TODD "FINDS HIMSELF"
Todd had found out all the unpainted beauty of public-school life without
pocket money, and discovered that existence was just possible. A shilling
on your watchchain and a shilling's worth of stamps admit of no luxuries,
and Todd, through his impecuniosity, even if he had wished, could not
have done anything else but work. Taylor's house was supposed to provide
a fairly liberal table, but Gus really did miss his after-dinner cup of
coffee at Hooper's, and not many fellows would regard long letters to and
from home as being the _summum bonum_ of the week. Yet Todd had come
to regard his mamma's letters--four-paged gossip about his sisters, his
brothers, the horses, and the dogs--in the light of luxuries.
Consequently, with nothing to distract him, Gus really did work. His
standing in the Fifth sensibly increased. Merishall did not make
elaborate jokes on his Latin, and Corker not once let fall the warning
eye-glass preparatory to savaging him for his Greek, formerly called so
by a courtesy title. There was a world of difference between his old
haphazard slip-slop and his present honest attempts in the ways of
scholarship.
The half-holidays, though, dragged dreadfully, for Gus was one of those
fellows who have no natural aptitude for games, and he had a theory that
he did not care a straw about them either. Being in the Fifth he could,
of course, suit himself what he did with his halfers. Sometimes, in very
desperation, he would lounge down to the Acres, and wander forlornly from
goal post to goal post, and sometimes he spent the afternoon amusing
himself--with Lancaster's express approval--in the laboratory, and so
effaced previous bad impressions from the science master's mind. Gus,
however, was honest enough with himself to own that he would rather have
had an aimless stroll with Cotton than any amount of footer-gazing or
"bottle-washing." But Cotton had definitely thrown him over; they did not
nod when they met, and Jim was very careful not to see Gus walking in
solitary state in the roadway.
Todd was moodily looking out of his window one halfer, and discontentedly
wondering how he could exist till he should switch on the electric for
the evening grind, when a not unfamiliar knock sounded on the door. Gus
faced round wonderingly, and opened the door. The house-master dropped
into the chair which Todd hastily drew out for him.
"I thought I should catch you in, Todd. Nothing on, have you?"
"No, sir," said Todd.
"No particular engagement for this afternoon."
"No, sir," said Gus, with a half sigh merging into a half smile, "though
I did think of going down to the Acres, and looking at the footer."
"I'm glad of that," said Taylor, as though he really were. "I promised to
referee this afternoon--Hargon's _v_. Sharpe's--but I want to cry
off now. Neuralgia, Todd, is simply torturing me this moment, and
refereeing wouldn't improve it. Do you mind taking my place? Do please
say 'No' if you'd rather not."
"Very sorry, sir," said Gus, referring to the neuralgia. "Referee!"
"Yes," said Taylor, with a ghost of a smile at Todd's astonishment.
"Certainly, I will, sir--I mean I'll take your place. But the fellows
will gasp when I step into the arena."
"Thank you, Todd. Why will they gasp?"
"Footer isn't my line, sir."
"Hasn't been, Todd. Anyhow, they'll be delighted when you whistle them
up."
"I hope they'll be delighted when I've finished, sir," said Gus,
doubtfully.
"One side won't, of course," said Taylor, cheerfully. "That is natural,
and the usual thing. Do you know, I never played football, but I like
refereeing immensely. Positive it's the best thing after playing, and I
know that a really first-class referee is a very rare fowl. Of course
it's the off-side rule and, etc."
Taylor delivered himself of a little homily on the subject of refereeing.
He was enthusiastic almost to the point of forgetting his neuralgia, and
Todd got quite interested in the theme so earnestly handled. He had not
thought there was much fun in it until the house-master unfolded its
possibilities, but he took over the whistle fairly sanguine.
"I'll do my best, sir," said Gus, in conclusion; "and if they stone me
off the Acres----"
"I'll bury my reputation as a prophet under the missiles."
In one thing Todd was certainly right. When he found Hargon's _v_.
Sharpe's pitch and told the assembled twenty-two--rather diffidently, I
must own--that he was the deputy referee, they did gasp.
