he heard the Head Master say to the school assembled in the Great Hall: "Your prayers are asked for your schoolfellow, Rupert Ray, who is lying at the point of death." And on Tuesday, when he should say in a shaking voice: "Your schoolfellow, Ray, died early this morning. His passing was beautiful; and may my last moments be like his." And then there would be the Dead March.

Having no one to talk to, I drew out from among the crumbs and rubbish in my pockets a letter that had arrived from my mother that morning. My young mother's love for me was always of the extravagant kind, and the words with which she closed this letter were:

"I do hope you are having a magnificent time and that everybody is fond of you and nice to you. I must stop now, so good-bye, my darling little son, and God bless you. With heaps of love from your ever devoted and affectionate Mother."

It was funny that I had not even noticed those words when I hurriedly read them in the morning. But now I found them strangely comforting, strangely satisfying.

A slap on the back awoke me from my reverie. It was Doe.

"Come along, Rupert. I know you didn't do it. Or, if you did, I don't care. We're twins."

"Go away. You'll get into a dreadful row if you're caught talking to me."

"I don't care. They won't think any the worse of me, whatever they do."

"Go away, I tell you. Or, if you don't, I shall have to, and I'm very comfortable here."

"I shan't. And if you try to escape me I'll follow you."

"Oh, why can't you go away?" I grumbled with something like a sob. "Go away. Go away."

But Doe persisted. In full view of the prefects he chatted gaily to me. Once, as Radley passed, he slipped his arm into mine. And when the master was out of hearing he asked:

"I s'pose Radley knows you're in Coventry?"

"Of course. Everybody does."

"Do you think he saw I had my arm in yours?"

"I should think so. You made it pretty obvious."

"I wonder what he thought."

All this time the skin on my forehead seemed to tighten and my cheeks to tingle with warmth. Towards evening my temples began to beat regularly. At these symptoms I was rather thrilled than otherwise, for I felt there was a distinct prospect of my turning the tables on everybody by dying.

At preparation the boys, with that lust to punish to which a crowd is always susceptible, slid along the form to get as far from me as possible and to leave plenty of room for myself and my contamination.

In the dormitory no one spoke to me, but as I was getting into my pyjamas one of the dormitory prefects burst in and addressed a senior boy:

"I say, talking about this row of Rupert Ray's, isn't the Gray Doe going to catch it to-morrow, by jove?"

In my anxiety about Doe I forgot that I was banned.

"What's he going to get?" My voice sounded husky and strange. The boys didn't answer me or show that they had heard. They ostentatiously proceeded with their conversation. Even Pennybet had his back turned. I flung myself into my bed in a way that nearly broke the springs, and, pulling the clothes furiously over my head, left my bare feet showing, at which several boys laughed contemptuously.

Oh, the horrid activity of my wide-awake brain! I couldn't sleep, and even found difficulty in keeping my eyes shut. Once, as I raised my weary lids, I found that the lights had gone out since I last opened my eyes. And my headache, which had spread to the back of my neck, was getting but little relief from my frequent changes of position. Oh, the horrible conglomeration of ideas that crowded my mind! Recent scenes and conversations entangled themselves in one another. Ray did it—Ray did it—my darling little son—good-bye and God bless you—there has been no bias, prejudice, or bigotry, but heaps of love from your devoted and affectionate mother—Ray did it—it's good-bye to him, I suppose—good-bye and God bless you—

"Good-night, Ray."

That must be Doe's voice; it came from reality and not from dreams: it came loudly out of the silence of the dormitory and not from the chorus of conflicting sentences droning in my mind: it was a real voice, but I was too tired and too far lost in stupor to answer it: good-night, Ray—it's good-bye to him, I suppose—heaps of love—there was some comfort in that—heaps of love from your devoted and affectionate mother. Ah! when shall I get properly off to sleep? Let me turn over on to my other side and put my hand under the pillow—but it was young Ray—Ray did it—Ray did it—how that detestable sentence swells till it packs my head!—and I must be asleep now, for I see Fillet fitting a rope across the door of an unknown bedroom wherein I am confined with some invisible Terror which drives me out of my bed: as I rush into the passage the rope trips me up, and I fall forwards but am saved from injury by my mother's arms: she catches me in the dark and says something about my darling little son. And she remonstrates with Fillet, who is standing by that dreadful bedroom door, till he merges into Stanley listening shame-facedly to my mother's silvery, chiding laugh and assuring her that the inquest was conducted in a strictly impartial and disinterested way. He changes into old Doctor Chapman, who tells her that Freedham died early this morning. For everything changes in the dream except one thing: which is that there is a head aching somewhere; now it is my own, now someone else's. I draw my mother along a passage to a window and explain that the pencil-mark on the glass is the register of my height. I put my back against the wall to let her see that I can just reach the mark, when lo! it is a great distance above me. I get on the cold stone window-sill that I may reach it, and would fall a thousand feet, only something in my breast goes "click"—and the dream was gone. With my return to consciousness came the knowledge that the headache had been my own throughout.

