The Modern seniors had slept on soundly that morning, secure of their
prey. The military operations of the preceding evening, although they
resulted in the night of the besieged, had not tended to the glory of
the besiegers. Indeed, when the door had at last been broken in and it
was discovered that the birds had flown, a titter had gone round at the
expense of Messrs. Clapperton, Dangle, and Brinkman, which had been
particularly riling to those gentlemen.
When in the morning the birds were found to have flown once more, the
position of the seniors became positively painful. Fullerton, as usual,
did not salve the wound.
"I should say--not that it matters much to me--that that scores another
to the rebels," said he. "How very naughty of them not to stay and be
whopped, to be sure!"
"The young cads!" growled Clapperton, who had the grace to be perfectly
aware that he had been made ridiculous. "I don't envy them when I get
hold of them."
"No more do I," said Fullerton, "with their door off its hinges. It
will be very draughty."
"Do shut up. Why don't you go and join the enemy at once, if you're so
fond of them?" said Dangle.
"Well," said Clapperton, "they will keep; but we must have it out with
Corder now. It's no use simply cutting him; he'll have to be taught
that he can't defy the house for nothing. Go and tell him to come,
Brinkman."
But Corder's back was against the wall, literally and metaphorically.
To Brinkman's demand (almost the first voice he had heard speaking to
him for a week) he returned a curt refusal.
"Well, I'll make you come," said Brinkman. Whereupon Corder retreated
behind his table and invited the interloper to begin.
To dodge round and round a study table after a nimble boy is not a very
dignified operation for a prefect, particularly when the object of his
chase is a prefect too; and Brinkman presently abandoned the quest and
went off, breathing threatenings and slaughter, for reinforcements.
So did Corder. Less sensitive than his junior fellow-martyrs, he
marched straight across to Yorke's study. The captain was away, but in
the adjoining room he found Fisher major and Denton, poring over their
endless accounts.
"You two," said Corder, "you're prefects. You're wanted over on the
other side to stop bullying."
"Who's being bullied?"
"I am. I've been cut dead for a week. I'm sick of it. Now they're
going to lick me. I'd take my chance against them one at a time, but I
can't tackle three of them."
"Is it for playing in the match?"
"Yes, that and going to the meeting. Nothing else. I'd go to twenty a
day, if I had the chance, to spite them."
"Who are bullying you?"
"Clapperton, Brinkman, and Dangle, of course."
"I tell you what," said Denton, "we couldn't go over. We've no
authority. But there's nothing to prevent you staying here and letting
them fetch you. Then we can interfere."
"All serene," said Corder; "I hope they will come. I say, I wish you'd
let me wait here and hear you fellows talk. I've not had a word spoken
to me for a week. I can tell you it's no joke. I laughed at it at
first, and thought it would be nice rather than otherwise. But after
two days, you chaps, it gets to be decidedly slow; you begin to wonder
if it isn't worth caving in. But that would be _such_ a howling come
down, when all you've done is to do what you had a right to do--or
rather what you're bound to do--play up for the School."
"And jolly well you played too," said Usher.
"It was a lucky turn. You know I was so awfully glad to be in the
fifteen, and felt I could do anything. Of course the lucky thing was my
getting past their forwards, and then--" And then Corder bunched into a
delighted account of the never-to-be-forgotten match, during which the
cloud passed away from his face, the light came back to his eyes, and
the spirit into his voice.
"What business have they to stop me," said he, "or bully me for it?"
"None. And Yorke, when he hears of it, will report it to the doctor."
"No, don't let him do that. What's the use? If I can stay here it's
all right."
An hour later, about the time that the young mountaineers were beginning
to look out for their second wind on the lower slope, Dangle came across
in a vicious temper.
He had not come to look for Corder, the sight of whom in the sanctuary
of a Classic study took him aback.
"That's where you're sneaking, is it?" said he. "I'm not surprised."
"Not much need to sneak from _you_. It's three against one I object
to," said Corder. "But if you like to fetch Clapperton and Brinkman
over here, we can have it out comfortably now."
"You must think yourself uncommonly important if you suppose we're going
to trouble about an ass like you," said Dangle. "I never once thought
of you."
"What have you come for, then?" said Fisher. "Hadn't you better wait
till you're invited before you come where you're not wanted?"
"I've come on club business, and I've a perfect right to come. You
fellows, I hear, have taken it into your heads to dissolve the club."
"What of that? Why didn't you come and vote against it if you didn't
like it?"
"Thank you. It wasn't quite good enough. What I want to know is, what
is the treasurer going to do with the money? I suppose that's hardly
going to be treated as a perquisite for him?"
Fisher major looked troubled. He had dreaded this awkward question for
days. For the lost money was still missing.
"You know it's nothing of the kind."
"What are you going to do with it, then?"
"That's for the club to decide. If you'd come to the meeting you could
have proposed something."
"It's funny how sore you are about that precious hole-and-corner meeting
of yours. How much is there on hand?"
"You'll know presently."
"I dare say--as soon as you've hit on a dodge for getting over that
little deficiency of four or five pounds--eh?"
Fisher major looked up in astonishment. How had the fellow heard about
that?
Dangle laughed.
"You thought it was a snug little secret of your own, didn't you?
You're mistaken. And you're mistaken if you think we aren't going to
get at the bottom of it."
Fisher major rose to his feet.
"Look here, Dangle," said he; "do you mean to insinuate that _I've_
taken the club money!"
"I never said so."
"Or that I was going to cook the accounts so that it should not be
known?"
"I didn't mean _you_ were."
"Whom did you mean? Me?" said Denton.
"No; I didn't say anybody," said Dangle, beginning to feel himself in a
fix. "All I meant was, we want to know what's become of the money?"
"You don't want to know more than I do," said Fisher major. "I'd have
handed over the money days ago, if I could only have found it."
"Do you suspect any one?" said Dangle.
"Suspect? No. No one comes here that would be likely to take it."
"You leave it about, though. I've noticed that myself. Who's your
fag?"
"As honest a man as you, every bit, and that's saying a good deal for
_you_," retorted Fisher major, hotly.
"Keep your temper. Who's study is that next yours?"
"That's Yorke's."
"No: on the other side."
"That's Rollitt's. I suppose you're going to insinuate--"
"Stop a bit," said Dangle, suddenly, turning to close the door before he
proceeded. "When did you first miss the money?"
"You're uncommonly interested in the accounts," said Fisher; "if you
want to know so much, it was ten days ago."
"I'm interested because I've an idea. When did you get in the
subscriptions?"
"They were all in a week before the first Rendlesham match, the match
where you--"
Fisher major stopped.