David was sitting in front of the fire in his house-master’s study one
afternoon late in November, occasionally reading the _Sporting and
Dramatic_ and otherwise listening with a strong inward satisfaction to
the slinging of the sleet on to the window panes, which, as pointed out
by Lucretius, emphasises the warm comfort of present surroundings. He
had a large foot on each side of the fire just below the chimney-piece,
and a large cushion at the back of his head, and no intention at all of
going into the foul, cold shower-bath called “out-of-doors.” What made
his satisfaction the more complete was that a notice had been passed
round at hall from Gregson, the captain of the house at football, that
every one had to go out for a three-mile run with a view to keeping in
training for house-matches, and it added to David’s pleasure to think of
all those poor wretches plodding through the rainy sleet and the mud and
the puddles, while he, like the king’s daughter in the psalms, was “all
glorious within.” Gregson—_alias_ Plugs—who was a pal of David’s, had
called him by all the insulting names he could think of, when David had
absolutely refused to obey orders, and the end of it had been that David
had picked Gregson up (he was a little fellow, though an admirable
half-back at Rugby football) and carried him all the way upstairs in his
arms and round each dormitory in turn to show him that he was in
perfectly good training already. Thereafter he had taken the _Sporting
and Dramatic_ from the reading-room, against all rules, and retired to
Adams’s study to spend a cosy time before the fire.
Adams himself came in before long, and David pushed his chair back, and
took down his large feet, so that he did not usurp the whole of the
hearthrug and the entire warmth of the fire. He had, like half the
house, the habit of sitting in Adams’s study, who wanted nothing better
than to have his boys about.
“Not gone for a training-run, David?” asked he.
“No, sir. Plugs—er, gave me leave-off.”
Adams lit his pipe, and sat down on the hearthrug, which was his usual
place.
“On what grounds?” he asked.
David laughed.
“I carried him round the house, sir, to show him I was in good
training,” he said. “He didn’t mind a bit.”
“That’ll do for my text,” said Adams. “I wanted to sermonise you. That’s
the sort of thing, David, that I wish you wouldn’t do. You are rather
given to undermining authority. It doesn’t set a very good example, and
though you probably don’t know it, the house takes its tune from you and
one or two others. You are pals with Gregson, I know. And that’s all the
more reason why you should support him. And, while I’m on the subject, I
want to ask you not to swear so much.”
David sat up in astonishment.
“Sir, I bet you’ve never heard me swear,” he said.
“I know I haven’t, but I’ve heard young Jevons, and I draw the perfectly
correct conclusion that you do. I’m awfully grateful, by the way, for
your taking him up as you’ve done, and teaching him to wash his hands,
and not look as if everybody wanted to thrash him. Did anybody suggest
it to you?”
“Oh, yes, Frank,” said David.
“Well, you’ve done good work, though I didn’t mean to praise you. But
Jevons copies you: he brushes his hair like you, and whistles between
his teeth, or tries to, and runs instead of walking, and, as I say,
swears. Do stop it, will you? He was leaning out of his study window
yesterday, exchanging compliments with somebody, and I never heard such
an assortment of Billingsgate. It’s such awfully bad form, you know.
Also the sentiments expressed by bad language are not edifying.”
“I’ll try, sir,” said David. “I—I never thought of swearing as meaning
anything.”
“I know you didn’t; I never said it was the expression of a foul mind.
But the house is becoming a perfect company of bargees. Try not to swear
yourself, and kick anybody who does when it’s convenient. That’s all
about that.”
“Right, sir,” said David.
“Then there’s another thing,” said Adams. “I want you to tell me about
the Court of Appeal. I’ve only just heard about it, and I don’t think I
like it.”
David frowned. This wasn’t his idea of a comfortable afternoon indoors
at all, and he wished he had gone out for a run instead of carrying
Plugs round the house.
“I don’t think I can, sir,” he said. “There are other fellows concerned
in it.”
“Oh, I know that. The Court is you and Gregson and Bags; chiefly you.
That’s why I asked you. I heard about it from the Head. He doesn’t like
it, either. I said I would go into the matter. I don’t promise that he
won’t as well.”
“I suppose that little beast Manton told him,” remarked David.
“I don’t agree with ‘little beast,’” said Adams, “but I agree that
probably Manton told him. I really don’t see what else the Head of the
house could do. Now I want to hear what the Court of Appeal have to say
about themselves, just as I shall want to know what the prefects say
about them. Gregson and Bags are quite safe in your hands as
_advocatus_—well, perhaps, not quite _diaboli_. You can trust me for
that.”
David raised himself and sat Turk-fashion with crossed legs in the big
basket-chair.
“It’s rather a long story, sir, if I’m to tell it from the beginning,”
he said.
“Never mind.”
