drew a long breath; there was no sense of honour that would be violated in telling the Head, but to do so was like taking a high header into unknown waters, when it required all the courage you were possessed of to go off a low board into four feet of familiar swimming-bath.
“Please, sir, it’s quite obvious that Car——”
He had begun with a rush, and the rush had carried him too far.
“Carrots,” said the Head suggestively.
(Lord! how did he know? thought David.)
“Please, sir, we felt sure that Miss Edith had got Ferrers into a row, because she saw him in Richmond week before last,” said David.
“And—and sneaked to me?” suggested the Head.
“Yes, sir, told you.”
“I dare say Miss Edith saw him,” said the Head, “but I haven’t the slightest idea whether she actually did or not. I saw him myself. Miss Edith had nothing to do with it. Kindly tell your friends so.”
“I’ll tell them,” said David. “They’ll be awfully glad, sir.”
“Why?” asked the Head.
Again David dived off the high header-board into dark waters.
“Because nobody wanted to think she was a sneak, sir,” he said. “We always thought she was a good chap—young lady, I mean, sir.”
The Head nodded, and for the next half-minute busied himself with the reports that had come in this morning.
“I think there was something else I wanted to see you about,” he said. “Yes: here it is. You are reported for being in Crabtree’s cubicle before dressing-bell this morning. Any explanation?”
“No, sir,” said David.
“You knew it was against the rules?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Head drew a large and dreaded book towards him, which contained a list of all the boys’ names, and against each the number of times they had been reported for any misconduct during the current term. Next the name of Blaize was that of Bellingham, and, glancing at it hastily, he credited David with Bellingham’s stainless record.
“I see you have not been reported before this term,” he said.
The moment he had spoken he saw his mistake; on the line below was David’s record, showing that lie had been reported twice. But he waited for David’s answer. He had not considered what he should do if David accepted the statement, but he believed, and wanted to prove to himself, that David would not.
A joyful possibility whirled through David’s mind; it was conceivable that previous reports against him had not been entered. And then, not really knowing why, he spoke.
“No, sir, I have been reported before,” he said.
“For the same offence?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Once before?” asked the Head, feeling that his test stood firm.
“No, sir, twice,” said David, squeezing his hands together.
The Head closed the book. He put it in the middle drawer and closed that also.
“Thank you for telling me the truth,” he said. “And now I want you, as a personal favour, to make an effort to keep school-rules. They are made for that purpose. Good-bye, my boy. Ah, you are late for breakfast, so come and have breakfast with me. If you are late for school afterwards, explain to Mr. Dutton.”
David was joyfully late for school, and not only explained briefly then, but categorically afterwards to his form in the interval at half-past ten.
“Sausages,” he said, “and poached eggs and bacon, and sloshy buttered toast and strawberries. Gosh, the Head does himself well. He has breakfast like that every day, I expect. Didn’t I tuck in? Oh, and another thing: Carrots didn’t sneak at all, it was the Head himself who saw Ferrers in Richmond. He told me so.”
“Don’t believe it,” said Ferrers, who had misogynistic tendencies.
“Well then, you’ve got to. The Head never lies, and so Carrots is all right. And the Head’s my pal.”
“Can’t think why he didn’t whack you, though,” said Ferrers. “Perhaps he knew you were going to catch it from Bags. He’s been binding his racquet-handle, too, to get a firm grip.”
This was slightly malicious on Ferrers’s part, but what with special tea last night, and special breakfast this morning, and the recovery of the Monarch, and the remission of a caning, he thought David a little above himself. But even this information about Bags did not appear to depress him, and he cocked his yellow head on one side, like a meditative canary, and half-shut his eyes, as if focussing something.
“Blow it, if I hadn’t forgotten all about Bags,” he said. “Ferrers, there’s something rummy about Bags’s show. Why did Bags not want to take up my challenge, if he knew the Monarch wasn’t in his cubicle? And why didn’t he take a dozen cuts at me? It’s all rot of him to say that he didn’t care about whacking me. Any decent chap’s mouth would water to lick a fellow who had accused him of stealing.”
The two boys had wandered away in this half-hour’s interval between schools to a distant corner of the field below the chestnut-tree. There David lay down flat, and Ferrers flicked the fallen flowers at his face. But he stopped at this.
“You see, I caught him a juicy hack, too, last night,” continued David. “And he’s a revengeful beast in a general way.”
“Perhaps it’s the Day of Atonement or something,” suggested Ferrers.
David sat up.
“No, that can’t be it,” he said. “Else he’d want to make me atone. Hallo, here he comes across the field, racquet-handle and all.”
He suddenly gave a shrill whistle through his broken front tooth.
“I say, will you back me up whatever I say?” he asked. “I’ve thought of something ripping.”
Ferrers peered short-sightedly across the field. He did not often wear his spectacles, since they were supposed to give him a resemblance to Goggles, which was the rise of intolerable comment. So they seldom graced his freckled nose.
“Yes, here he comes,” he said. “I’ll back you up. But, what is it?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” said David.
Bags made a truculent approach, swinging his racquet-handle. He had done all that could humanly be done in the easing of his conscience, and since he had been literally unable to get out of the rôle of executioner with honour, he had wisely determined to dwell on the bright side of it, and hit as hard as he could in the same place.
“I’ll lick you now if you like,” he said brightly.
David
