"I think I will."
Silver stared.
"Don't be an ass," he said. "I was only rotting. You
can't go fighting all over the shop as if you were a fag. You'd lose
your prefect's cap if it came out."
"I could wear my topper," said Kennedy, with a grin. "You see," he
added, "I've not much choice. I must do something. If I took no notice
of this business there'd be no holding the house. I should be ragged to
death. It's no good talking about it. Personally, I should prefer
touching the chap up to fighting him, and I shall try it on. But he's
not likely to meet me half-way. And if he doesn't there'll be an
interesting turn-up, and you shall hold the watch. I'll send a kid
round to fetch you when things look like starting. I must go now to
interview my missing men. So long. Mind you slip round directly I send
for you."
"Wait a second. Don't be in such a beastly hurry. Who's the chap
you're going to fight?"
"I don't know yet. Walton, I should think. But I don't know."
"Walton! By Jove, it'll be worth seeing, anyhow, if we _are_ both
sacked for it when the Old Man finds out."
Kennedy returned to his study and changed his football boots for a
pair of gymnasium shoes. For the job he had in hand it was necessary
that he should move quickly, and football boots are a nuisance on a
board floor. When he had changed, he called Spencer.
"Go down to the senior dayroom," he said, "and tell MacPherson I want
to see him."
MacPherson was a long, weak-looking youth. He had been put down to
play for the house that day, and had not appeared.
"MacPherson!" said the fag, in a tone of astonishment, "not Walton?"
He had been looking forward to the meeting between Kennedy and his
ancient foe, and to have a miserable being like MacPherson offered as
a substitute disgusted him.
"If you have no objection," said Kennedy, politely, "I may want you to
fetch Walton later on."
Spencer vanished, hopeful once more.
"Come in, MacPherson," said Kennedy, on the arrival of the long one;
"shut the door."
MacPherson did so, feeling as if he were paying a visit to the
dentist. As long as there had been others with him in this affair he
had looked on it as a splendid idea. But to be singled out like this
was quite a different thing.
"Now," said Kennedy, "Why weren't you on the field this afternoon?"
"I--er--I was kept in."
"How long?"
"Oh--er--till about five."
"What do you call about five?"
"About twenty-five to," he replied, despondently.
"Now look here," said Kennedy, briskly, "I'm just going to explain to
you exactly how I stand in this business, so you'd better attend. I
didn't ask to be made head of this sewage depot. If I could have had
any choice, I wouldn't have touched a Kayite with a barge-pole. But
since I am head, I'm going to be it, and the sooner you and your
senior dayroom crew realise it the better. This sort of thing isn't
going on. I want to know now who it was put up this job. You wouldn't
have the cheek to start a thing like this yourself. Who was it?"
"Well--er--"
"You'd better say, and be quick, too. I can't wait. Whoever it was. I
shan't tell him you told me. And I shan't tell Kay. So now you can go
ahead. Who was it?"
"Well--er--Walton."
"I thought so. Now you can get out. If you see Spencer, send him here."
Spencer, curiously enough, was just outside the door. So close to it,
indeed, that he almost tumbled in when MacPherson opened it.
"Go and fetch Walton," said Kennedy.
Spencer dashed off delightedly, and in a couple of minutes Walton
appeared. He walked in with an air of subdued defiance, and slammed
the door.
"Don't bang the door like that," said Kennedy. "Why didn't you turn
out today?"
"I was kept in."
"Couldn't you get out in time to play?"
"No."
"When did you get out?"
"Six."
"Not before?"
"I said six."
"Then how did you manage to go down town--without leave, by the way,
but that's a detail--at half-past five?"
"All right," said Walton; "better call me a liar."
"Good suggestion," said Kennedy, cheerfully; "I will."
"It's all very well," said Walton. "You know jolly well you can say
anything you like. I can't do anything to you. You'd have me up before
the prefects."
"Not a bit of it. This is a private affair between ourselves. I'm not
going to drag the prefects into it. You seem to want to make this
house worse than it is. I want to make it more or less decent. We
can't both have what we want."
There was a pause.
"When would it be convenient for you to be touched up before the whole
house?" inquired Kennedy, pleasantly.
