the League had been revived meant that there would be trouble in the
very near future, and the prospect of trouble was meat and drink to the
Irishman in O'Hara. Consequently he felt in particularly good form for
mathematics (as he interpreted the word). He thought that he would have
no difficulty whatever in keeping Mr Banks bright and amused. The first
step had to be to arouse in him an interest in life, to bring him into
a frame of mind which would induce him to look severely rather than
leniently on the next offender. This was effected as follows:--
It was Mr Banks' practice to set his class sums to work out, and, after
some three-quarters of an hour had elapsed, to pass round the form what
he called "solutions". These were large sheets of paper, on which he
had worked out each sum in his neat handwriting to a happy ending. When
the head of the form, to whom they were passed first, had finished with
them, he would make a slight tear in one corner, and, having done so,
hand them on to his neighbour. The neighbour, before giving them to
_his_ neighbour, would also tear them slightly. In time they would
return to their patentee and proprietor, and it was then that things
became exciting.
"Who tore these solutions like this?" asked Mr Banks, in the repressed
voice of one who is determined that he _will_ be calm.
No answer. The tattered solutions waved in the air.
He turned to Harringay, the head of the form.
"Harringay, did you tear these solutions like this?"
Indignant negative from Harringay. What he had done had been to make
the small tear in the top left-hand corner. If Mr Banks had asked, "Did
you make this small tear in the top left-hand corner of these
solutions?" Harringay would have scorned to deny the impeachment. But
to claim the credit for the whole work would, he felt, be an act of
flat dishonesty, and an injustice to his gifted _collaborateurs._
"No, sir," said Harringay.
"Browne!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Did you tear these solutions in this manner?"
"No, sir."
And so on through the form.
Then Harringay rose after the manner of the debater who is conscious
that he is going to say the popular thing.
"Sir--" he began.
"Sit down, Harringay."
Harringay gracefully waved aside the absurd command.
"Sir," he said, "I think I am expressing the general consensus of
opinion among my--ahem--fellow-students, when I say that this class
sincerely regrets the unfortunate state the solutions have managed to
get themselves into."
"Hear, hear!" from a back bench.
"It is with--"
"Sit _down_, Harringay."
"It is with heartfelt--"
"Harringay, if you do not sit down--"
"As your ludship pleases." This _sotto voce_.
And Harringay resumed his seat amidst applause. O'Hara got up.
"As me frind who has just sat down was about to observe--"
"Sit down, O'Hara. The whole form will remain after the class."
"--the unfortunate state the solutions have managed to get thimsilves
into is sincerely regretted by this class. Sir, I think I am ixprissing
the general consensus of opinion among my fellow-students whin I say
that it is with heart-felt sorrow--"
"O'Hara!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Leave the room instantly."
"Yes, sir."
From the tower across the gravel came the melodious sound of chimes.
The college clock was beginning to strike ten. He had scarcely got into
the passage, and closed the door after him, when a roar as of a
bereaved spirit rang through the room opposite, followed by a string of
words, the only intelligible one being the noun-substantive "globe",
and the next moment the door opened and Moriarty came out. The last
stroke of ten was just booming from the clock.
There was a large cupboard in the passage, the top of which made a very
comfortable seat. They climbed on to this, and began to talk business.
"An' what was it ye wanted to tell me?" inquired Moriarty.
O'Hara related what he had learned from Trevor that morning.
"An' do ye know," said Moriarty, when he had finished, "I half
suspected, when I heard that Mill's study had been ragged, that it
might be the League that had done it. If ye remember, it was what they
enjoyed doing, breaking up a man's happy home. They did it frequently."
"But I can't understand them doing it to Trevor at all."
"They'll do it to anybody they choose till they're caught at it."
"If they are caught, there'll be a row."
"We must catch 'em," said Moriarty. Like O'Hara, he revelled in the
prospect of a disturbance. O'Hara and he were going up to Aldershot at
the end of the term, to try and bring back the light and middle-weight
medals respectively. Moriarty had won the light-weight in the previous
year, but, by reason of putting on a stone since the competition, was
now no longer eligible for that class. O'Hara had not been up before,
but the Wrykyn instructor, a good judge of pugilistic form, was of
opinion that he ought to stand an excellent chance. As the prize-fighter
in _Rodney Stone_ says, "When you get a good Irishman, you can't
better 'em, but they're dreadful 'asty." O'Hara was attending the
gymnasium every night, in order to learn to curb his "dreadful
'astiness", and acquire skill in its place.