“Well, you see, sir, there was such an awful change in the house when
Frank and Cruikshank left at the end of last half. You see, they were
proper prefects; they used their authority properly, and it was jolly
well necessary to respect it. You couldn’t cheek fellows like them, when
they gave orders; it simply couldn’t happen. And it was so frantically
different to get little clever squirts like Manton and Crossley in
authority instead. They couldn’t keep order a hang; the whole house
would have been out of hand in no time. You’ll see that the Court of
Appeal was really meant to preserve order. Why, the very fags used to
laugh at them. One of them put soap in Manton’s kettle one day, and when
it boiled it came bubbling out of the spout like blowing soap-bubbles.
You never saw anything so funny. But the Court of Appeal stopped that.”
Adams preserved his gravity.
“That’s rather a new light,” he said. “Go on, David. You needn’t bring
in names if you think you’d better not. But it’s only fair that the Head
should know your side of the question, as he has heard Manton’s.”
David got red in the face.
“Manton’s a bl—— filthy little sneak,” he observed. “Also, I bet he
hasn’t told the Head the truth.”
“He probably told him the truth, as it struck him,” said Adams. “It
strikes you differently. But he didn’t sneak as you think. The Head got
his first news about the Court of Appeal from quite another source.”
“May I know what source?” asked David.
“Yes, I don’t mind telling you, but you must be officially ignorant.
Jevons went to breakfast with the Head the other day, and remarked, in
an outburst of confidence, that you were far the biggest swell in the
house, because you were the President of the Court of Appeal. He said it
in all innocence, but the Head was naturally interested to hear more,
and applied to—well, to the proper quarter, which was Manton.”
David recovered from his spurt of temper.
“That funny little Jev probably thought it all quite regular,” he said.
“Of course he did; he wouldn’t have given you away on purpose. Go on;
we’ve got to the soap in the kettle.”
David laughed.
“Yes, sir, you should have seen it coming all rainbowy out of the spout.
So of course Manton sent for the—the fellow who did it, and he couldn’t
even cane him alone, but had to have Crossley in to help. It’s perfectly
degrading, sir, to have prefects like that. So Crossley held the fellow
down, and, just as Manton began to lay on, the fellow kicked out, and
Crossley slipped across to get out of the way, and Manton landed him an
awful wipe over the shin. And so Crossley let go, and stamped about, and
they made such a row between them that I had to look in. I’d gone on
tiptoe to the door, sir, in case anything funny occurred, and so, as I
say, I looked in, and there was Babbington—oh, name slipped out by
accident—fit to burst himself with laughing, and the kettle boiling
over again with soap-bubbles, and Crossley hopping about on one leg, and
Manton apologising to him. And then Manton turned on me, and told me I
was undermining discipline; so I had to say there seemed a precious lot
of discipline to undermine. And then Manton lost his presence of mind
and whacked out again at Babbington, and missed him and smashed his
electric light. O Lor’! I never saw anything so funny!”
David shrieked with laughter again at the remembrance, and Adams could
not resist joining him as he turned to beat out his pipe against the
bars of the fire.
“Well?” he said at length.
“I could tell you heaps of stories like that,” said David, wiping his
eyes. “Another time it was Crossley who told a fellow to write out fifty
lines. So he wrote out ‘Fifty lines,’ just like that, on a sheet of
paper, and showed it up. Fancy doing that to Frank, or Crookles! Why,
you couldn’t! And then Crossley told him to write them out twice. So he
took another bit of paper and wrote ‘Them out twice’ on it. And then
Crossley said he would cane him, so Jevons—Lord, there’s another name;
please forget it, sir—Jevons came and appealed. Precious lot of good
that did him, for the Court were satisfied that he’d deserved his fifty
lines, and so I gave him six frightful stingers myself, as I knew
Crossley wasn’t fit to, for cheek to a prefect. And yet you and Manton
say I’m undermining discipline, sir,” added David in a voice of outraged
virtue. “Why, we’re enforcing it. Jev had to write out his hundred
lines, and got a whacking too. Though the Court of Appeal can reverse a
prefect’s decision, it also may enforce it, and then the—the appellant
gets it twice as hot for having appealed. Same as in English law, sir.”
“This is all rather news to me,” remarked Adams.
“Well, sir, something had to be done,” said David, “or the whole house
would have gone to pot. Why, the fags might have taken it into their
heads to cheek fifth form next when they’d finished with the sixth, and
there would have been trouble. You see, most of the big fellows in the
house are in the fifth. That’s the way the Court of Appeal started.”
“Go on,” said Adams.
“Well, the next thing was—oh, I must tell you this—one night a couple
of juniors made an apple-pie bed for Gregson. Awful cheek! So naturally
he whacked them soundly and formally, and they went to Manton, and told
him that Gregson had been whacking them. So round comes Manton and tells
Gregson, before the whole dormitory, and him captain of football, that
he’s no right to, as he wasn’t a prefect. And of course Gregson said
he’d heard that a little before Manton had caned Crossley (that was the
Babbington affair) and that he hadn’t any right to cane a prefect.
