is that H. T. (that’s Hairy Toe, an awful ass) who teaches French, is English, and Maddox knows about twice as much as he. He makes awful howlers, Maddox says, and pronounces just as if he was a cad. But that’s all right, because he is.”
David skipped with uncontrollable emotion.
“Oh, I say, how ripping!” he said. “But I wish Maddox liked cricket and footer.”
“Well, footer he detests; but he only means that thinking of nothing but cricket is a waste of time. By the way, you’re in luck: there’s a two-days’ match begins to-morrow against Barnard’s team. Friday’s a whole holiday; some frowsy saint. They say Jessop’s coming. Wouldn’t it be sport to see him hit a dozen sixes, and then be clean-bowled by Cruikshank?”
“Oh, and who’s Cruikshank?” asked David.
“Well, that’s damned funny not to have heard of Cruikshank. Fastest bowler we’ve ever had, and he’s in Adams’s too. He and Maddox don’t get on a bit, though of course they’re awfully polite to each other. Cruikshank’s awfully pi: fit to burst. Here we are.”
Hughes again cast an anxious eye over David, for the moment was momentous, as the whole school would be about. But he really felt that David would do him credit. They paused a moment in the gateway.
“If you like we’ll stroll round the court,” he said, “before we go down to house. There’s chapel, you see, and hall next beyond it; foul place, stinks of mutton. Then two more college boarding-houses—what?”
“But which is Adams’s?” asked David.
“Oh, that’s not here. These are all college houses, in-boarders, and rather scuggy compared to out-boarders. Then there’s fifth form class-room and sixth form class-room, and school library up on top. I dare say Maddox is there now. Big school behind, more class-rooms and then the fives-court. Like to walk through?”
No devout Catholic ever went to Rome in more heart-felt pilgrimage than was this to David. It was the temple of his religion that he saw, the public school which was to be his home. His horizon and aspirations stretched no farther than this red-brick arena, for, to the eyes of the thirteen-year-old, those who have finished with their public school and have gone out from it to the middle-aged Universities, are already past their prime. They are old; they are done with, unless the fact that they play cricket for Oxford or Cambridge gives them a little longer lease of immortality. But to be a great man, a Maddox or a Cruikshank in this theatre of life which already his feet trod, was the utmost dream of David’s ambitions, and if at the hoary age of eighteen he could only have played a real part in the life of the scenes that were now unrolling to him he felt that an honoured grave would be the natural conclusion. Everything that might happen after public school was over seemed a posthumous sort of affair. You were old after that, and at this moment even the Head, for all his terror and glamour, appeared a tomb-like creature.
Hughes exchanged “Hullo” with a friend or two, and said “Right: half-past four” to one of them, which made David long to know what heroic thing was to happen then, and took him past the east end of chapel without further comment. David, quickly and quite mistakenly, drew a conclusion based on his private school experience.
“I suppose chapel’s pretty good rot,” he said.
This was worse than buttonholes.
“Chapel rot?” said Hughes. “Why, it’s perfectly ripping. Maddox’s uncle was the architect. It’s the finest school-chapel in England, bar Eton perhaps. You’ll see it to-night. You never saw anything so ripping.”
“Oh, sorry,” said David, flushing; “but I didn’t know.”
Hughes paused a moment and looked at him again.
“I say, Blazes, it’s awful sport your coming down like this,” he said. “Do sweat your eyes out over this exam. It would be ripping if you got a scholarship. We’re all working like beans in the house: that’s Maddox’s doing. Work’s quite different, if you take an interest in it, you know. Yes, that path goes down to the bathing-place, and there are nightingales in the trees. Then hall: fuggy spot, we all have dinner there, both out-boarders and in-boarders. See that don there in cap and gown? He takes the fifth form. He’s frightfully polite, and is learning to ride a bicycle. Consequently you always touch your cap to him as he goes wobbling along, and he takes a hand off to return your chaste salute, and falls off. Good rag. There’s his class-room, with the library up above. We’ll just go down there, and I’ll answer to name-calling on my way.”
They turned out of the big court into an asphalted square full of boys. A master was standing on a raised dais at one end, calling out names with extreme deliberation.
“Oh, damn, he’s only just begun,” said Hughes, after listening a moment. “We won’t wait.”
He touched another boy on the shoulder.
“I say, answer for me, Plugs,” he said. “You owe me one.”
“Right oh! What’s your voice now, Topknot? Treble or bass?”
“ ‘Bout midway. Something with a crack in it. Thanks, awfully.”
Plugs, whoever Plugs was, saw Hughes’s companion.
“Who’s your friend?” he asked.
“Scholarship-chap from my t’other school. Decent!”
That was an aside, but clearly audible, and David swelled with pride, and tried to look abnormally decent. . . .
They made their way through the crowd that was collecting and dispersing as the roll-call proceeded, and went back down the long, empty passage past the steps leading up to the school library. Even as they approached them there was a clatter of feet on the concrete floor above, and a boy came flying down them four steps to his stride. Beneath one arm he carried a sheaf of books, and his straw hat was in the other hand. “Maddox,” said Hughes quietly, and on the moment Maddox took his last six steps in one leap, and nearly fell over them both.
All the hero-worship of which David was capable flared up: never did hero make a more impressive entrance than in that long, lithe jump that landed him in the passage. He nearly knocked Hughes down, and dropped all his books, but caught him round the shoulders and steadied him again. There was a splendid crisp vigour about every line of his body, his black, short hair, his dark, full-blooded face.
“Topknot, you silly owl!” he said. “Don’t get in a man’s light when he’s in a hurry. Haven’t hurt you, have I? I’d die sooner than hurt you.”
David picked up the scattered books, and Maddox turned to him.
“Oh, thanks awfully!” he said. “You’re Topknot’s pal, I suppose, come up for the scholarship-racket. Good luck!”
He nodded to David, flicked the end of Hughes’s nose, and went off down the passage to the sixth-form room, whistling louder than even David thought possible.
“Gosh!” said David. There was really nothing more to be said.
“Oh, he’s always like that,” remarked Hughes, feeling that the meeting could not have been more impressive.
“And he wished me good luck,” said David, still feeling dazzled. “Wasn’t that awfully jolly of him? And he flicked
