Michael forced an uncomfortable grin such as photographers conjure.
Under the shade of a gigantic tree stood Pearson the leader, languidly eating a very small and very unripe pear.
“Hullo, Pinky,” he drawled.
“I say, Pearson,” said Rodber in a reverent voice, “I know this kid at home. He’s awfully keen to be allowed to join your army.”
Pearson scarcely glanced at Michael.
“All right. Swear him in. I’ve got a new oath written down in a book at home, but he can take the old one.”
Pearson yawned and threw away the core of the pear.
“He’s awfully glad he’s going to join your army, Pearson. Aren’t you, young Fane?”
“Yes, awfully glad,” Michael echoed.
“It’s the best army,” said Pearson simply.
“Oh, easily,” Rodber agreed. “I say, Pearson, that kid Biden said Church was going to lam you at four o’clock.”
The offended Pearson swallowed a large piece of a second unripe pear and scowled.
“Did he? Tell the army to line up behind the lav. at four o’clock.”
Rodber’s eyes gleamed.
“I say, Pearson, I’ve got an awfully ripping plan. Supposing we ambush them.”
“How?” enquired the commander.
“Why, supposing we put young Fane and two or three more new kids by the tuckshop door and tell them to run towards the haunted house, we could cop them simply rippingly.”
“Give the orders before afternoon school,” said Pearson curtly, and just then the bell for “second hour” sounded.
“Wait for me at half-past twelve,” Rodber shouted to Michael as he ran to get into school.
Michael grew quite feverish during “second hour” and his brain whirled with the imagination of battles, so that the landing of Julius Caesar seemed of minor importance. Tuckshops and haunted houses and doors and ambushes and the languid pale-faced Pearson occupied his thoughts fully enough. At a quarter-past twelve Mr. Whichelo the First Form master told Michael and the other new boys to go to the book-room and get their school caps, and at half-past twelve Michael waited outside on the yellow gravel for Rodber, splendidly proud of himself in a blue cap crested with a cockleshell worked in silver wire. He was longing to look at himself in the glass at home and to show Miss Carthew and Stella and Nanny and Cook and Gladys his school cap.
However, before he could go home Rodber took him round to where the tuckshop ambush would ensue at four o’clock. He showed him a door in a wall which led apparently into the narrow shady garden of an empty house next to the school. He explained how Michael was to hang about outside this door and when the Churchites demanded his presence, he told him that he was to run as hard as he could down the garden towards the house.
“We’ll do the rest,” said Rodber. “And now cut off home.”
As soon as Michael was inside Number 64 he rushed upstairs to his bedroom and examined himself critically in the looking-glass. Really the new cap made a great difference. He seemed older somehow and more important. He wished that his arms and legs were not so thin, and he looked forward to the time when like Rodber he would wear Etons. However, his hair was now pleasantly and inconspicuously straight: he had already seen boys woefully teazed on account of their curls, and Michael congratulated himself that generally his dress and appearance conformed with the fashion of the younger boys’ dress at Randell’s. It would be terrible to excite notice. In fact, Michael supposed that to excite notice was the worst sin anybody could possibly commit. He hoped he would never excite notice. He would like to remain perfectly ordinary, and very slowly by an inconspicuous and gradual growth he would thus arrive in time at the dignity and honour enjoyed by Rodber, and perhaps even to the sacred majesty that clung to Pearson. Already he was going to take an active part in the adventures of school; and he felt sorry for the boys who without Rodber’s influence would mildly go straight home at four o’clock.
Indeed, Michael set out for afternoon school in a somewhat elated frame of mind, and when he turned into the schoolyard, wearing the school cap, he felt bold enough to watch a game of Conquerors that was proceeding between two solemn-faced boys. He thought that to try to crack a chestnut hanging on a piece of string with another chestnut similarly suspended was a very enthralling pastime, and he was much upset when one of the solemn-faced antagonists suddenly grabbed his new school-cap and put it in his pocket and, without paying any attention to Michael, went on with the game as if nothing had happened. Michael had no idea how to grapple with the situation and felt inclined to cry.
“I say, give me my cap,” he said at last.
The solemn-faced boys went on in silence with the game.
“I say, please give me my cap,” Michael asked again.
No notice was taken of his appeal and Michael, looking round in despair, saw Rodber. He ran up to him.
“I say, Rodber, that boy over there has got my cap,” he said.
“Well, don’t come sneaking to me, you young ass. Go and smack his head.”
“Am I to really?” asked Michael.
“Of course.”
Michael was not prepared to withstand Rodber’s advice, so he went up to the solemn-faced boy and hit him as hard as he could. The solemn-faced boy was so much surprised by this attack that he did not for a moment retaliate, and it was only his friend’s gasp “I say, what fearful cheek,” that restored him to a sense of what had happened.
In a moment Michael found himself lying on his back and almost smothered by the solemn-faced boy’s whole body and presently suffering agony from the pressure of the solemn-faced boy’s knees upon his arms pinioned crosswise. Excited voices chattered about him from an increasing circle. He heard the solemn-faced boy telling his horrified auditors that a new kid had smacked his head. He heard various punishments strongly recommended, and at last