That’s the sort of thing that went on all the first weeks of this half,
sir; there’d have been a regular revolution unless we’d done something.
And so I say that the Court of Appeal is more to support authority than
the other way about.”
“Well, now we’ll take the other way about,” said Adams. “I mean I want
to know about the cases in which you upset the prefect’s authority.”
David thought for a moment.
“Well, sir, those two, Manton and Crossley, did all sorts of things
we’re not accustomed to have prefects doing,” he said. “When they went
the round of the studies during preparation to see that we were working,
they used to put on slippers and open the door quick to try and catch
you doing nothing; and of course they often did. Well, that’s not
playing the game, sir. Frank always came clumping along, and he always
tapped at your door. It was just the same when they went the rounds of
dormitories after lights were out. Slippers! You don’t do any good by
spying, you know; you won’t stop fellows ragging or—or anything else,
that sort of way. It only means that two can play at that game, and if
you want to do anything of the kind that you shouldn’t, you just put a
sentinel at the door. Spying just encourages fellows to break rules.
Smoking, too.”
“Well, smoking?” said Adams.
“Crossley suspected a certain fellow of smoking, and one day, when he
was out, he went and looked in his table drawer and found a pipe there.
Now, sir, that sort of thing’s all rot. He wanted to whack him for it,
and the fellow appealed. So naturally we gave it in his favour when it
came out that Crossley had looked in his private drawer. You wouldn’t
dream of doing it yourself, sir. Naturally not. So of course we reversed
Crossley’s sentence, and wouldn’t let him be whacked.”
“Did you three appoint yourself the Court?” asked Adams.
“Yes. I suppose it was about that. We were all pals, you see, sir, and
the rest of the house seemed satisfied that we’d take a fairish view of
things, and so about a month ago, after we’d settled that something must
be done, we just let every one know that they could appeal against any
impot or caning that those two, Manton and Crossley, proposed to give,
and we would decide. But then, you see, sir, if any one appeals, as I
said, and the Court upholds the prefect, he gets it twice as hot.
Hundred lines instead of fifty, etcetera. We’ve written it all out in a
book. ‘Constitution of the Court of Appeal,’ so as to have it regular,
and in case we forgot.”
“Good gracious, it’s a constitution, is it!” asked Adams.
David became slightly dignified.
“Yes, we thought it better to put it on an orderly footing, sir,” he
said, “and have everything regular, so that we shouldn’t contradict
ourselves, and do one thing one time and another another. Also the
fellows know what to expect. And, what’s more, we see that the impots
are properly done if we confirm them. Canings, too. Why, one day
Crossley caned a fellow”—David began to bubble with laughter
again—“and he pretended to go to sleep and snore, and when Crossley
told him it was all over, he pretended to awake, and said, ‘Hullo,
morning already?’ Why, it’s a farce, sir; it’s sheer childish! What’s
the use of caning a fellow if you don’t jolly well hurt him? So we took
that out of the prefects’ hands and the impots get properly written, and
fellows get properly whacked, if it’s a whacking. I don’t say it
increases the respect in which the house holds those two little fellows
at the top, but surely it’s better to have some authority than none!”
Adams thought over this for a while. The Head had apparently been given
to understand by Manton that the authority of the two prefects had been
wrenched out of their hands by these large, athletic upstarts of the
fifth form, and that in consequence anarchy prevailed, and the house had
become a sort of Medmenham Abbey. But David’s account had put a
perfectly different aspect on the affair, and one that was eminently
reasonable. Adams was a fair-minded man, and, putting aside altogether
the fact that he delighted in David and disliked Manton, he believed
that David’s version was the true one. It had always been his plan to
let the house look after its own affairs as far as possible; he gave it
home rule, in fact, and certainly the transfer of government to the
fifth form (though highly irregular and in defiance of school-rules) he
believed to have been distinctly for the good of the nation. Again (a
thing which bore out this view), the first weeks of the half had been
full of trouble and worry; small boys were for ever appealing to him
against the prefects, and prefects were as constantly invoking his
authority to endorse their own lack of it. Then, about a month ago, all
these disturbances had ceased, and Adams, with his habitual optimism,
had supposed that the house had shaken down together now. But in the
light of all this, it seemed far more reasonable to suppose that the
remedy had been brought about by this brigandage of authority. Certainly
the restoration of peace and quiet was coincident with the establishment
of this impertinent Court of Appeal, which would have to come to an end
as a recognised institution. But during its existence it seemed to have
been effective.
“Do you reverse many of the prefects’ rulings?” asked Adams.