"What?"
"Well, you see, it seems the only thing. I must take it out of some
one for this house-match business, and you started it. Will tonight
suit you, after supper?"
"You'll get it hot if you try to touch me."
"We'll see."
"You'd funk taking me on in a scrap," said Walton.
"Would I? As a matter of fact, a scrap would suit me just as well.
Better. Are you ready now?"
"Quite, thanks," sneered Walton. "I've knocked you out before, and
I'll do it again."
"Oh, then it was you that night at camp? I thought so. I spotted your
style. Hitting a chap when he wasn't ready, you know, and so on. Now,
if you'll wait a minute, I'll send across to Blackburn's for Silver. I
told him I should probably want him as a time-keeper tonight."
"What do you want with Silver. Why won't Perry do?"
"Thanks, I'm afraid Perry's time-keeping wouldn't be impartial enough.
Silver, I think, if you don't mind."
Spencer was summoned once more, and despatched to Blackburn's. He
returned with Jimmy.
"Come in, Jimmy," said Kennedy. "Run away, Spencer. Walton and I are
just going to settle a point of order which has arisen, Jimmy. Will
you hold the watch? We ought just to have time before tea."
"Where?" asked Silver.
"My dormitory would be the best place. We can move the beds. I'll go
and get the keys."
Kennedy's dormitory was the largest in the house. After the beds had
been moved back, there was a space in the middle of fifteen feet one
way, and twelve the other--not a large ring, but large enough for two
fighters who meant business.
Walton took off his coat, waistcoat, and shirt. Kennedy, who was still
in football clothes, removed his blazer.
"Half a second," said Jimmy Silver--"what length rounds?"
"Two minutes?" said Kennedy to Walton.
"All right," growled Walton.
"Two minutes, then, and half a minute in between."
"Are you both ready?" asked Jimmy, from his seat on the chest of
drawers.
Kennedy and Walton advanced into the middle of the impromptu ring.
There was dead silence for a moment.
"Time!" said Jimmy Silver.
XIII
THE FIGHT IN THE DORMITORY
Stating it broadly, fighters may be said to be divided into two
classes--those who are content to take two blows if they can give
three in return, and those who prefer to receive as little punishment
as possible, even at the expense of scoring fewer points themselves.
Kennedy's position, when Jimmy Silver called time, was peculiar. On
all the other occasions on which he had fought--with the gloves on in
the annual competition, and at the assault-at-arms--he had gone in for
the policy of taking all that the other man liked to give him, and
giving rather more in exchange. Now, however, he was obliged to alter
his whole style. For a variety of reasons it was necessary that he
should come out of this fight with as few marks as possible. To begin
with, he represented, in a sense, the Majesty of the Law. He was
tackling Walton more by way of an object-lesson to the Kayite
mutineers than for his own personal satisfaction. The object-lesson
would lose in impressiveness if he were compelled to go about for a
week or so with a pair of black eyes, or other adornments of a similar
kind. Again--and this was even more important--if he was badly marked
the affair must come to the knowledge of the headmaster. Being a
prefect, and in the sixth form, he came into contact with the Head
every day, and the disclosure of the fact that he had been engaged in
a pitched battle with a member of his house, who was, in addition to
other disadvantages, very low down in the school, would be likely to
lead to unpleasantness. A school prefect of Eckleton was supposed to
be hedged about with so much dignity that he could quell turbulent
inferiors with a glance. The idea of one of the august body lowering
himself to the extent of emphasising his authority with the bare
knuckle would scandalise the powers.
So Kennedy, rising at the call of time from the bed on which he sat,
came up to the scratch warily.
Walton, on the other hand, having everything to gain and nothing to
lose, and happy in the knowledge that no amount of bruises could do
him any harm, except physically, came on with the evident intention of
making a hurricane fight of it. He had very little science as a boxer.
Heavy two-handed slogging was his forte, and, as the majority of his
opponents up to the present had not had sufficient skill to discount
his strength, he had found this a very successful line of action.
