At the same time as Jennings and Darbishire were getting on the four-o'clock bus in the town of Dunhambury, Venables went into Mr Carter's room.
'Please, sir, I'm back from the village, sir.'
'All right, Venables. And if you are going to the common room, will you put up this notice on the notice- board?'
'Certainly, sir.'
Venables took the sheet of paper and looked to it. 'There will be on inspection of all textbooks at 5 p.m. this afternoon,' it said.
'Why this interest in textbooks?' thought Venables. 'And what if Jennings doesn't come back in time? And what if he sold out valuable first editions and couldn't buy any newer editions?'
'Why are we having an inspection, sir?' asked Venables.
'There's a shortage of Latin text books and the Headmaster wants to know how many pupils have on Latin textbooks.'
A shortage of Latin textbooks!
'Is it difficult to get them, sir?'
'Very difficult.'
'I see. Thank you, sir,' said Venables and went out of Mr Carter's room. Why did he give Jennings his Latin textbook? He did not want to get any prize now. All he wanted was to get back his Latin textbook.
In the common room he found Temple and Atkinson. They were looking at the Form Three Times.
'When will they print the next issue?' said Temple.
'There is a lot of work in printing a wall newspaper, don't forget,' said Atkinson. 'I expect Jennings is waiting for some more news.'
Venables came up to the notice-board and put up the notice which Temple and Atkinson read without any interest.
Venables told them the story of the Latin textbooks.
'And he was going to sell them and buy cheaper editions, and now we'll have this inspection,' he finished.
'Don't worry. You'll get your second edition when Jennings comes back,' said Temple.
'But I shan't. Mr Carter says you can't buy them, and maybe Jennings has already sold the old books before he finds out that there are no newer books.'
'But Darbishire told you not to sell your Latin book. It's no good giving you good advice, Venables. It goes in one ear and out of the other.'
'Well, let this be a lesson to you, Venables,' said Temple. 'And your lesson will begin at 5 o'clock.'
'And Jennings' lesson,' said Venables. 'And I'll tell him something. Just wait till he comes back. Just wait!'
They waited for twenty minutes. Then the common room door opened and Jennings and Darbishire stood in the doorway.
'So there you are, Venables!' began Jennings. 'I'm telling you, you are a liar.'
'It's a good thing you've come back, Jen,' said Venables. 'Quick, have you got my Latin book?'
'Never mind Latin books! You are a thief!' Jennings waved a sheet of paper, which he had taken from the tuck-box room on his way to the common room. 'You see this, Venables, with Break, Break, Break on it?'
'Yes, I do,' answered Venables.
'Did you write this?'
'Of course I did,' answered Venables. 'I wrote it and sent it in for the competition.'
'Well, you didn't write it. It was Alfred Tennyson,' exclaimed Jennings.
Venables looked at Jennings in surprise.
'Do you think I don't know my own handwriting?'
There were already many boys in the common room, and Darbishire began to explain.
'Now, listen,' he said. 'We know it's Venables' handwriting, but we've found out that he didn't write the poem himself. He copied it out of Alfred Tennyson's book. Well, what do you say about that, Venables?'
'But I didn't send it in for the best poem competition,' he said. 'I sent it in for the best handwriting competition. The rules said you had to write twenty lines, so I copied this poem out of a book. I never said I wrote the poem myself.'
Jennings opened his mouth. This, then was the explanation. What a fool he was!
''Oh! Hm! Yes, I see... But how could we know which competition you meant? Why didn't you write it, well, on the other side of the page?'
'I couldn't do that. The rules said: 'Write on one side only,'' Venables explained. If you don't believe me, look at the envelope.'
So all the boys went to the tuck-box room. In the waste-paper basket they found Venables' envelope with the words Handwriting Competition in the top left-hand corner.
'I'm sorry, Jen,' said Darbishire. 'I didn't see it.'
'Yes, and when will you give him a prize? asked Temple. 'You promised it before tea don't forget.'
'The prize! Now we shall have to give him the prize, because his handwriting is really wonderful,' thought Jennings. 'But what?'
'Well, we were going to buy you a big cake with the money which we got for the Latin books, but...'
'Oh, I quite forgot about it!' exclaimed Venables. The book inspection could begin at any moment, and Jennings was talking about the money he had for his book. 'You can keep your big cakes, I don't want them! All I want is my Latin book back.'
'Do you want it more than anything else?' asked Jennings with a hope.
'Yes, it's the only thing that I want; but if you've sold it, well...'
Jennings smiled and said loudly, 'We are now going to give the Form Three Times best handwriting prize to the happy winner.'
'I don't want a prize. I want my Latin textbook back,' said the happy winner.
'We are not going to give him a big cake. We are going to give the winner something which he will like ten times better.'
With these words Jennings took two copies of Grimshaw's Latin Grammar from his pocket and gave one of them to the winner.
'So you didn't sell it,' exclaimed the winner who was really very happy now.
Chapter Fourteen
Darbishire the photographer
The next Monday during hobbies' hour Jennings and Darbishire were talking about the next issue of their wall newspaper.
'I don't think we'11 have any competitions this time,' Darbishire said. 'Not many boys take part in them. And we can't continue to give boys their own things back as prizes, can we?'
Then they decided to write about the foot-ball game against Bracebridge School. It was an 'away' game and the next Saturday the Second Linbury Court School football team had to go to Bracebridge by bus and train.
Jennings was a very good player and took part in every game. Darbishire was a very bad player and never took part in football games. So Jennings decided to ask Mr Carter to take Darbishire as the photographer.
'I'm not sure that Mr Carter will let you go as photographer,' Jennings said to Darbishire. 'We've never had a photographer with us before. So I'll ask Mr Carter to take you as a linesman. And when you are a linesman you'11 certainly have time to take one or two photos.'
Mr Carter agreed to take Darbishire as linesman, and for the next four days Jennings showed his friend how to use the camera. He also explained to him what he must do as a linesman.
Mr Carter and Mr Wilkins took the team to Bracebridge School. They went to Dunhambury Station by bus, and there they took train. The team was very happy to go to Bracebridge School not only because the Bracebridge team