"I wonder if Trevor would be any good in a row," said Moriarty.
"He can't box," said O'Hara, "but he'd go on till he was killed
entirely. I say, I'm getting rather tired of sitting here, aren't you?
Let's go to the other end of the passage and have some cricket."
So, having unearthed a piece of wood from the debris at the top of the
cupboard, and rolled a handkerchief into a ball, they adjourned.
Recalling the stirring events of six years back, when the League had
first been started, O'Hara remembered that the members of that
enterprising society had been wont to hold meetings in a secluded spot,
where it was unlikely that they would be disturbed. It seemed to him
that the first thing he ought to do, if he wanted to make their nearer
acquaintance now, was to find their present rendezvous. They must have
one. They would never run the risk involved in holding mass-meetings in
one another's studies. On the last occasion, it had been an old quarry
away out on the downs. This had been proved by the not-to-be-shaken
testimony of three school-house fags, who had wandered out one
half-holiday with the unconcealed intention of finding the League's
place of meeting. Unfortunately for them, they _had_ found it.
They were going down the path that led to the quarry before-mentioned,
when they were unexpectedly seized, blindfolded, and carried off. An
impromptu court-martial was held--in whispers--and the three explorers
forthwith received the most spirited "touching-up" they had ever
experienced. Afterwards they were released, and returned to their house
with their zeal for detection quite quenched. The episode had created a
good deal of excitement in the school at the time.
On three successive afternoons, O'Hara and Moriarty scoured the downs,
and on each occasion they drew blank. On the fourth day, just before
lock-up, O'Hara, who had been to tea with Gregson, of Day's, was
going over to the gymnasium to keep a pugilistic appointment with
Moriarty, when somebody ran swiftly past him in the direction of the
boarding-houses. It was almost dark, for the days were still short,
and he did not recognise the runner. But it puzzled him a little to
think where he had sprung from. O'Hara was walking quite close to the
wall of the College buildings, and the runner had passed between it and
him. And he had not heard his footsteps. Then he understood, and his
pulse quickened as he felt that he was on the track. Beneath the block
was a large sort of cellar-basement. It was used as a store-room for
chairs, and was never opened except when prize-day or some similar event
occurred, when the chairs were needed. It was supposed to be locked at
other times, but never was. The door was just by the spot where he was
standing. As he stood there, half-a-dozen other vague forms dashed past
him in a knot. One of them almost brushed against him. For a moment he
thought of stopping him, but decided not to. He could wait.
On the following afternoon he slipped down into the basement soon after
school. It was as black as pitch in the cellar. He took up a position
near the door.
It seemed hours before anything happened. He was, indeed, almost giving
up the thing as a bad job, when a ray of light cut through the
blackness in front of him, and somebody slipped through the door. The
next moment, a second form appeared dimly, and then the light was shut
off again.
O'Hara could hear them groping their way past him. He waited no longer.
It is difficult to tell where sound comes from in the dark. He plunged
forward at a venture. His hand, swinging round in a semicircle, met
something which felt like a shoulder. He slipped his grasp down to the
arm, and clutched it with all the force at his disposal.
IX
MAINLY ABOUT FERRETS
"Ow!" exclaimed the captive, with no uncertain voice. "Let go, you ass,
you're hurting."
The voice was a treble voice. This surprised O'Hara. It looked very
much as if he had put up the wrong bird. From the dimensions of the arm
which he was holding, his prisoner seemed to be of tender years.
"Let go, Harvey, you idiot. I shall kick."
Before the threat could be put into execution, O'Hara, who had been
fumbling all this while in his pocket for a match, found one loose, and
struck a light. The features of the owner of the arm--he was still
holding it--were lit up for a moment.
"Why, it's young Renford!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing down
here?"
Renford, however, continued to pursue the topic of his arm, and the
effect that the vice-like grip of the Irishman had had upon it.
"You've nearly broken it," he said, complainingly.
"I'm sorry. I mistook you for somebody else. Who's that with you?"
"It's me," said an ungrammatical voice.
"Who's me?"
"Harvey."
At this point a soft yellow light lit up the more immediate
neighbourhood. Harvey had brought a bicycle lamp into action.
