Tony listened with breathless interest to Jim’s recital of his adventures, and at the conclusion laughed.
“What a mad thing to go and do,” he said.
“Jolly sporting, though.”
Jim did not join in his laughter.
“Yes, but don’t you see,” he said, ruefully, “what a mess I’m in? If they find out that I was in the Pav. at the time when the cups were bagged, how on earth am I to prove I didn’t take them myself?”
“By Jove, I never thought of that. But, hang it all, they’d never dream of accusing a Coll. chap of stealing Sports prizes. This isn’t a reformatory for juvenile hooligans.”
“No, perhaps not.”
“Of course not.”
“Well, even if they didn’t, the Old Man would be frightfully sick if he got to know about it. I’d lose my prefect’s cap for a cert.”
“You might, certainly.”
“I should. There wouldn’t be any question about it. Why, don’t you remember that business last summer about Cairns? He used to stay out after lockup. That was absolutely all he did. Well, the Old ’Un dropped on him like a hundredweight of bricks. Multiply that by about ten and you get what he’ll do to me if he books me over this job.”
Tony looked thoughtful. The case of Cairns versus the Powers that were, was too recent to have escaped his memory. Even now Cairns was to be seen on the grounds with a common School House cap at the back of his head in place of the prefect’s cap which had once adorned it.
“Yes,” he said, “you’d lose your cap all right, I’m afraid.”
“Rather. And the sickening part of the business is that this real, copper-bottomed burglary’ll make them hunt about all over the shop for clues and things, and the odds are they’ll find me out, even if they don’t book the real man. Shouldn’t wonder if they had a detective down for a big thing of this sort.”
“They are having one, I heard.”
“There you are, then,” said Jim, dejectedly. “I’m done, you see.”
“I don’t know. I don’t believe detectives are much class.”
“Anyhow, he’ll probably have gumption enough to spot me.”
Jim’s respect for the abilities of our national sleuthhounds was greater than Tony’s, and a good deal greater than that of most people.
V
Concerning the Mutual Friend
“I wonder where the dear Mutual gets to these afternoons,” said Dallas.
“The who?” asked MacArthur. MacArthur, commonly known as the Babe, was a day boy. Dallas and Vaughan had invited him to tea in their study.
“Plunkett, you know.”
“Why the Mutual?”
“Mutual Friend, Vaughan’s and mine. Shares this study with us. I call him dear partly because he’s head of the House, and therefore, of course, we respect and admire him.”
“And partly,” put in Vaughan, beaming at the Babe over a frying pan full of sausages, “partly because we love him so. Oh, he’s a beauty.”
“No, but rotting apart,” said the Babe, “what sort of a chap is he? I hardly know him by sight, even.”
“Should describe him roughly,” said Dallas, “as a hopeless, forsaken unspeakable worm.”
“Understates it considerably,” remarked Vaughan. “His manners are patronising, and his customs beastly.”
“He wears spectacles, and reads Herodotus in the original Greek for pleasure.”
“He sneers at footer, and jeers at cricket. Croquet is his form, I should say. Should doubt, though, if he even plays that.”
“But why on earth,” said the Babe, “do you have him in your study?”
Vaughan looked wildly and speechlessly at Dallas, who looked helplessly back at Vaughan.
“Don’t, Babe, please!” said Dallas. “You’ve no idea how a remark of that sort infuriates us. You surely don’t suppose we’d have the man in the study if we could help it?”
“It’s another instance of Ward at his worst,” said Vaughan. “Have you never heard the story of the Mutual Friend’s arrival?”
“No.”
“It was like this. At the beginning of this term I came back expecting to be head of this show. You see, Richards left at Christmas and I was next man in. Dallas and I had made all sorts of arrangements for having a good time. Well, I got back on the last evening of the holidays. When I got into this study, there was the man Plunkett sitting in the best chair, reading.”
“Probably reading Herodotus in the original Greek,” snorted Dallas.
“He didn’t take the slightest notice of me. I stood in the doorway like Patience on a monument for about a quarter of an hour. Then I coughed. He took absolutely no notice. I coughed again, loud enough to crack the windows. Then I got tired of it, and said ‘Hullo.’ He did look up at that. ‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘you’ve got rather a nasty cough.’ I said ‘Yes,’ and waited for him to throw himself on my bosom and explain everything, you know.”
“Did he?” asked the Babe, deeply interested.
“Not a bit,” said Dallas, “he—sorry, Vaughan, fire ahead.”
“He went on reading. After a bit I said I hoped he was fairly comfortable. He said he was. Conversation languished again. I made another shot. ‘Looking for anybody?’ I said. ‘No,’ he said, ‘are you?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then why the dickens should I be?’ he said. I didn’t quite follow his argument. In fact, I don’t even now. ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘tell me one thing. Have you or have you not bought this place? If you have, all right. If you haven’t, I’m going to sling you out, and jolly soon, too.’ He