But it was terribly cold—and what a draught! Perhaps it was because I was lying so dreadfully straight, whereas I generally lay curled up. I wanted to bring my knees towards my chest, but couldn't move my legs. How cold my chest was! Why had the bedclothes fallen away and left it exposed to this horrible draught? I would have liked to pull them right over my head that I might get warm again, but I was too tired to make the effort. At last, however, the cold was more than I could bear. So I put out both hands to pull up the blankets—but could find none anywhere. God! I wasn't in bed at all, but was standing!

The horror of that moment! A wild heart beat lawlessly at my side. One more touch of terror, and it would rebel in utter panic. Why was the dormitory so dark? Why had the little night-lamp gone out? And the wooden floors were stone-cold like the window-sill in my dream. I couldn't see if my bed were close to me or far away because of the impenetrable darkness; but I was so very, very tired, and my eyes were so uncomfortably warm with interrupted sleep that I must try to feel my way. I put out my hand and touched a padlock. Like a flash, it came with all its terror upon me: I was not in the dormitory nor anywhere near it, but right away in a cellar below the ground where there were some old lockers and play-boxes. Flinging myself first to one side of the cellar and then to the other, I tore at the walls in an agonised endeavour to get out. The last thing that I remember was shrieking loudly and feeling a moisture rise to my dry lips and pass down my chin.

Sec.3

I awoke with a dull sense of impending trouble to find myself abed in the Bramhall sick-room, into which long shafts of noonday sunlight were streaming from behind drawn blinds. Looking down upon me was Dr. Chapman, with his usual white waistcoat and moist cigar.

"Ah ha!" he said. "Now, Gem, what the dooce do you think is the matter with you?"

I replied that I didn't know, and, just to see what he would say, asked him why he called me "Gem."

"Gem? Whoever called you 'Gem'? Did I? Yes, of course I did—it's short for Jeremiah."

"The gifted old liar!" I thought, while I demanded aloud his reason for calling me "Jeremiah."

"Why, because you look so dam—miserable, as though your eyes would gush out with water."

And partly at this idea, partly at his skill in getting out of a difficulty, Chappy laughed so heartily that I laughed too, only with this difference—that, whereas his laugh was like sounding brass, mine was like a tinkling cymbal. Then he sat down by my bed and, taking my wrist in one hand, pushed up the sleeve of my pyjama jacket and felt my smooth, firm forearm. "Good enough," he said, and proceeded to open the jacket down the front, and feel my chest and waist, thumping me in both of them, and expecting me to gurgle thereat like a sixpenny toy.

"You're all right," he decided, "except that you're an ass. Take your medical man's word for it—you're an ass. My prescription is 'Cease to be lunatic three times daily and after eating.' My fee'll be a guinea, please."

I said nothing, but looked at him for further advice.

"Confound you! Don't look at me with those Jeremiad eyes. What have you been doing, moping indoors for the last ten days instead of playing in the fresh air?"

"I wasn't moping—" I began sullenly.

"Now, sulky—sulky!" interrupted Chappy.

"I wasn't moping. I went and got a thousand lines from Mr. Fillet—"

"Yes, I know. The damned old stinker!" said Chappy, always coarse and delightful.

I think I loved him for those words. I felt that my allies were swinging into line for the great war against Carpet Slippers. There was Doe, and now Chappy.

"I know all about it," continued the new ally, "and then you filled your excitable mind with thoughts of revenge—eh?"

"Yes," I admitted, and looked down at the clean white sheet.

"And off you go on your midnight perambulations—the cold wakes you up—and there's the devil to pay—and the old doctor to pay! One guinea, please. And now I'm off."

"Oh, don't go," I pleaded, before I was aware of saying it. I didn't want him to go, for he was an entertaining apothecary and a sympathetic person, before whom I could act my sullenness and aggrievement.

