“Just another of Ward’s jars,” said Dallas. “Knowing that Vaughan was keen on being head of the House he actually went to the Old Man and persuaded him that it would be better to bring in some day boy who was a School prefect than let Vaughan boss the show. What do you think of that?”
“Pretty low,” said the Babe.
“Said I was thoughtless and headstrong,” cut in Vaughan, spearing a sausage as if it were Mr. Ward’s body. “Muffins up, Dallas, old man. When the sausages are done to a turn. ‘Thoughtless and headstrong.’ Those were his very words.”
“Can’t you imagine the old beast?” said Dallas, pathetically. “Can’t you see him getting round the Old Man? ‘A capital lad at heart, I am sure, distinctly a capital lad, but thoughtless and headstrong, far too thoughtless for a position so important as that of head of my House.’ The abandoned old wreck!”
Tea put an end for the moment to conversation, but when the last sausage had gone the way of all flesh, Vaughan returned to the sore subject like a moth to a candle.
“It isn’t only the not being head of the House that I bar. It’s the man himself. You say you haven’t studied Plunkett much. When you get to know him better, you’ll appreciate his finer qualities more. There are so few of them.”
“The only fine quality I’ve ever seen in him,” said Dallas, “is his habit of slinking off in the afternoons when he ought to be playing games, and not coming back till lockup.”
“Which brings us back to where we started,” put in the Babe. “You were wondering what he did with himself.”
“Yes, it can’t be anything good so we’ll put beetles and butterflies out of the question right away. He might go and poach. There’s heaps of opportunity round here for a chap who wants to try his hand at that. I remember, when I was a kid, Morton-Smith, who used to be in this House—remember him?—took me to old what’s-his-name’s place. Who’s that frantic blood who owns all that land along the Badgwick road? The M.P. man.”
“Milord Sir Alfred Venner, M.P., of Badgwick Hall.”
“That’s the man. Generally very much of Badgwick Hall. Came down last summer on Prize Day. One would have thought from the side on him that he was all sorts of dooks. Anyhow, Morton-Smith took me rabbiting there. I didn’t know it was against the rules or anything. Had a grand time. A few days afterwards, Milord Sir Venner copped him on the hop and he got sacked. There was an awful row. I thought my hair would have turned white.”
“I shouldn’t think the Mutual poaches,” said Vaughan. “He hasn’t got the enterprise to poach an egg even. No, it can’t be that.”
“Perhaps he bikes?” said the Babe.
“No, he’s not got a bike. He’s the sort of chap, though, to borrow somebody else’s without asking. Possibly he does bike.”
“If he does,” said Dallas, “it’s only so as to get well away from the Coll., before starting on his career of crime. I’ll swear he does break rules like an ordinary human being when he thinks it’s safe. Those aggressively pious fellows generally do.”
“I didn’t know he was that sort,” said the Babe. “Don’t you find it rather a jar?”
“Just a bit. He jaws us sometimes till we turn and rend him.”
“Yes, he’s an awful man,” said Vaughan.
“Don’t stop,” said the Babe, encouragingly, after the silence had lasted some time. “It’s a treat picking a fellow to pieces like this.”
“I don’t know if that’s your beastly sarcasm, Babe,” said Vaughan, “but, speaking for self and partner, I don’t know how we should get on if we didn’t blow off steam occasionally in this style.”
“We should probably last out for a week, and then there would be a sharp shriek, a hollow groan, and all that would be left of the Mutual Friend would be a slight discolouration on the study carpet.”
“Coupled with an aroma of fresh gore.”
“Perhaps that’s why he goes off in the afternoons,” suggested the Babe. “Doesn’t want to run any risks.”
“Shouldn’t wonder.”
“He’s such a rotten head of the House, too,” said Vaughan. “Ward may gas about my being headstrong and thoughtless, but I’m dashed if I would make a bally exhibition of myself like the Mutual.”
“What’s he do?” enquired the Babe.
“It’s not so much what he does. It’s what he doesn’t do that sickens me,” said Dallas. “I may be a bit of a crock in some ways—for further details apply to Ward—but I can stop a couple of fags ragging if I try.”
“Can’t Plunkett?”
“Not for nuts. He’s simply helpless when there’s anything going on that he ought to stop. Why, the other day there was a row in the fags’ room that you could almost have heard at your place, Babe. We were up here working. The Mutual was jawing as usual on the subject of cramming tips for the Aeschylus exam. Said it wasn’t scholarship, or some rot. What business is it of his how a chap works, I should like to know. Just as he had got under way, the fags began kicking up more row than ever.”
“I said,” cut in Vaughan, “that instead of minding other people’s business, he’d better mind his own for a change, and go down and stop the row.”
“He looked a bit green at that,” said Dallas. “Said the row didn’t interfere with him. ‘Does with us,’ I said. ‘It’s all very well for you. You aren’t doing a stroke of work. No amount of row matters to a chap who’s only delivering a rotten sermon on scholarship. Vaughan and I happen to be trying to do some work.’ ‘All right,’ he said, ‘if you want the row stopped, why don’t you go and stop it? What’s it got to do with me?’ ”
“Rotter!” interpolated the Babe.
“Wasn’t he? Well, of course we couldn’t