Kennedy and he had never had the gloves on together. In the
competition of the previous year both had entered in their respective
classes, Kennedy as a lightweight, Walton in the middles, and both,
after reaching the semi-final, had been defeated by the narrowest of
margins by men who had since left the school. That had been in the
previous Easter term, and, while Walton had remained much the same as
regards weight and strength, Kennedy, owing to a term of hard bowling
and a summer holiday spent in the open, had filled out. They were now
practically on an equality, as far as weight was concerned. As for
condition, that was all in favour of Kennedy. He played football in
his spare time. Walton, on the days when football was not compulsory,
smoked cigarettes.
Neither of the pair showed any desire to open the fight by shaking
hands. This was not a friendly spar. It was business. The first move
was made by Walton, who feinted with his right and dashed in to fight
at close quarters. It was not a convincing feint. At any rate, it did
not deceive Kennedy. He countered with his left, and swung his right
at the body with all the force he could put into the hit. Walton went
back a pace, sparred for a moment, then came in again, hitting
heavily. Kennedy's counter missed its mark this time. He just stopped
a round sweep of Walton's right, ducked to avoid a similar effort of
his left, and they came together in a clinch.
In a properly regulated glove-fight, the referee, on observing the
principals clinch, says, "Break away there, break away," in a sad,
reproachful voice, and the fighters separate without demur, being very
much alive to the fact that, as far as that contest is concerned,
their destinies are in his hands, and that any bad behaviour in the
ring will lose them the victory. But in an impromptu turn-up like this
one, the combatants show a tendency to ignore the rules so carefully
mapped out by the present Marquess of Queensberry's grandfather, and
revert to the conditions of warfare under which Cribb and Spring won
their battles. Kennedy and Walton, having clinched, proceeded to
wrestle up and down the room, while Jimmy Silver looked on from his
eminence in pained surprise at the sight of two men, who knew the
rules of the ring, so far forgetting themselves.
To do Kennedy justice, it was not his fault. He was only acting in
self-defence. Walton had started the hugging. Also, he had got the
under-grip, which, when neither man knows a great deal of the science
of wrestling, generally means victory. Kennedy was quite sure that he
could not throw his antagonist, but he hung on in the knowledge that
the round must be over shortly, when Walton would have to loose him.
"Time," said Jimmy Silver.
Kennedy instantly relaxed his grip, and in that instant Walton swung
him off his feet, and they came down together with a crash that shook
the room. Kennedy was underneath, and, as he fell, his head came into
violent contact with the iron support of a bed.
Jimmy Silver sprang down from his seat.
"What are you playing at, Walton? Didn't you hear me call time? It was
a beastly foul--the worst I ever saw. You ought to be sacked for a
thing like that. Look here, Kennedy, you needn't go on. I disqualify
Walton for fouling."
The usually genial James stammered with righteous indignation.
Kennedy sat down on a bed, dizzily.
"No," he said; "I'm going on."
"But he fouled you."
"I don't care. I'll look after myself. Is it time yet?"
"Ten seconds more, if you really are going on."
He climbed back on to the chest of drawers.
"Time."
Kennedy came up feeling weak and sick. The force with which he had hit
his head on the iron had left him dazed.
Walton rushed in as before. He had no chivalrous desire to spare his
man by way of compensation for fouling him. What monopolised his
attention was the evident fact that Kennedy was in a bad way, and that
a little strenuous infighting might end the affair in the desired
manner.
It was at this point that Kennedy had reason to congratulate himself
on donning gymnasium shoes. They gave him that extra touch of
lightness which enabled him to dodge blows which he was too weak to
parry. Everything was vague and unreal to him. He seemed to be looking
on at a fight between Walton and some stranger.
Then the effect of his fall began to wear off. He could feel himself
growing stronger. Little by little his head cleared, and he began once
more to take a personal interest in the battle. It is astonishing what
a power a boxer, who has learnt the art carefully, has of automatic
fighting. The expert gentleman who fights under the pseudonym of "Kid
M'Coy" once informed the present writer that in one of his fights he
was knocked down by such a severe hit that he remembered nothing
further, and it was only on reading the paper next morning that he
found, to his surprise, that he had fought four more rounds after the
blow, and won the battle handsomely on points. Much the same thing
happened to Kennedy. For the greater part of the second round he
fought without knowing it. When Jimmy Silver called time he was in as
good case as ever, and the only effects of the blow on his head were a
vast lump underneath the hair, and a settled determination to win or
perish. In a few minutes the bell would ring for tea, and all his
efforts would end in nothing. It was no good fighting a draw with
Walton if he meant to impress the house. He knew exactly what Rumour,
assisted by Walton, would make of the affair in that case. "Have you
heard the latest?" A would ask of B. "Why, Kennedy tried to touch
Walton up for not playing footer, and Walton went for him and would
have given him frightful beans, only they had to go down to tea."