"Don't go? Why shouldn't I?" demanded Chappy, who seemed, however, touched at my wanting him. "Now, my son, don't you run away with the idea that you're of the slightest importance. All boys are the most useless, burdensome, and expensive animals in the world. It wouldn't matter twopence if they were all wiped out of existence—there'd be a sigh of relief. So don't think it interesting that you're ill. Because it isn't. And you ain't ill. So good-bye."

He disappeared into the matron's room next door, and his hearty voice could be heard haranguing the lady:

"The Gem's got a healthy young constitution, but his brain's a ticklish instrument. His corpore is as sano as you like, but his mens is rather too excitabilis. Ah ha! Matron, what it is to move in this classic atmosphere! Certain sproutings of his imagination must be repressed—push 'em down, Matron. Young beggar, I'd sit on him and crush him. But then, it's all the fault of that stuttering old barbarian slave-driver, Fillet."

Here the matron must have been speaking, for I heard no more till Chappy began again:

"He's got a tough little breast, fine stomach-muscles, and limbs firm and round enough to get him a prize in a Boy Show. But the beast is spoiled as a specimen by his little Vesuvius of a mind. And oh, Matron, I lied to him like an under-secretary. I said that boys were the least important arrangements in the world, when, dammit—I mean, God bless my soul—they're the most important things in Creation, and this particular hotbed of the vermin has some of the finest editions of them all. But never let the little blades know it—never let 'em know it."

With that he must have taken his leave, for quiet assumed possession of everything. I settled down to the boredom of the afternoon, letting my eyes travel up and down the stripes of the wall-paper. Up one stripe I went, down the next, and up the third, till I had covered the whole of one wall. Then I tossed myself on to my other side with an audible groan that gave me but little relief, since there was no one to hear. The day wore on, and the long streaks of light worked their way round the room, grew ruddier, and climbed up the wall.

Oh, wearisome, wearisome afternoon! I began to sing quietly to myself such songs as I knew: "Rule, Brittania," "God save the King," and "A Life on the Ocean Wave." This I gave up at last, and thought out corking replies that I might have made to the prefects, had my wit been readier.

"Ding-ding-ding!" That was tea. Would Doe be any less happy when he saw my vacant place, and wonder if I were very ill? How was Penny feeling, who had lifted up his heel against me? Might he, together with Stanley and his colleagues, think me dying! What would Stanley and the prefects do to Doe for his flagrant breach of their edict? Perhaps at this moment he was being tried by the great Stanley and his Tribunal. Perhaps even now they had him bent over a chair and were giving him a Prefects' Whacking. At any rate, I wished he would walk in his sleep or do something that would bring him to this monotonous sick-room. Why shouldn't he? Like me, he had been immured indoors for ten days; like me, also, he had reasons for being unhealthily excited.

"Ding-ding-ding!" I had closed my eyes when this bell sounded. It meant Preparation, so it must be getting dark. I would open my eyes and see. I did so, and saw nothing except darkness, which made me think I must have dozed. The sudden view of the darkness frightened me, for I remembered the terror of the preceding night and that, before many hours, the whole world would be silenced in sleep, while I might be wandering in the fearful cellars. At the thought my lips formed the words: "O God, don't make me wake again in the Old Locker Room. O God, don't. I wish I had somebody to talk to."

As I mechanically uttered this prayer, I began to feel rather strongly that, if I were going to ask God to make this arrangement for me, I ought to do something for Him. Clearly I must get out of bed and say my prayers properly. So I stepped on to the floor, reeling dizzily from my enforced recumbence, and knelt by the side of the bed. Falling into prayers that I knew by heart, and scarcely heeding what I was saying, I prayed (as my mother had taught me to do when I was a little knickerbockered boy) for the whole chain of governesses who had once taken charge of me. I enumerated them by their nicknames: "Tooby and Dinky and Soaky and Miss Smith." Trapping myself in this mistake, I actually blushed as I knelt there. I realised that I must be more up to date. So I prayed for Penny, Freedham, Stanley, Bickerton, and Banana-Skin, but I drew up abruptly at Carpet Slippers. I couldn't forgive him. I felt I ought to, but I couldn't. There, on my knees, I thought it all out; and at last light broke upon me. To forgive didn't necessarily mean to forgo the punishment. Yes, I would forgive him and pray for him, but his punishment would go on just the same.

After this satisfactory compromise I got back into bed, happy at being spiritually solvent, and repeating: "O God, don't make me wake in the Old Locker Room; I wish I had someone to talk to."