“Oh no, sir, not now,” said David, anxious to do such justice as could
be done to those two impotent figureheads. “You see, neither of them
liked their silly rulings reversed, and they’ve become much more
sensible. But you simply can’t have a prefect looking in your study when
you’re out, and wanting to cane you because he finds a pipe there. Fancy
Frank or Cruikshank doing a scruggish, low-down trick like that!”
“You seem rather fond of that instance,” said Adams.
“Yes sir, because it’s so jolly typical,” said David.
Adams got up.
“I’m considering what to say to the Head,” he remarked. “I shall
certainly tell him there’s another side to the question, besides
Manton’s.”
“Oh, ripping!” said David cordially. “I felt sure you’d see it.”
“I suppose you enjoyed the Court of Appeal a good deal?” he asked.
“Rather, sir,” said David. “I should think we did. Wish you could have
heard one of the trials, with us three on the bench, and Manton as
defendant, and some junior as plaintiff. You see, sir, Manton and
Crossley consented to it all; that’s another point in our favour, isn’t
it! Gregson planned all the ritual, because his pater’s a real judge in
Appeal Courts, and we call each other ‘My learned brother Crabtree’ or
‘Blaize,’ for of course there are no nicknames or Christian names in
Court. It’s all quite serious; there’s no rag about it. We were thinking
of appointing a permanent counsel to plead for plaintiffs——”
Adams laughed.
“David, you don’t suppose that the Court of Appeal is going to be
allowed to remain in existence?” he asked.
“That’s as you wish, sir,” he said. “But——”
“Well?” asked Adams.
“Nothing sir. I was only thinking that there’ll be rather rows again.”
“I hope not,” said Adams. “That’s exactly what you and fellows like you
have got to prevent.”
“But how can we if you’re going to stop it?” asked David.
“In hundreds of ways: by backing the prefects up without over-riding
them. You’re sensible enough to know that.”
David considered this.
“Is the Head sick about it, sir?” he asked.
“He’s never sick about anything till he’s in full possession of the
facts. He was prepared to be uncommonly sick, when he had only heard the
other side. In fact, he said something about giving you another lesson
with regard to obeying authorities. But after what you’ve told me I
don’t think you need be alarmed.”
“Oh, I’m not,” said David. “Of course he’ll see there’s another side to
it, same as you’ve done. Something had to happen when we got Manton and
Crossley instead of Frank and Cruikshank.”
At this moment a small and completely soaked boy burst into the room,
not seeing Adams, who was sitting behind the door, but only David.
“Letter for you, Blaize,” he said. “Oh, and I want to appeal. Sorry,
sir, I didn’t see you.”
“You do now, Jevons,” said Adams. “So go on, tell Blaize what the
appeal’s about.”
“Well, sir, somebody put my sponge on the top of Manton’s door, made a
booby-trap, and because it’s my sponge he says I’m responsible unless I
find out who put it there.”
Adams nodded to David.
“Go on, learned brother Blaize,” he said.
“Notice in writing, Jev,” he said.
He had seen the handwriting of his letter, and tore it open.
“Oh, I say, how ripping!” he said. “Frank’s mother’s ill, and is ordered
out of England for Christmas—at least, it’s beastly that she’s ill—but
Frank wants to know if he can stay with us for a week. I say, Jev,
you’re awfully wet, aren’t you? I mean, you couldn’t get much wetter, so
I wonder if you’d take a tellywag just down to the office.”
“Rather. And I’ll put my appeal in your study, shall I!”
“Yes.”
“Right. I’ll be back in a second if you’ll have your tellywag ready.”
“Is the telegram to Frank saying he can come?” asked Adams.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then hadn’t you better write to your father first? It might not be
convenient.”
The impulsive David had already written “Ripping: stay as long as you
can,” but he paused.
“Oh well, I suppose it would be best, sir,” he said; “I wish you hadn’t
thought of it.”
David got up to go to his study, and write the note which was so far
outstripped by his desire.
“And may I talk to Bags and Plugs about the Court of Appeal, sir!” he
said.
“Certainly. You can talk it over with Manton, too, if you like. In fact,
I rather recommend it.”
Adams’s recommendation seemed to be rather sensible when David thought
over it, though not perhaps strictly in accordance with Adams’s idea in
suggesting it. It would give the Court an opportunity perhaps of finding
out what Manton had said to the Head, and, should Manton not choose to
tell them, it was easy to threaten, as a counter-move, that the Court,
when called upon, as it undoubtedly would be, to appear before the Head,
would give a highly coloured account, strictly based upon facts, of what
had led to its formation. Also they could put before Manton and Crossley
a very depressing picture of what their position would be if the Court
was dissolved, and, privately, chose not to back up their restored
authority. It required but small imagination to picture the status of
those two unfortunate prefects if they had to enforce discipline in the
house without the support of what had been the Court.