There must be none of that sort of thing.
"Time," said Jimmy Silver, breaking in on his meditations.
It was probably the suddenness and unexpectedness of it that took
Walton aback. Up till now his antagonist had been fighting strictly on
the defensive, and was obviously desirous of escaping punishment as
far as might be possible. And then the fall at the end of round one
had shaken him up, so that he could hardly fight at all at their
second meeting. Walton naturally expected that it would be left to him
to do the leading in round three. Instead of this, however, Kennedy
opened the round with such a lightning attack that Walton was all
abroad in a moment. In his most scientific mood he had never had the
remotest notion of how to guard. He was aggressive and nothing else.
Attacked by a quick hitter, he was useless. Three times Kennedy got
through his guard with his left. The third hit staggered him. Before
he could recover, Kennedy had got his right in, and down went Walton
in a heap.
He was up again as soon as he touched the boards, and down again
almost as soon as he was up. Kennedy was always a straight hitter, and
now a combination of good cause and bad temper--for the thought of the
foul in the first round had stirred what was normally a more or less
placid nature into extreme viciousness--lent a vigour to his left arm
to which he had hitherto been a stranger. He did not use his right
again. It was not needed.
Twice more Walton went down. He was still down when Jimmy Silver
called time. When the half-minute interval between the rounds was
over, he stated that he was not going on.
Kennedy looked across at him as he sat on a bed dabbing tenderly at
his face with a handkerchief, and was satisfied with the success of
his object-lesson. From his own face the most observant of headmasters
could have detected no evidence that he had been engaged in a vulgar
fight. Walton, on the other hand, looked as if he had been engaged in
several--all violent. Kennedy went off to his study to change, feeling
that he had advanced a long step on the thorny path that led to the
Perfect House.
XIV
FENN RECEIVES A LETTER
But the step was not such a very long one after all. What it amounted
to was simply this, that open rebellion ceased in Kay's. When Kennedy
put up the list on the notice-board for the third time, which he did
on the morning following his encounter with Walton, and wrote on it
that the match with Blackburn's would take place that afternoon, his
team turned out like lambs, and were duly defeated by thirty-one
points. He had to play a substitute for Walton, who was rather too
battered to be of any real use in the scrum; but, with that exception,
the team that entered the field was the same that should have entered
it the day before.
But his labours in the Augean stables of Kay's were by no means over.
Practically they had only begun. The state of the house now was
exactly what it had been under Fenn. When Kennedy had taken over the
reins, Kay's had become on the instant twice as bad as it had been
before. By his summary treatment of the revolution, he had, so to
speak, wiped off this deficit. What he had to do now was to begin to
improve things. Kay's was now in its normal state--slack, rowdy in an
underhand way, and utterly useless to the school. It was "up to"
Kennedy, as they say in America, to start in and make something
presentable and useful out of these unpromising materials.
What annoyed him more than anything else was the knowledge that if
only Fenn chose to do the square thing and help him in his work, the
combination would be irresistible. It was impossible to make any
leeway to speak of by himself. If Fenn would only forget his
grievances and join forces with him, they could electrify the house.
Fenn, however, showed no inclination to do anything of the kind. He
and Kennedy never spoke to one another now except when it was
absolutely unavoidable, and then they behaved with that painful
politeness in which the public schoolman always wraps himself as in a
garment when dealing with a friend with whom he has quarrelled.
On the Walton episode Fenn had made no comment, though it is probable
that he thought a good deal.