And almost immediately, as if my prayers were to be answered, I heard the noise of feet running towards my door. It opened, and Bickerton, taking no notice of me, walked to the middle of the room, struck a match, and lit the gas. Returning quickly, he said to someone else who was approaching: "Oh, there you are. I've lit the gas. Bring him and get him to bed. Put him beside the other ass for company." I sat up in my excitement, and with a thrill—first of elation and then of dismay—saw Stanley enter, bearing a boy, who, with arms and legs hanging limply downwards, was apparently lifeless: his fair head was a contrast with Stanley's dark blue sleeve on which it rested, and his brown eyes, wide open, were shining in the gas like glass.

Sec.4

In committee that morning Stanley and his colleagues had decided that Doe had deliberately asked for a Prefects' Whacking, and must therefore be given an extra severe dose. He should be summoned to judgment after games. So, just as Doe, who was standing bare-chested in the changing room, had pushed his head into his vest, a voice, shouting to him by name, obliged him to withdraw it that he might see his questioner. It was Pennybet, acting as Nuncius from the prefects.

"You're in for it, Edgar Doe," said this graceful person, leisurely taking a seat and watching Doe dress. "I'm Cardinal Pennybet, papal legate from His Holiness Stanley the Great. Bickerton had the sauce to send for me and to describe me as a ringleader in all your abominations. I represented to him that he was a liar, and had been known to be from his birth, and that he probably cheated at Bridge; and he told me to jolly well disprove his accusation by fetching you along. I explained they were making beasts of themselves over this Ray business—"

"It would have been more sporting of you," said Doe, drawing on his trousers and thanking Heaven that he was not as other men, nor even as this Pennybet, "if you'd stuck by Rupert and defied the prefects."

"My dear Gray Doe," this statesman expounded, "I go in for nothing that I can't win. And if you want to win, you must always make sure that the adverse conditions are beatable. I like to tame circumstances to my own ends (hear, hear), but if they aren't tamable I let them alone. So now you know. But about these prefects. They've got their cane ready, so push your shirt well down."

Doe studiously refused to hurry over his dressing, and, having assumed his jacket, went to a mirror and took great pains with his hair. At this moment, though the hand which held the brush trembled, he was almost happy: for he was playing, I know, at being a French Aristocrat going to the guillotine dressed like a gentleman.

"My time is valuable," hinted Penny. "Still, by all means let us be spotless.... That's right. Now you look ripping. Come along, and I'll stand you a drink when it's over."

For Penny, the callous opportunist, had a sort of patronising tenderness for his two acolytes.

Doe followed his conductor in a silence which not only saved him from betraying timidity by a trembling voice, but also suited the dignity of a French Aristocrat. But no—at this point, I think, he was a Christian martyr walking to the lions.

"Come, my lamb, to the slaughter-house," said Penny, in the best of spirits, "and don't try that looking-defiant game, 'cos it won't pay. They're not taking any to-day, thank you. That's their tone.... There's the door. Now remember not to say a word on your own behalf, for with these bally prefects anything that you say will be taken down in evidence against you.... Enter the prisoner, gentlemen. Sorry to be so long, but we had to make ourselves presentable. Anything else in the same line to-day?"

Penny paused for breath, but showed no desire to leave the Prefects' Room. He wanted to see at least the commencement of judicial proceedings. They looked so promising. All the Bramhall prefects were there—Bickerton, Kepple-Goddard, and the prosecuting counsel, Banana-Skin; and Stanley—Stanley by the grace of God.

"Bring the boy Doe in," ordered Stanley, "and kick that gas-bag Pennybet out. If he were a year younger we'd whack him too."

No one thought himself specifically addressed, and Penny was left in possession of the floor. But Stanley's curt treatment rankled in his heart. So, placing his feet wide apart and his hands in his waistcoat pockets, he respectfully drew attention to the opprobrious epithet "gas-bag" which had been employed in requesting him to retire from this Chamber of Horrors, and asked that the offensive remark might be withdrawn.

Stanley scorned communication with an impertinent junior. He telegraphed a glance to Bickerton.

"Turf him out, Bicky."

But Penny, perceiving that rough treatment would ensue, gracefully removed himself from the room, so timing his motions that he closed the door from outside just as Bickerton from within arrived at the handle. Bickerton, defeated, swung round upon the assembly and asked if he should follow the fugitive.

"That kid's too smart to live," said Stanley, more generous than his peers. "Let him be. He'd best you and a good many more of us. Besides, it's nearly tea-time, and we've got to get this Doe business over."