Bags and Gregson had just come in from their run, and Gregson, being in
his bath and in the superior position of having no clothes on, could
take reprisals by water on David’s having refused to go out. David, in
fact, had to dodge a soaking sponge thrown at him, before he had time to
begin to explain.
“Oh, _pax_ a minute,” he said. “There’s a damned—an awful serious thing
happened, Plugs. The Head knows all about the Court of Appeal, and it’s
goin’ to be gone into.”
“Rot,” said Gregson, filling his sponge again. “Now who wouldn’t go out
for a sweat, David?”
“’Tisn’t rot,” shrieked David, snatching up a towel to shield himself.
“I swear it isn’t. While you brutes have been having an innocent happy
sweat along the road this nice weather, I’ve been jawed by Adams. It’s a
solid fact. We’re all going to be hauled up before the Head, and he was
disposed to be uncommonly sick about it, so Adams said. Do shut up being
funny with sponges.”
“Right oh,” said Plugs, “if you swear you’re not lying.”
“Swear!” said David. “Hurry up and dress, and come to my study, because
you and I and Bags have to talk. It’s—it’s a welter of politics.”
The Court accordingly met in about ten minutes’ time in David’s study,
where he had made tea for them, and where, on the table, lay Jevons’s
appeal. He laid before the other two all his talk with Adams,
reproducing it with laudable accuracy.
“And as it’s a dead cert that we shall appear before the Head,” he
finished up, “we’ve got to agree exactly what we say. We mustn’t give
different accounts of it.”
Bags caressed what he hoped was going to be a moustache.
“Of course not,” he said. “We’ve just got to say what’s happened. Truth,
whole truth, and nothing but.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean we were to make things up,” said David, “but the only
question is, how much we tell the Head. I vote for a conference—Adams
suggested it—with Manton and Crossley, and see if we can’t let each
other down easily.”
“Compromise out of Court?” suggested Plugs.
“Yes: something of the kind. We can give them away hopelessly by saying
how inefficient they were, and they can give us away, by saying that we
have undermined the prefects’ authority. Don’t you see? It might all be
toned down a bit.”
“That’s no use,” said Bags, “if Manton’s given us away already.”
“But that’s just what we don’t know,” said David. “I vote we try to get
Manton to tell us what he told the Head. He may not have told him much;
he may have said it was an amicable sort of arrangement. On the other
hand, he may have told him that our object was to undermine prefects’
authority. Well, as I told Adams, there’s another side to that; we
generally supported it, except when it was manifestly unfair. I want to
know what Manton told him. That we have put ourselves above the prefects
is true, but we did it in the cause of order, though of course we all
enjoyed it frightfully.”
“And the house accepted us,” said Bags.
“Lot the Head will care for that! I want to get Manton and Crossley to
come and talk. Crossley doesn’t matter, but Manton anyhow, as he’s
already seen the Head. You see, when the Head has us up, we can tell him
a lot if we choose. He’ll ask us for our account of it. Manton’ll see
that. He isn’t a fool, though he is such a squirt.”
With Plugs as well as Bags, David was the master-mind, and after a few
minutes Bags went to Manton’s study, and quite politely asked him to
come round and confer with the Court.
Manton rather liked this: he promised himself a pleasant time in telling
the Court that the Head was going into the whole matter himself, and
that he had nothing more to do with it. He was prepared to be
maliciously civil and courteous, and to express his regret the Court had
made such an ass of itself as its spontaneous generation implied. He
thought it would be rather fun, and came very blandly, with his
spectacles on, and a book that he was reading. His finger kept his place
in a cursory manner.
“Here I am,” he said. “Hullo, Blaize! Hullo, Gregson! Yes; the Court of
Appeal. It wasn’t I who went to the Head about it, you know; it was that
little fellow, Blaize’s friend, who let it out. What’s his name! I
forget.”
“Oh, Jevons,” said David.
“Yes, Jevons told the Head about it, and so of course the Head asked me
more. He put it rather nicely: he said it was my business to tell him
about it, as head of the house.”
David was seated between his two learned brothers, just as if a regular
Court was going on.
“Oh, we know about Jevons,” he said. “We can leave Jevons out.”
“Waive!” said Plugs formally.
“Yes, we can waive Jevons,” said David, “as my learned brother
suggests——”
Manton gave a little cackle of laughter.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you had to waive everything,” he observed
pleasantly.
“Oh, we’re not going to waive you just yet, if you count for anything,”
retorted David. “But perhaps you don’t count for much.”
Bags suddenly laughed in a hoarse manner.
“I beg pardon, brother Blaize,” he said.
“Right oh, brother Crabtree, but just contain yourself. Well, Manton,
you’ve been to the Head with your version, and next we go to the Head
with ours. We can make it pretty sultry for you if we choose, and we
shouldn’t mind doing it a bit. But it all depends on what you have told
the Head. That’s what we should like to know.”
