"I don't know. Only I know Tempest wouldn't have gone if he had been.
Please which way do I go?"
"What objection has Tempest to Crofter?"
"I don't know--I suppose he's a beast. Tempest hates beasts."
The boy laughed.
"He must be very fond of you," said he.
"Yes," said I, "we're old chums; we were at Dangerfield together, and
both got ex--"
There I was, after Tempest's warning about keeping my exhibition dark.
"Both got what? _Expelled_?" inquired the senior, with interest.
"Well--yes," said I, thinking that the best way of getting out of it.
"It was this way--"
"Really, Jones, it's getting late," said the senior; "I've no doubt it's
an interesting story. There, go and inquire in the fourth room on the
left. They'll show you the way to bed."
And he departed.
I was very sorry he had not given me time to explain the little matter
at Dangerfield. It would be a pity for any one to get a wrong
impression about it. Still, what a lucky escape I had had from blabbing
about my exhibition! The fellow, too, seemed a nice sort of chap, and
disposed to be friendly, so there was no harm done after all.
I could tell, long before I reached it, that the room which had been
indicated to me as the place where I might get the information for which
I thirsted was, to say the least, inhabited--for the noise which
penetrated through the keyhole and the cracks of the door was appalling.
Either, thought I, a free fight is going on within, or there is a steam
engine at work, or the builders are shooting bricks through the window.
I was mistaken. It was only five boys of about my age talking.
The silence which greeted my appearance was rather more formidable than
the noise which had preceded it. In the midst of it, however, I
observed the form of Master Trimble, also that of my travelling
companion of the morning, and concluded therefore that I had come to the
right place for information.
"Full up! cut!" was the cordial greeting of the company generally.
"Hullo, it's Sarah!" cried my travelling companion. "What a lark!
Collar him, you chaps. That's the idiot I was telling about. He came
down in the train with his ma--"
"She wasn't," said I; "she was no relation."
A loud laugh greeted this disclaimer.
"Well, his nurse, or aunt, or washerwoman, or something."
"No, she wasn't."
"Shut up, and don't tell crams."
"It's _you_ who are telling crams," said I, for the blood of the Joneses
was getting up.
"Look here; do you mean to call me a crammer?" demanded the speaker,
looking very imposing.
"If you say it again I will," said I. "I tell you that woman had no
more to do with me than you; there!"
It was a critical situation, and the key to it was in my accuser's
hands. If he insisted that the lady in question had anything to do with
me, I was committed to call him a crammer. And if I called him a
crammer, he was equally committed by all tradition to punch my head.
And in the humour I was then in, he was not likely to do that without
getting one back for himself.
"I know who it was," suddenly cried Trimble; "of course! Tempest told
me last term there was a young ass coming up who'd been at a girls'
school, and had got an exhibition or something. Of course this was his
old school dame. Good old Sarah!"
At this terrific exposure the spirit leaked out of me. My tell-tale
blushes confirmed what was true in the story, and my silence lent
countenance to what was untrue. The delight of my tormentors was beyond
words. They danced the "mulberry bush" round me, overwhelmed me with
endearing expressions, offered me fans and smelling salts and cushions
and hairpins, simulated hysterics and spasms, trod on my skirts, and
conversed to me in shrill treble till I was sick of the business. Only
one course was open to me. It was an unpleasant one, but on it
depended, I felt, my future welfare at Low Heath.
I seized the nearest, who happened to be Master Trimble, and pulling him
gently but firmly by the nose, demanded if girls generally treated him
that way? He kicked vigorously, and ordered me to release the
imprisoned member. I declined to do so until I had kicked back, and
finally deposited him on the floor, amidst the laughter of his
perfidious comrades, who told him it served him right, and that "Sarah"
was evidently one too many for him.
This little protest stood me in good stead. It put an end to all direct
aspersions on my sex, although it was a long while before I was destined
to hear the last of delicate insinuations on the topic. And it advanced
me very considerably in favour with the four whose noses I had not been
fortunate enough to engage.
"Look here; stop fooling, you chaps," said one of them, when in due time
Master Trimble was permitted to regain his feet. "This new kid had
better make up our sixth man here. No other faggery would be likely to
take him, so we may as well."
I concluded from this remark that the juniors of Mr Sharpe's house were
permitted to herd together in half dozens; and on the whole I was
disposed rather to bear the ills I had than fly to others I knew not of.
"I don't mind," said I, "if you let me be."
"Who wants to touch you with a pair of tongs? You may as well pull in
with us, and help us kick the others. It'll be a change after the
girls' school."
"I _wasn't_ at a girls' school," said I, "I told you. All I did was to
coach with one of the teachers."
"About the same thing, I fancy," said Trimble, blowing his outraged nose
somewhat defiantly, "Sarah!"
"If you call me Sarah again," said I hotly, "I'll pull your nose again."
"All right: Miss Jones, then."
"No, not Miss; just Jones."
"All serene, just Jones, then shut up; stick on your lavender gloves,
and keep your hair on."
There was a general laugh at this which vastly solaced the aggrieved
Trimble, and encouraged him to refer jocularly to my late hat and boots,
topics which I had not the spirit to resent.
As soon as these personal matters were disposed of, I was tacitly
admitted as a member of the honourable faggery, and invited to express
my opinion on a matter which had been engaging the attention of the
fraternity before I arrived.
"We were thinking," said my late travelling companion, whom his friends
addressed as Langrish, "that it would be a score to get up a
Philosophical Society in the school. What do you say?"
"What to do?" I ventured to ask.
"Oh, discussions, and picnics, and larks. What do you suppose we
_should_ do? There's a senior club of the kind already. They go in for
dry rot--science and history, and that sort of thing. Awful slow, and
nobody knows what he's talking about. I flatter myself _we_ should."
"We ought to draw up some rules, oughtn't we?" said Trimble.
"Rather--forge ahead."
Whereupon we crowded solemnly round the small table and put our heads
together.
One of the party, by the way, answering to the name of Purkis, appeared
to be the leading spirit, and made the most valuable suggestions.
"Rule 1," dictated he, "That this club be called the Low Heathen
Conversation Club."
"Hold on," said Trimble; "you've got club coming twice in the same
sentence. Bad grammar."
"Besides, I thought there was to be something about philosophy,"
suggested Langrish.
"And keeping out the day cads," said Warminster, another of the party.
"Of course, if you make the rule long enough," said Purkis, with lofty
contempt, "you can get something in it about the man in the moon."
"But," said I, thinking to make a little joke, just to show I had no
ill-feeling, "we don't want him in the club, do we?"
"No," said Langrish, who had evidently been on the look-out for his
chance; "no more do we want pretty Sarah's washerwoman; do we, you
chaps?"
I subsided gracefully. The time was not yet ripe, evidently, for me to
assert myself.
"I tell you what," said Warminster; "what's the use of every one making
each rule? Let old Purkis make the first, and I'll make the second, and
Langrish the third, and so on. It will be ever so much quicker, and
give each chap a fair innings."
It seemed a good idea, and as it allowed Purkis's rule to stand
unchallenged, he acquiesced.
So in due time the following wonderful code of rules was drawn up and
adopted--