"That's more like it," said Renford. "Look here, O'Hara, you won't
split, will you?"
"I'm not an informer by profession, thanks," said O'Hara.
"Oh, I know it's all right, really, but you can't be too careful,
because one isn't allowed down here, and there'd be a beastly row if it
got out about our being down here."
"And _they_ would be cobbed," put in Harvey.
"Who are they?" asked O'Hara.
"Ferrets. Like to have a look at them?"
"_Ferrets!_"
"Yes. Harvey brought back a couple at the beginning of term. Ripping
little beasts. We couldn't keep them in the house, as they'd have got
dropped on in a second, so we had to think of somewhere else, and
thought why not keep them down here?"
"Why, indeed?" said O'Hara. "Do ye find they like it?"
"Oh, _they_ don't mind," said Harvey. "We feed 'em twice a day.
Once before breakfast--we take it in turns to get up early--and once
directly after school. And on half-holidays and Sundays we take them
out on to the downs."
"What for?"
"Why, rabbits, of course. Renford brought back a saloon-pistol with
him. We keep it locked up in a box--don't tell any one."
"And what do ye do with the rabbits?"
"We pot at them as they come out of the holes."
"Yes, but when ye hit 'em?"
"Oh," said Renford, with some reluctance, "we haven't exactly hit any
yet."
"We've got jolly near, though, lots of times," said Harvey. "Last
Saturday I swear I wasn't more than a quarter of an inch off one of
them. If it had been a decent-sized rabbit, I should have plugged it
middle stump; only it was a small one, so I missed. But come and see
them. We keep 'em right at the other end of the place, in case anybody
comes in."
"Have you ever seen anybody down here?" asked O'Hara.
"Once," said Renford. "Half-a-dozen chaps came down here once while we
were feeding the ferrets. We waited till they'd got well in, then we
nipped out quietly. They didn't see us."
"Did you see who they were?"
"No. It was too dark. Here they are. Rummy old crib this, isn't it?
Look out for your shins on the chairs. Switch on the light, Harvey.
There, aren't they rippers? Quite tame, too. They know us quite well.
They know they're going to be fed, too. Hullo, Sir Nigel! This is Sir
Nigel. Out of the 'White Company', you know. Don't let him nip your
fingers. This other one's Sherlock Holmes."
"Cats-s-s--s!!" said O'Hara. He had a sort of idea that that was the
right thing to say to any animal that could chase and bite.
Renford was delighted to be able to show his ferrets off to so
distinguished a visitor.
"What were you down here about?" inquired Harvey, when the little
animals had had their meal, and had retired once more into private
life.
O'Hara had expected this question, but he did not quite know what
answer to give. Perhaps, on the whole, he thought, it would be best to
tell them the real reason. If he refused to explain, their curiosity
would be roused, which would be fatal. And to give any reason except
the true one called for a display of impromptu invention of which he
was not capable. Besides, they would not be likely to give away his
secret while he held this one of theirs connected with the ferrets. He
explained the situation briefly, and swore them to silence on the
subject.
Renford's comment was brief.
"By Jove!" he observed.
Harvey went more deeply into the question.
"What makes you think they meet down here?" he asked.
"I saw some fellows cutting out of here last night. And you say ye've
seen them here, too. I don't see what object they could have down here
if they weren't the League holding a meeting. I don't see what else a
chap would be after."
"He might be keeping ferrets," hazarded Renford.
"The whole school doesn't keep ferrets," said O'Hara. "You're unique in
that way. No, it must be the League, an' I mean to wait here till they
come."
"Not all night?" asked Harvey. He had a great respect for O'Hara, whose
reputation in the school for out-of-the-way doings was considerable. In
the bright lexicon of O'Hara he believed there to be no such word as
"impossible."
"No," said O'Hara, "but till lock-up. You two had better cut now."
"Yes, I think we'd better," said Harvey.
"And don't ye breathe a word about this to a soul"--a warning which
extracted fervent promises of silence from both youths.
"This," said Harvey, as they emerged on to the gravel, "is something
like. I'm jolly glad we're in it."
"Rather. Do you think O'Hara will catch them?"
"He must if he waits down there long enough. They're certain to come
again. Don't you wish you'd been here when the League was on before?"
"I should think I did. Race you over to the shop. I want to get
something before it shuts."