Bickerton accordingly took up his place on the fender and considered himself empanelled upon the jury. Doe stood with his hands behind his back, his cheeks very flushed, and his knees slightly shivering, but upheld by the thought of his resemblance to Charles I. He would scorn to plead before this unjust tribunal.

"Now, Edgar Doe," began Stanley, and his voice was the signal for silence in the court and for all eyes to be concentrated on the prisoner. "You've made a little fool of yourself. You've openly set us all at defiance and, no doubt, thought yourself mighty clever. I don't think you'd have been so ready to do it if we hadn't been decent and had you in here sometimes. But that's beside the point, only I may say in passing that we shan't have you here any more."

"I don't care," said Doe. "I don't want to come, and I wouldn't come if you asked me."

"Yes, we all know that. It was the obvious thing to say, Mr. Edgar Gray Doe. Now we aren't bullies, and perhaps, had you comforted your friend on the Q.T., and been copped doing so, we'd have let you off. But it's the beastly blatancy of it all that constitutes the gravity of your offence and detracts from its value as a self-denying act of friendship. Do I express myself clearly?" concluded Stanley, turning to his colleagues.

"Perfectly," said Kepple-Goddard.

"Well, Doe, did you grasp the drift of all I said?"

"I wasn't listening."

Stanley, nonplussed, looked round upon the jury. Banana-Skin muttered: "The little devil!" Bickerton from the fender sighed: "St. St. Ah, me! to think how we've swept and garnished the Gray Doe! 'I never loved a dear gazelle, But what it turned and stung me well.'"

"Dry up, Bicky," came the president's rebuke, "and go and turn away those kids who are making a row with their feet in the corridor. Remain on guard out there, if you don't mind. It's behaviour like Doe's that makes these kids so uppish. Thanks, Bicky."

There was a sound of scurrying feet and repressed impish laughter, as Bickerton opened the door and shut it behind him.

"Now, Doe," resumed Stanley, "what have you to say for yourself before we leave the talking and get to business?"

"Nothing," replied Doe, "except that I'll go on being pally with Ray whatever you do, you—you set of cads!"

"I say"—Stanley was keeping his temper—"don't play the persecuted hero defying the world. It won't wash here."

"I'm not playing the persecuted hero," retorted Doe loudly, but with drowned eyes. "I didn't think myself mighty clever—I—"

"I thought you hadn't been listening," put in Banana-Skin in a quiet and torturing way.

"And I thought you'd nothing to say for yourself," added another.

"Steady, Banana," remonstrated Stanley, "don't tease the kid."

"They're not teasing me. I don't care what they say or what any of you do."

"What a little liar it is!" taunted Banana-Skin, "when he's fairly blubbing there."

"I'm not!"

"Fetch the cane out," pursued Banana-Skin, unheeding. "It's no good talking. Get him over that chair, Kepple."

"You shan't!" said Doe, trembling terribly.

"By jove!" cried Stanley, jumping up. "He's going to show fight, is he? Pass over that cane. Now, bend over that chair, youngster."

"I won't."

"Look here, you unutterable fool. Here's the cane. See it? If you do what you're told you'll get a stiff whacking, but if you don't, by God, there's no saying what you'll get."

Doe sprang forward, seized the cane, smashed it, and hurled the pieces into their midst. "Now then, you cads, you can't lick me, you brutes, you fools! Come for me—you lot of great devils!" He roared this at them, and the last words were shouted in a burst of hysterical crying. With head down he charged into Stanley, crashing his fist on the senior prefect's chin.

The outraged prefects lost their heads. They surrounded him as he fought. Above the turmoil came the cries: "Get hold of the little devil!" "Pin his hands to his sides!" "He shan't forget this!" "Trip him up, if you can't do anything else!" "It's not pluck, it's temper!" "He's down—he's up again!" "By jove, the little blackguard is going to beat the lot of you!" "Get him on the ground—don't be afraid to go for him—he's asked for it." "That's right—got his wrist? Twist it!" "Devil take it, he's wrenched it free again." "Get out of the light—I'll settle him!" "I've got him—no, by God, I haven't!"

Stanley, the first to recover himself, fell away from the rest.

"Come away, you fools. There are ten of you. Leave him alone."

"Can't help it!" yelled back Banana-Skin. "It's his fault. Let him have it. That's right. Get him against the wall."

"Come away, you fools!" And Stanley began to pull them off and fling them away furiously. Banana-Skin had a shock when he found himself seized and hurled against the opposite wall.

It had been well had Stanley done this earlier, for Doe, turning very white, fell forwards.