"Show us your whistle, Gus," said Higgins, Hargon's captain, doubtfully.
Gus held it up, with a genial and childlike smile.
"Got the rules in your pocket, too, I suppose."
"I have," said Todd--"for reference. But I know _now_, Higgins, that
goal-keepers cannot take more than two steps with the ball, and----"
Sharpe's lot guffawed at Todd's neat little thrust at Higgins's little
failing as a goal-keeper.
"But don't you worry, Hig; I'll see you through all right. Three-quarter
each way, I suppose?"
Todd gave his whole mind to the refereeing, and soon warmed to business.
He found that there was heaps more fun in it than he had bargained for,
and as he was a sharp, quick, and clever youth he came out of the ordeal
with flying colours. He made mistakes, naturally, but momentous issues
depended on none of them, and he felt he had not done so badly when
Higgins, at half-time, spoke to him as one in authority to another. But
Palmer, the captain of Sharpe's lot--the beaten side--put the coping
stone to a pleasant afternoon by asking Gus to referee for them against
Merishall's. Gus walked off the field a happy man.
From that afternoon Todd had no excuse for loafing away any halfer. His
services as referee were in demand, not merely as a matter of utility,
but of preference. Taylor, who had watched rather anxiously Todd's
progress, smiled easily at the success of his understudy.
"I say," said Bourne to me, "what's come over Todd? Blessed if that usual
ass didn't handle the Fifth _v_. Sixth to-day simply beautifully.
When you're lynched, Gus will fill your shoes completely. Talks so-so,
too. Who's improving him?"
I acted on Phil's advice, and Todd and I parcelled out the outstanding
fixtures between us. Then Todd became one of the best-known fellows in
the school, and strolled up the hill with Worcester, Acton, Vercoe, and
other heroes as to the manner born. The old, lazy, shallow, shifty,
shiftless Gus was drifting into the background every day.
Then Todd gave us a final shock. I was hurrying down the High when a
constable asked me if I could tell him "where a young gentleman named
Todd lived."
"I'm passing by his house," said I, more than a trifle puzzled as to what
the police might want with Gus. "Hope it isn't house-breaking,
constable?"
"No, sir," said he, laughing. "It is a matter of ice-breakin'."
I expect I looked mystified.
"Mr. Todd, sir, fished out of the water just below the Low Locks a common
ordinary drunk, Robins--a bargee. That was yesterday afternoon, and this
morning the superintendent sends me to see how he is."
I looked more blankly ignorant than before.
"He's kept it dark, I see, sir. There isn't a bigger fool alive than
Robins when he's drunk--which he mostly--what is--and he acted yesterday
up to the usual form of drunks. He _would_ go on the ice just below
the locks, when it would hardly bear a sparrer, let alone a drunk Robin,
and he naturally goes under before he'd gone a dozen yards. Mr. Todd went
for him without, I fancy, considering the risks. He broke the ice up to
that forsaken Robins, and waded in after him. When _we_ got there he
was up to his neck in water, and he'd got the fool by the collar; then we
pulled 'em both out. Mind, up to his chin in that frozen water! We
thought Robins was a goner from cold when we landed 'im, and asked Mr.
Todd's name as bein' likely to be required at the inquest. But, bless
you, sir, Robins pulled through all right; that sort generally does."
"Was there any one to help Todd, when he went for the fellow?"
"No, sir; he just waded in and took his chance. I wouldn't--at least not
for an ord'nary drunk. Mr. Todd just ran home as he was: said the sprint
would warm him to rights. How is he?"
"Got a vile cold; he was barking pretty well all chapel."
"And Robins," said the policeman, in disgust, "doesn't own up to a
snuffle. This Mr. Todd's house, sir?"
"Yes. I'd just ask to see Mr. Taylor, the house-master, first. I fancy
he'll be pleased to see you."
The constable's plain, unvarnished tale gave the Rev. E. Taylor as
pleasant a ten minutes as he had enjoyed for some time, and he passed on
the worthy man to the butler with instructions as to "something hot."
Then he rapped on Todd's door.
Decidedly the ship _Agustus Vernon Robert Todd_ "had found herself."