"Thank you."
The doctor rang the bell.
"See that Mr Railsford gets dinner. I have to go out," he added, "but
you will, no doubt, make yourself at home;" and the great man withdrew,
leaving the new master in a very crestfallen and disturbed state of
mind.
If this was a sample of the sympathy he might expect at head-quarters,
Moss's prognostications, after all, were not quite baseless. He made
the best of his solitary dinner, and then sallied out in the dark to try
to find the porter's lodge once more and rescue his luggage. That
functionary was still absent, and Mark was compelled himself to haul his
belongings in under cover, and leave word with the little girl that they
were to be taken over to Mr Railsford's rooms as soon as her father
came in. Then taking with him a bag which contained what he wanted for
the night, he returned to the head-master's house and made a point of
retiring to rest before his host reappeared on the scene.
Once more luck was against him.
"You vanished early last night," said the doctor, blandly, at breakfast
next morning. "I brought Mr Roe in to supper, thinking you and he
might like a chat about the work in the Shell, about which he could have
given you some useful hints. However, early hours are very
commendable."
"I am extremely sorry," faltered Railsford. "I had no idea you would be
home so early. I should have liked to meet Mr Roe so much."
"Take some more coffee?" said the doctor.
After breakfast Mark was conducted in state to his house. The floors
were all damp and the carpets up; beds and washstands were piled up in
the passages, and nowhere was a fire to be seen.
"There are your rooms," said the doctor, pointing out a suite of three
apartments opening one into the other, at the present time reeking of
soft-soap and absolutely destitute of furniture. "You will find them
comfortable and central. The inner room is the bedroom, the middle your
private sitting-room, and this larger one the house-parlour. Now we
will go to the dormitories and studies. You understand your head boys--
those in the Sixth and Fifth--have a study to themselves; the Shell have
studies in pairs, and the junior school-work in the common room. But
all these points you will make yourself familiar with very shortly. As
a house-master, you will of course be responsible for everything that
takes place in the house--the morals, work and play of the boys are
under your supervision. You have four Sixth-form boys in the house, who
are prefects under you, and in certain matters exercise an authority of
their own without appeal to you. But you quite understand that you must
watch that this is not abused. The house dame, Mrs Farthing,
superintends everything connected with the boy's wardrobes, but is under
your direction in other matters. I shall introduce you to her as we go
down.
"I refer you to the school time-table for particulars as to rising,
chapel, preparation, and lights out, and so forth. Discipline on all
these points is essential. Cases of difficulty may be referred to a
session of the other masters, or in extreme cases to me; but please
remember I do not invite consultation in matters of detail. A house-
master may use the cane in special cases, which must be reported through
the masters' session to me. So much for your house duties.
"As Master of the Shell, you preside at morning school there every day,
and, as you know, have to teach classics, English, and divinity. In the
afternoon the boys are taken by the French, mathematical, and chemical
masters. But you are nominally responsible for the whole, and any case
of insubordination or idleness during afternoon school will be reported
to you by the master in charge, and you must deal with it as though you
had been in charge at the time.
"Now come and make Mrs Farthing's acquaintance."
Mrs Farthing, a lean, wrathful-looking personage, stood in the midst of
a wilderness of sheets and blankets, and received her new superior with
a very bad grace. She looked him up and looked him down, and then
sniffed.
"Very good, Mr Railsford; we shall become better acquainted, I've no
doubt."
Railsford shuddered at the prospect; and finding that his luggage was
still knocking about at the porter's lodge, he made further expedition
in search of it, and at last, with superhuman efforts, succeeded in
getting it transferred to his quarters, greatly to the disgust of Mrs
Hastings, who remarked in an audible aside to her fellow-scrubber, Mrs
Willis, that people ought to keep their dirty traps to themselves till
the place is ready for them.
After which Railsford deemed it prudent to take open-air exercise, and
await patiently the hour when his carpets should be laid and Grandcourt
should wake up into life for the new term.