Manton still felt in a very superior position. All he had told the Head
was quite true, namely, that these three fifth-form boys put themselves
in a position above the prefects, so that any order or punishment by the
two sixth-form boys in the house could be appealed against, and if they
thought proper could be reversed. The Head had been extremely grave
about it, and at present there was no doubt in Manton’s mind that he was
going to uphold the authority of the prefects in a summary manner, and
probably make it very hot for those who had set themselves above it. He
felt quite secure and comfortable, and smiled in rather a lofty manner.
“I dare say the Head will tell you as much of what I said as he thinks
good for you,” he observed. “But I really don’t see why I should. You
see he takes the view that prefects are not to be dictated to by two or
three members of the fifth form. Bad precedent, you know; it might lead
to a couple of fellows out of the fourth form dictating to you. Jevons
and a friend might make a super-Court of Appeal. Rather funny that would
be.”
David passed the ghost of a wink to Gregson. He wanted to draw Manton on
a little further, before he unmasked his batteries. It required some
control to assume an attitude of humility, when delicious sentences were
beginning to seethe in his brain. But it was heavenly to see Manton’s
malicious little eyes beaming at him through his spectacles, and notice
what an awful scug he looked with his hair, rather long behind, lying
outside his collar. He gave a sigh.
“I say, I’m afraid we’re in for it,” he said disconsolately.
Manton let his mouth expand into an odious smile.
“Yes, I should say you were,” he observed. “You see the Head’s view is
that the authority of prefects is an institution which has his support,
and he doesn’t quite see why it should be taken away by three fellows in
the fifth. He asked me all sorts of questions, and so I had to give him
a pretty full account. I should make a clean breast of it, I think, if I
were you.”
David could stand this no longer. He felt that he must burst if he had
to listen to any more of Manton’s advice.
“You say you gave him a pretty full account,” he said, “though you have
not chosen to tell us what it was. Well, I shouldn’t wonder if we made
it a bit fuller for you. I beg your pardon, brother Crabtree——”
Bags was leaning back, looking dreamily at Manton.
“Learned brother Gregson,” he observed, “do you remember one day how Mr.
Manton wanted to whack a little boy called Babbington, and how he had to
call in Mr. Crossley to help?”
Plugs assumed a portentous air.
“Yes, brother Crabtree,” he said, “and how soap-bubbles came out of Mr.
Manton’s kettle, though he had not meant to wash.”
David chimed in.
“And we all remember, my learned brother,” he said, “how the house was a
perfect bear-garden for the first month of this term before we started
our worshipful Court, and how——”
David turned to Manton.
“Perhaps you didn’t tell the Head that,” he said. “We shall. We shall
tell him how you couldn’t get lines done for you, till we enforced the
authority you hadn’t got. We shall say how you walk round the house in
slippers, and when you get back to your own fuggy studies you daren’t
walk straight in for fear of finding a booby-trap come down on your
mangy heads. Jolly wise precaution, too, on your part. We shall tell the
Head all that.”
David licked his lips, as he warmed to his work. He took Jevons’s appeal
off the table in front of him.
“I shall take this to the Head, and read it him,” he said. “Just listen:
pretty dignified position for you, isn’t it? ‘To the Court of Appeal.
Please Blaize, Manton got an awful soaker because somebody else put my
sponge on the top of his door, which soused him; and because it was my
sponge he says he’ll whack me unless I find out who did it and tell him,
which isn’t fair, because it’s not my business. So I appeal. M. C.
Jevons.’”
Manton was getting a little rattled. Otherwise he would not have done
anything so foolish as try to grab this paper. David whisked it away.
“I shall say, too, that you tried to get hold of this,” he said. “Better
sit down, Manton. That’s right. And I shall tell him that your notion of
authority is to look in a fellow’s private drawer when he’s out, to see
if you can nail a pipe.”
“I never did,” said Manton wildly. “That was Crossley.”
“Oh then, I suppose Crossley will explain that,” said David. “Of course
it may all be stale news to the Head, since you gave him a pretty full
account, but I’ll just see if the Head happened to listen to that part.
You see, we don’t in the least mind telling you what we’re going to say
to the Head, though you’re too superior to tell us what you said. I’ve
told Adams about it already, and he thinks you’re an awfully good
prefect, of course. And then, you see,” concluded David cheerfully,
“when we’ve told him all that really happened, why shouldn’t we make up
a lot that didn’t? Probably you did the same. Gosh, the Head will have a
wonderful high opinion of you before I’ve done. I shouldn’t wonder if it
isn’t more than he can bear, and jolly well breaks down and sobs and
kneels and gives thanks that he has such a ripping couple of prefects in
this house, to keep us all in order.”