"Heaven save us!" exclaimed Stanley, as white as Doe. "We've done it now. What brutes we are! Lock the door. He's fainted. By heaven, I wish this had never happened!"

Doe had not fainted. He was in a state of semi-unconsciousness when he knew where he was, but it was a long way off—when he heard all that was said, but it came from a great distance—when neither his position nor the sound of voices was of any interest to him, and his only desire was to pass into complete unconsciousness, which would bring rest and sleep. He felt them catch hold of him, one by the armpits and another by the ankles, and knew that he was being lifted on to a table.

Then the voices began from the top of a great well, while he lay at the bottom. He could hear what they said; but why would they persist in talking and keeping him awake? He was indifferent to them: they were like voices in a railway carriage to a dozing traveller.

"I wouldn't have thought he had so much in him."

"Oughtn't we to undo his collar?"

Then the remarks evaporated into nonsense, but only for a space, after which the nonsense solidified into sentences again.

"Don't you think we ought to send for Chappy?"

"Wait and see if he'll come round. His colour's returning."

Doe was ascending from the bottom of his great well: the voices were becoming distincter, a pain in his head and body worse.

"Yes, he's less white. Sprinkle water over his forehead."

Doe was coming up and must have reached the top, for it was raining. How silly! That wasn't rain, but the water being sprinkled over his forehead. How hard the top of the well was! But there—he was nowhere near a well, but in the Prefects' Room, lying on a deal table. Or was he at the bottom of the sea?

"He's looking better now."

Up he came from the bottom of the ocean. Above him he could see the surface, a broad expanse of pale green, through which the sun was trying to shine and succeeding better every second. Though all the while conscious that his eyes were closed, he saw dancing on the green rippling veil, beneath which he lay, little spots of colour that grew in number till they became a dazzling kaleidoscope.

"Doe, are you all right now?"

The kaleidoscope was gone; and the top of the sea was above him, getting steadily closer and brighter. Good—he was above the surface now, and the water seemed out of his ears, so that he heard with perfect clearness the voice of Stanley saying:

"That's right—you're round again."

Though his eyes were still shut he felt he must be awake, because the Prefects' Room with its furniture had crowded his mental vision. So he opened his eyes, and there, sure enough, were the prefects' chairs and cupboards; they seemed, however, to have moved with a jump from the positions they had occupied in his mental picture.

If you wake and see faces looking down on you, the natural thing to do is to smile round upon them all; and this Doe did, so that his persecutors were touched, and Stanley said:

"How are you feeling now, kid? We're all of us beastly sorry."

"And I'm beastly sorry if I cheeked you."

"Well, never mind about that; but tell us if you're feeling putrid, because then we'll tell old Dr. Chapman and make a clean breast of it. My colleagues and I are determined to do the right thing."

"Oh, I'm all right. Don't say anything to anyone."

Ding-ding-ding!

"Are you fit for walking in to tea?" asked Stanley.

"Rather! I'm quite the thing now. Thanks awfully."

So Doe, sustained by a pride in his determination to conceal what had happened and screen the prefects, walked with racking head and aching limbs into tea, where he made a show of eating and drinking, though periodically the room went spinning round him.

Tea over, he staggered into the Preparation room and sat at his desk with his brows on his hand and his eyes on his book. The print danced before his gaze: letter rushed into letter, word merged mistily into word, line into line, till all was a grey blur. A blink of the eyes—an effort of the will—a sort of "squad, shun!" to the type before him—and the words jumped back into their places, letters separated from their entanglement and stood like soldiers at spruce attention. A relaxing of the effort—and dismiss! helter-skelter, pell-mell went letter, word, and line. It was all a blur again. Once more he made the necessary exercise of his will and was able to read a line or two; but, if the mistiness were not to come before his eyes, the effort had to be sustained, and that made his head feel very heavy. It proved too much for him; the will to do it expired, and away went the letters into the fog. Some boys whispered that he was sighing for his friend Ray; others teased him by muttering: "Diddums get whacked by the prefects? Diddums get a leathering?"

Poor Doe! He must have been strongly tempted to retort: "I wasn't whacked, so sucks!" and to describe that picturesque incident when he smashed the prefects' cane, for his milk was the praise of men. But he had to choose whether, by a little honourable bragging, he should gratify his desire for glory, or by a martyr's silence he should give himself the satisfaction of playing a fine hero. The latter was the stronger motive. He kept silence, and only hoped that his valorous deeds would leak out.

Preparation was nearly over when there came one of those heart-stopping crashes which all who hear know to be the total collapse of a human being. A faint—aye, and a faint in the first degree, when life goes out like a candle.