It was while matters were in this strained condition that Fenn
received a letter from his elder brother. This brother had been at
Eckleton in his time--School House--and had left five years before to
go to Cambridge. Cambridge had not taught him a great deal, possibly
because he did not meet the well-meant efforts of his tutor half-way.
The net result of his three years at King's was--_imprimis_, a
cricket blue, including a rather lucky eighty-three at Lord's;
secondly, a very poor degree; thirdly and lastly, a taste for
literature and the drama--he had been a prominent member of the
Footlights Club. When he came down he looked about him for some
occupation which should combine in happy proportions a small amount of
work and a large amount of salary, and, finding none, drifted into
journalism, at which calling he had been doing very fairly ever since.
"Dear Bob," the letter began. Fenn's names were Robert Mowbray, the
second of which he had spent much of his time in concealing. "Just a
line."
The elder Fenn always began his letters with these words, whether they
ran to one sheet or eight. In the present case the screed was not
particularly long.
"Do you remember my reading you a bit of an opera I was writing? Well,
I finished it, and, after going the round of most of the managers, who
chucked it with wonderful unanimity, it found an admirer in Higgs, the
man who took the part of the duke in _The Outsider_. Luckily, he
happened to be thinking of starting on his own in opera instead of
farce, and there's a part in mine which fits him like a glove. So he's
going to bring it out at the Imperial in the spring, and by way of
testing the piece--trying it on the dog, as it were--he means to tour
with it. Now, here's the point of this letter. We start at Eckleton
next Wednesday. We shall only be there one night, for we go on to
Southampton on Thursday. I suppose you couldn't come and see it? I
remember Peter Brown, who got the last place in the team the year I
got my cricket colours, cutting out of his house (Kay's, by the way)
and going down town to see a piece at the theatre. I'm bound to admit
he got sacked for it, but still, it shows that it can be done. All the
same, I shouldn't try it on if I were you. You'll be able to read all
about the 'striking success' and 'unrestrained enthusiasm' in the
_Eckleton Mirror_ on Thursday. Mind you buy a copy."
The rest of the letter was on other subjects. It took Fenn less than a
minute to decide to patronise that opening performance. He was never
in the habit of paying very much attention to risks when he wished to
do anything, and now he felt as if he cared even less than usual what
might be the outcome of the adventure. Since he had ceased to be on
speaking terms with Kennedy, he had found life decidedly dull. Kennedy
had been his only intimate friend. He had plenty of acquaintances, as
a first eleven and first fifteen man usually has, but none of them
were very entertaining. Consequently he welcomed the idea of a break
in the monotony of affairs. The only thing that had broken it up to
the present had been a burglary at the school house. Some enterprising
marauder had broken in a week before and gone off with a few articles
of value from the headmaster's drawing-room. But the members of the
school house had talked about this episode to such an extent that the
rest of the school had dropped off the subject, exhausted, and
declined to discuss it further. And things had become monotonous once
more.
Having decided to go, Fenn began to consider how he should do it. And
here circumstances favoured him. It happened that on the evening on
which his brother's play was to be produced the headmaster was giving
his once-a-term dinner to the house-prefects. This simplified matters
wonderfully. The only time when his absence from the house was at all
likely to be discovered would be at prayers, which took place at
half-past nine. The prefects' dinner solved this difficulty for him.
Kay would not expect him to be at prayers, thinking he was over at the
Head's, while the Head, if he noticed his absence at all, would
imagine that he was staying away from the dinner owing to a headache
or some other malady. It seemed tempting Providence not to take
advantage of such an excellent piece of luck. For the rest, detection
was practically impossible. Kennedy's advent to the house had ousted
Fenn from the dormitory in which he had slept hitherto, and, there
being no bed available in any of the other dormitories, he had been
put into the spare room usually reserved for invalids whose invalidism
was not of a sufficiently infectious kind to demand their removal to
the infirmary. As for getting back into the house, he would leave the
window of his study unfastened. He could easily climb on to the
window-ledge, and so to bed without let or hindrance.
The distance from Kay's to the town was a mile and a half. If he
started at the hour when he should have been starting for the school
house, he would arrive just in time to see the curtain go up.
Having settled these facts definitely in his mind, he got his books
together and went over to school.
XV
DOWN TOWN