“Well, you needn’t be sarcastic about it,” said Manton.
“Yes, I need, because you began about having a fourth-form Court of
Appeal to override us. You think that it’s only you who can be so damned
sarcastic and superior, and give any garbled account you like to the
Head——”
“It wasn’t garbled.”
“It must have been, or do you suppose that a sensible chap like the Head
could have taken your side? Perhaps you didn’t invent things, but I
swear you left out some jolly important ones, like your not being able
to cane a cheeky junior without getting Crossley to help you, and then
whacking him on the shin instead. You should have seen Adams shaking
when I told him about it. And I bet you said we set ourselves in
opposition to you. That’s a lie. We backed your authority up except when
you made such utter squirts of yourselves that we couldn’t. We helped
you, you goat! We did for you what you couldn’t do for yourselves! Lord,
it makes me hot to talk to a chap like you. Go on, Bags—I mean, Brother
Crabtree.”
Manton was beginning to present so ludicrous an appearance that learned
brother Blaize could hardly prevent bubbling with laughter, which would
have spoiled the forcibleness of the situation. His finger no longer
kept his place in his book; his tight little mouth no longer
complacently smiled, but had fallen open in dismay at David’s surprising
remarks. And learned Brother Crabtree, with his suave style and slow
sentences, did not reassure him.
“You see, there’s nothing like fair play, Manton,” said Bags. “I take it
that you agree. And, as you’ve had an uninterrupted innings with the
Head, and have run up a good score against us, I’m sure it is only
proper that we should have our turn. Now, you were not wise in refusing
to tell us what you had said to the Head; but the time for that is past
now, and even if you wanted to, I don’t suppose we should listen to you.
It was foolish of you, because you make us guess what it was, and
naturally we guess that you made up a lot of lies, since we think that
is the sort of thing you would do. So when you leave us now, which will
be very soon, we shall make up some rippers about you and
Crossley—really awful things, you know. I began making some up when
Brother Blaize was addressing you. They are beauties.”
Gregson took up the tale with a wink at David in the eye away from
Manton.
“And yet I don’t know that we need bother to make things up, Brother
Crabtree,” he said. “It’s easier to say just a few of the things that
really happened. We will tell the Head the sort of thing that goes on in
Manton’s study when he thinks all the house are at preparation.”
Now Manton, for all his feebleness and ineffectiveness as a prefect, was
as blameless as the Ethiopian.
“But I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
Gregson gave a little laugh which he transformed into a cough.
“Oh really?” he said. “But the Head will soon know what we mean.
David—I mean Brother Blaize knows.”
David had caught the wink correctly. He put on a scornful face.
“Oh, _that_!” he said. “Yes, disgusting. You should be more careful
about shutting your door, Manton. I and Gregson were walking about the
house in slippers, following the example of the sixth form.”
“But I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Manton.
“Right oh. We won’t talk about it any more—to you.”
It was in vain that Manton assured himself that, as was perfectly true,
his conscience was as clear as noon-day, for this wicked and
subtly-acted fraud on the part of those fifth-form devils made him
uncomfortable in spite of himself. And though he had not told the Head
anything false about this beastly Court of Appeal, he certainly had not
put their side of the case before him with the directness that it now
appeared they were going to do on their own behalf. He had not, for
instance, said that the Court of Appeal propped up, endorsed, supported
the authority of himself and Crossley far more than they overrode it,
though it was perfectly true (as he had told the Head) that they
arrogated the supreme authority to themselves. Nor had it occurred to
him to tell the Head that he and Crossley were quite incompetent to
maintain discipline, that they got ragged to the point of having soap
put in their kettles, that they toured the house in slippers. Truly the
supplement to his tale was likely to be as voluminous as the tale
itself.
Then David rose.
“Well, I don’t think we need detain you,” he said politely, “in fact,
we’ve got a good deal to talk over among ourselves. Thanks awfully for
coming. I expect we shall all meet again at the Head’s. That’s all
then.”
But Manton was not quite sure that this was all. Various remarks by one
or other of the members of the Court were beginning to cause him
somewhat acute internal questionings. In especial he disliked the fact
that Adams was in possession of the Court’s side of the case, and as
like as not would give the Head the benefit of it.
“Perhaps we might discuss it all a little more,” he said, with a faint
air of condescension still lingering about him. “I can—well, go to the
Head, because he told me that if I had anything more to tell him, I was
to. I might say—I really should be quite glad to—that Crossley and I
didn’t want to get you into trouble.”
“Oh that’s all right,” said David cheerfully. “Don’t bother about that;
you’ve got us into no trouble at all. I expect we shall come out
perfectly right.”
“But the Head was awfully sick about it,” said Manton. “He laid a good
deal of stress on the fact that you did set yourselves up as an
authority superior to the prefects.”