"Who's that? What's that?" cried the master-in-charge, quickly rising.

"It's Doe, sir. He's fainted."

"Oh, ah, I see," said he, leaving his desk and hastening to the spot. "Sit down, all of you. There's nothing very extraordinary in a boy fainting. Here, Stanley, pick him up and take him to the sick-room; and, Bickerton, go with him. The rest of you get on with your work."

Thereafter Pennybet—or, at least, so he assured us—expended his spare time in knocking his head against walls and holding his breath in the hope that he, too, might faint and have a restful holiday in the sick-room.

"For," said he, "where Doe and Ray are, there should Me be also."

Sec.5

"It's funny that we do everything together," said Doe that same evening, as we lay in our beds and watched each other's eyes in the light of the turned-down gas. "First we're twins; then we get whacked together; then we both get rowed by prefects; and I do a faint and you do a sort of fit.... But, I say, Rupert, look here; I want to ask you something: will people think I was a fool in everything I did, or will they think—well, the other thing? I mean, let's put it like this—what would Radley think?"

"I don't know," said I, not very helpfully.

"I s'pose he's heard all about it. I hope he has—at least, I mean, I'd like him to think I stuck by you. Only, when the prefects were talking about defiance, it struck me that Radley might call it 'insubordination.'"

There was a pause, and then he proceeded: "I wonder if he'll be sorry when he hears we are both laid up."

"Who?"

"Why, Radley, of course."

"Mr. Radley," said a voice, "if you please."

Radley, who had walked softly lest the invalids should be wakened from sleep, was standing in the room and looking at us in the glimmer. We were very surprised, and Doe's blushes at being caught were only exceeded by the pleasure-sparkling of his eyes.

Radley approached my bed and placed the clothes carefully over my chest. I didn't know whether to thank him for this, and only smiled and reddened. And after he had done the same for Doe he sat at the foot of his bed.

"When the world turns against you, always go sick," said he, smiling. "It's an excellent rule for changing ill-will to sympathy. If you're sent to Coventry, go straight to bed there. Oh, you're a subtle pair, aren't you?"

We were both too shy to answer.

"Well, Ray, I've come to tell you to sleep with an easy mind. The Head Master is satisfied that, if you were conducting operations in Mr. Fillet's room, you were not conscious of it. It was Dr. Chapman who worked all this for you. He threatened to go on strike if any other conclusion were come to. He asked the Head whether he'd ever dreamt he was doing most impossible things. The Head said 'Yes,' and the doctor replied triumphantly: 'Well, don't let your brain get as excited as a child's, or, maybe, if you're feverish and run down, you'll go and do them.' He even suggested that possibly it was not you but the Head who had committed the crime. He asked him if he could imagine 'a silly and excitable kid' (which is an excellent description of Ray) dreaming that he had done what actually was done.... The Head was incredulous at first, but the doctor talked so learnedly about the Subliminal Consciousness and Alternating Personalities that the Head, if only for fear of getting out of his depth, began to yield. I drove home the advantage by saying that I believed you didn't generally lie—which was true, wasn't it?"

"Good Lord, no!" I replied.

"Well, it will be some day." Radley rose and strolled to the door. "Yes, there's been a slump in Rupert Ray recently, but I'm afraid there'll be a boom in him when he comes back to work, and he'll get too big for his boots. It's a pity. Good-night."

And though Stanley, as we learnt later, had manfully revealed the full story of Doe's sufferings at the hands of the prefects, Radley walked away without giving the young hero one word of admiration. And as the door shut Doe turned round in his bed, so that his face was away from me, and maintained a wonderful silence.



CHAPTER V

CHEATING

Sec.1

Time carried us a year nearer the shadow of the Great War. It brought us to our fourteenth year, at which period Doe's mysterious intrigue with Freedham still awaited solution, and my Armageddon with Fillet still languished in a sort of trench-warfare.

It was now that our abominable form took to cheating once a week in Fillet's class-room. A Roman History lesson left invitingly open the opportunity to do so. For Fillet's method of examining our acquaintance with the chapter he had set to be learnt in Preparation was invariably the same. He asked twenty questions, whose answers we had to write on paper. He would then tell us the answers and allow us to correct our own work. After this he would take down our marks.