"Right ho!" And they disappeared.
O'Hara waited where he was till six struck from the clock-tower,
followed by the sound of the bell as it rang for lock-up. Then he
picked his way carefully through the groves of chairs, barking his
shins now and then on their out-turned legs, and, pushing open the
door, went out into the open air. It felt very fresh and pleasant after
the brand of atmosphere supplied in the vault. He then ran over to the
gymnasium to meet Moriarty, feeling a little disgusted at the lack of
success that had attended his detective efforts up to the present. So
far he had nothing to show for his trouble except a good deal of dust
on his clothes, and a dirty collar, but he was full of determination.
He could play a waiting game.
It was a pity, as it happened, that O'Hara left the vault when he did.
Five minutes after he had gone, six shadowy forms made their way
silently and in single file through the doorway of the vault, which
they closed carefully behind them. The fact that it was after lock-up
was of small consequence. A good deal of latitude in that way was
allowed at Wrykyn. It was the custom to go out, after the bell had
sounded, to visit the gymnasium. In the winter and Easter terms, the
gymnasium became a sort of social club. People went there with a very
small intention of doing gymnastics. They went to lounge about, talking
to cronies, in front of the two huge stoves which warmed the place.
Occasionally, as a concession to the look of the thing, they would do
an easy exercise or two on the horse or parallels, but, for the most
part, they preferred the _role_ of spectator. There was plenty to
see. In one corner O'Hara and Moriarty would be sparring their nightly
six rounds (in two batches of three rounds each). In another, Drummond,
who was going up to Aldershot as a feather-weight, would be putting in
a little practice with the instructor. On the apparatus, the members of
the gymnastic six, including the two experts who were to carry the
school colours to Aldershot in the spring, would be performing their
usual marvels. It was worth dropping into the gymnasium of an evening.
In no other place in the school were so many sights to be seen.
When you were surfeited with sightseeing, you went off to your house.
And this was where the peculiar beauty of the gymnasium system came in.
You went up to any master who happened to be there--there was always
one at least--and observed in suave accents, "Please, sir, can I have a
paper?" Whereupon, he, taking a scrap of paper, would write upon it,
"J. O. Jones (or A. B. Smith or C. D. Robinson) left gymnasium at
such-and-such a time". And, by presenting this to the menial who
opened the door to you at your house, you went in rejoicing, and all
was peace.
Now, there was no mention on the paper of the hour at which you came to
the gymnasium--only of the hour at which you left. Consequently, certain
lawless spirits would range the neighbourhood after lock-up, and, by
putting in a quarter of an hour at the gymnasium before returning to
their houses, escape comment. To this class belonged the shadowy forms
previously mentioned.
O'Hara had forgotten this custom, with the result that he was not at
the vault when they arrived. Moriarty, to whom he confided between the
rounds the substance of his evening's discoveries, reminded him of it.
"It's no good watching before lock-up," he said. "After six is the time
they'll come, if they come at all."
"Bedad, ye're right," said O'Hara. "One of these nights we'll take a
night off from boxing, and go and watch."
"Right," said Moriarty. "Are ye ready to go on?"
"Yes. I'm going to practise that left swing at the body this round. The
one Fitzsimmons does." And they "put 'em up" once more.
X
BEING A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS
On the evening following O'Hara's adventure in the vaults, Barry and
M'Todd were in their study, getting out the tea-things. Most Wrykinians
brewed in the winter and Easter terms, when the days were short and
lock-up early. In the summer term there were other things to do--nets,
which lasted till a quarter to seven (when lock-up was), and the
baths--and brewing practically ceased. But just now it was at its height,
and every evening, at a quarter past five, there might be heard in the
houses the sizzling of the succulent sausage and other rare delicacies.
As a rule, one or two studies would club together to brew, instead of
preparing solitary banquets. This was found both more convivial and
more economical. At Seymour's, studies numbers five, six, and seven had
always combined from time immemorial, and Barry, on obtaining study
six, had carried on the tradition. In study five were Drummond and his
friend De Bertini. In study seven, which was a smaller room and only
capable of holding one person with any comfort, one James Rupert
Leather-Twigg (that was his singular name, as Mr Gilbert has it) had
taken up his abode. The name of Leather-Twigg having proved, at an
early date in his career, too great a mouthful for Wrykyn, he was known
to his friends and acquaintances by the euphonious title of
Shoeblossom. The charm about the genial Shoeblossom was that you could
never tell what he was going to do next. All that you could rely on
with any certainty was that it would be something which would have been
better left undone.