“I expect I’ll make that all square,” said David. “I dare say I shall
put our case as strongly as you put yours. Adams will have done the same
too, I’m pretty sure. Of course we thought we might let you down more
easily if you told us what you told the Head, and, after all, we gave
you an opportunity of doing so. But you didn’t take it, so that’s
finished.”
“Well, I think perhaps I was wrong not to tell you,” said Manton.
“I’m sure you were,” assented Bags warmly. “Isn’t it an awful pity one
doesn’t think of that sort of thing sooner?”
“And so, if you like, I’ll tell you now,” said Manton, finishing his
sentence.
“Oh, we don’t care a hang either way,” said David. “If you wish you may
tell us, but it’ll be because you ask us if you may. We don’t want to
hear it.”
“But I thought you asked me to,” said this dismal prefect.
“We did, but it’s no use to us now. We’ve made up our minds what to do.”
“Well, shall I tell the Head that you did often support the authority of
the sixth? It might make him less sick with you.”
“Rubbish!” said Gregson. “You’re proposing these things now simply
because you want us not to tell the Head our side of it. Is that the
reason, or not?”
“I think it would——”
“‘Yes’ or ‘no,’” said Brother Blaize in a terrible voice.
“Yes.”
“Why not have asked for mercy sooner then, instead of giving yourself
all these airs? Get on!”
It was a very unstuffed Manton who was left at the end of this recital,
for though he had not told the Head anything palpably false, yet the
picture the Head must have drawn of the whole affair was about as
erroneous as it could possibly be. He had let the Head assume that the
authority of the prefects over the house was complete and satisfactory
until the Court of Appeal set itself up, and he had certainly not said
that the Court in most cases endorsed their authority, and saw that
their orders were obeyed. All this was drawn from him by cool and
ruthless questioning.
At the end David gave a long whistle.
“Well, ’pon my word, you are in a mess,” he said. “I’m not at all sure
that I shouldn’t resign my prefectship if I were you before the Head
kicked me out. You are the deuce of a hand at _suppressio veri_—ain’t
that it, Brother Gregson? Why there isn’t an ounce of truth that you
haven’t suppressed. And it’s all as full of _suggestio_—er——”
“_Falsi_,” said Bags.
“Yes, _suggestio falsi_, as it can stick. The best thing you can do is
to go and talk it over with Crossley, and then come back and tell us
what you propose to tell the Head. If you don’t make a clean breast of
it to him, and let him see that he’s only got a garbled—yes, I said
garbled—version of it at present, you may be sure we shall. And when
you’ve made up your minds, come back and tell us. Tap at the door
first.”
The unstuffed Manton rose.
“Yes, I’ll do that,” he said. “Er—thanks.”
The door closed behind him, and David, who was growing extremely red in
the face with _suppressio risus_, turned over and buried his face in the
sofa-cushions, kicking wildly in the air. The other learned brethren
stifled themselves lest Manton should hear them, and for a few minutes
the Court of Appeal writhed in the agonies of silent mirth.
“O Lord,” said David at length, “I didn’t know there was such richness
in the world! To think that half an hour ago that little squirt thought
he had us on toast. Toast’s there all right, but ’tisn’t we who are on
it. And now he’s making up another version which is ours, and wanting to
know if that’ll satisfy us for him to go to the Head with. O Lord!”
“Too much mercy to let him,” said Bags.
“Not a bit of it. It’s much more effective if Manton puts our side of it
to the Head.”
“But what if he doesn’t tell the Head all he says he’s going to?” asked
Plugs.
“He must. The only way he can save his face is by going to him at once,
before Adams can. Oh, there’s toast enough! Besides, when the Head sees
us, we can soon tell if Manton’s given him the correct version.”
* * * * *
David, as President of the Court, was summoned to the Supreme Presence
next day.
“I’ve been into the question of the Court of Appeal,” said the Head,
“and what Manton told me last night puts a different complexion on it
from what I had heard before. Of course the court must be dissolved at
once, Blaize, you understand that?”
“Yes, sir.”
A faint smile spread over the Head’s face as he looked at the big, jolly
boy.
“And tell your—your learned brethren,” he said, “what I say. The
authorities in your house are Mr. Adams and the prefects, and there are
no other authorities. But I believe now that on the whole the court
meant well, and I am quite certain it enjoyed itself immensely. That
particular enjoyment, I am afraid, must cease; but I want it—the court,
that is—to continue meaning well in a private capacity, and to support
the prefects’ authority, though it may no longer enforce or reverse
their orders. And, Blaize, this is for your private ear alone: I think
the Court probably did very useful work. But we mustn’t have any more
courts. That’s all, then. How are you getting on? Well, I hope, and Mr.
Adams seems to think so. Heard anything from your friend Maddox lately?”
“Gosh, what a brick!” said David to himself, as he went out. . . .