Now, our form had been organised by the all-powerful statesman, Pennybet, who had lately been reading the Progressive Papers, into a Trade Union, of which the President was Mr. Archibald Pennybet. He had decided (as it is the business of all trade unions to decide) that we were worked too hard. We must organise to effect an improvement in the conditions of living. To demand from the Head Master an instant reduction in the hours of labour didn't seem feasible to our union of twenty members, but it would be quite easy by a co-operative effort to modify the extent of our Preparation. At a mass-meeting of the workers Penny outlined his scheme—Penny loved scheming, moving forces, and holding their reins.

It was a marvellous scheme. We were to leave undone our Preparation for the Roman History lesson, and, when Fillet told us the answers, we were to write them down and credit ourselves with the marks. "It's not cheating," explained our leader in his speech (and we were all very glad, I think, to hear that it wasn't cheating), "because it's not an effort to take an unfair advantage of each other. It's just a cordial understanding, by which we all lessen one another's burdens.

"I and my executive," continued Penny, "have all the details worked out to a nicety. Here is a table for the whole term, showing how many marks each worker will give up week by week. It is so graduated that the clever fellows will end up at the top, and those who would naturally slack will end up at the bottom. My executive has decided that Doe is about the brainiest, so he comes out first"—blushes from Doe—"and I myself am willing to stand at the bottom."

By this revelation of astonishing magnanimity Penny came out of the transaction, as he did out of most things that he put his hand to, with nothing but credit.

For half a term this comfortable scheme ran as merrily as a stream down hill. And then a strange thing happened to me. I was talking one afternoon to Penny on the absurdities of the Solar System, when I became conscious that my mind had closed upon seven words: "That Rupert, the best of the lot."

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." What on earth had resuscitated those words? I politely bowed them out and continued my conversation. But the phrase had entered like a bailiff into possession of my mind. Even as I put it from me, believing it would be lost in the flow of an absorbing conversation, I knew that there had appeared upon the horizon a cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." The words, as first told to me by my mother, had been the dying words of my grandfather, Colonel Rupert Ray, with which he asked repeatedly for his dead son, my father. So the words were uttered by the first Rupert Ray, applied to the second, and recalled by the third at a most inopportune moment. And the third would have bowed them out. Why? Because he was a cheat? No—let us not be ridiculous—because he was in the midst of an important conversation.

I pretended to listen to Penny, but really I was reasoning something else. I was admitting that, now that this little phrase had popped up through some trap-door of my mind, my conscience, long dormant on the cheating theme, would have to be talked round again. And, as something like suspense set in, I was anxious to join issue at once.

I left Penny abruptly and retired to a window (as you will have observed it was my fashion to do), where I leant upon the sill and prepared to argue out the problem.

Our co-operative effort to avoid preparing our lesson, was it wrong? Yes. In spite of the old sophistry I knew it to be so. But what attitude should one adopt? To refuse publicly to have any part in the system would seem like mock-heroics. The only course open was to learn the work and earn the marks. Inevitably I had arrived at the conclusion which I dreaded. To learn the work seemed a task surprisingly difficult and menacing after half-a-term's freedom. I hugged that freedom. I wished my calm acquiescence in the system had not been ruffled.

To learn the work—it was a little thing surely: to learn it unseen and alone, while other boys went free of the labour, and gave themselves the marks, notwithstanding. But no, I could no more persuade myself that it was a little thing than I could believe that any other course was the right one. I felt it was big—too big for me.

Then the old thought, probably not an hour younger than sin itself, was quick to take advantage of my indecision: I would go on as I was a little while longer—till the end of the term—and then begin with a clean sheet. There was much to be said in favour of this: for see, if I were to do the thing thoroughly this term, I ought to forgo all the marks that I had already come by dishonestly. To do that was impossible. The confession involved would court expulsion. Expulsion! As the word occurred to me, I realised the enormity of my offence. How could I go on with that which, if detected, would mean expulsion? To answer this question I went the whole dreary round of reasoning once more and arrived at the conviction that the straight action was incumbent upon me; which conviction I hastened to explain away with the same dull casuistry. Sick and weary, I left the window-sill and ceased to think any more. My conscience had given battle to evil and neither lost nor won. Indecisive as the issue was, I knew in my heart of hearts that it partook of the nature of a defeat.

Later on, I wrote to my mother quite an effective analysis of this spiritual difficulty: and I wrote it, so she loves to say, on a postcard, and signed it "yours truly, Rupert Ray." Her reply I could not expect till Wednesday morning, the morning of the lesson. Of that I was glad. For to this extent I had temporised: I would wait till I heard from her before attempting to learn the work. If necessary, I could cram it up on Wednesday morning. And with this settlement I was satisfied in a sickly way.