It was just five o'clock when Barry and M'Todd started to get things
ready. They were not high enough up in the school to have fags, so that
they had to do this for themselves.
Barry was still in football clothes. He had been out running and
passing with the first fifteen. M'Todd, whose idea of exercise was
winding up a watch, had been spending his time since school ceased in
the study with a book. He was in his ordinary clothes. It was therefore
fortunate that, when he upset the kettle (he nearly always did at some
period of the evening's business), the contents spread themselves over
Barry, and not over himself. Football clothes will stand any amount of
water, whereas M'Todd's "Youth's winter suiting at forty-two shillings
and sixpence" might have been injured. Barry, however, did not look
upon the episode in this philosophical light. He spoke to him
eloquently for a while, and then sent him downstairs to fetch more
water. While he was away, Drummond and De Bertini came in.
"Hullo," said Drummond, "tea ready?"
"Not much," replied Barry, bitterly, "not likely to be, either, at this
rate. We'd just got the kettle going when that ass M'Todd plunged
against the table and upset the lot over my bags. Lucky the beastly
stuff wasn't boiling. I'm soaked."
"While we wait--the sausages--Yes?--a good idea--M'Todd, he is
downstairs--but to wait? No, no. Let us. Shall we? Is it not so? Yes?"
observed Bertie, lucidly.
"Now construe," said Barry, looking at the linguist with a bewildered
expression. It was a source of no little inconvenience to his friends
that De Bertini was so very fixed in his determination to speak
English. He was a trier all the way, was De Bertini. You rarely caught
him helping out his remarks with the language of his native land. It
was English or nothing with him. To most of his circle it might as well
have been Zulu.
Drummond, either through natural genius or because he spent more time
with him, was generally able to act as interpreter. Occasionally there
would come a linguistic effort by which even he freely confessed
himself baffled, and then they would pass on unsatisfied. But, as a
rule, he was equal to the emergency. He was so now.
"What Bertie means," he explained, "is that it's no good us waiting for
M'Todd to come back. He never could fill a kettle in less than ten
minutes, and even then he's certain to spill it coming upstairs and
have to go back again. Let's get on with the sausages."
The pan had just been placed on the fire when M'Todd returned with the
water. He tripped over the mat as he entered, and spilt about half a
pint into one of his football boots, which stood inside the door, but
the accident was comparatively trivial, and excited no remark.
"I wonder where that slacker Shoeblossom has got to," said Barry. "He
never turns up in time to do any work. He seems to regard himself as a
beastly guest. I wish we could finish the sausages before he comes. It
would be a sell for him."
"Not much chance of that," said Drummond, who was kneeling before the
fire and keeping an excited eye on the spluttering pan, "_you_
see. He'll come just as we've finished cooking them. I believe the man
waits outside with his ear to the keyhole. Hullo! Stand by with the
plate. They'll be done in half a jiffy."
Just as the last sausage was deposited in safety on the plate, the door
opened, and Shoeblossom, looking as if he had not brushed his hair
since early childhood, sidled in with an attempt at an easy nonchalance
which was rendered quite impossible by the hopeless state of his
conscience.
"Ah," he said, "brewing, I see. Can I be of any use?"
"We've finished years ago," said Barry.
"Ages ago," said M'Todd.
A look of intense alarm appeared on Shoeblossom's classical features.
"You've not finished, really?"
"We've finished cooking everything," said Drummond. "We haven't begun
tea yet. Now, are you happy?"
Shoeblossom was. So happy that he felt he must do something to
celebrate the occasion. He felt like a successful general. There must
be _something_ he could do to show that he regarded the situation
with approval. He looked round the study. Ha! Happy thought--the
frying-pan. That useful culinary instrument was lying in the fender,
still bearing its cargo of fat, and beside it--a sight to stir the
blood and make the heart beat faster--were the sausages, piled up on
their plate.
Shoeblossom stooped. He seized the frying-pan. He gave it one twirl in
the air. Then, before any one could stop him, he had turned it upside
down over the fire. As has been already remarked, you could never
predict exactly what James Rupert Leather-Twigg would be up to next.