This was the question that Paul had been dreading, and, true to his training, he had resolved upon honesty.
“I was sent down, sir, for indecent behaviour.”
“Indeed, indeed? Well, I shall not ask for details. I have been in the scholastic profession long enough to know that nobody enters it unless he has some very good reason which he is anxious to conceal. But, again to be practical, Mr. Pennyfeather, I can hardly pay one hundred and twenty pounds to anyone who has been sent down for indecent behaviour. Suppose that we fix your salary at ninety pounds a year to begin with? I have to return to Llanabba tonight. There are six more weeks of term, you see, and I have lost a master rather suddenly. I shall expect you tomorrow evening. There is an excellent train from Euston that leaves at about ten. I think you will like your work,” he continued dreamily; “you will find that my school is built upon an ideal—an ideal of service and fellowship. Many of the boys come from the very best families. Little Lord Tangent has come to us this term, the Earl of Circumference’s son, you know. Such a nice little chap, erratic, of course, like all his family, but he has tone.” Dr. Fagan gave a long sigh. “I wish I could say the same for my staff. Between ourselves, Pennyfeather, I think I shall have to get rid of Grimes fairly soon. He is not out of the top drawer, and boys notice these things. Now, your predecessor was a thoroughly agreeable young man. I was sorry to lose him. But he used to wake up my daughters coming back on his motor bicycle at all hours of the night. He used to borrow money from the boys, too, quite large sums, and the parents objected. I had to get rid of him. … Still, I was very sorry. He had tone.”
Dr. Fagan rose, put on his hat at a jaunty angle, and drew on a glove.
“Goodbye, my dear Pennyfeather. I think, in fact I know, that we are going to work well together. I can always tell these things.”
“Goodbye, sir,” said Paul. …
“Five percent of ninety pounds is four pounds ten shillings,” said Mr. Levy cheerfully. “You can pay now or on receipt of your first term’s salary. If you pay now there is a reduction of fifteen percent. That would be three pounds six shillings and sixpence.”
“I’ll pay you when I get my wages,” said Paul.
“Just as you please,” said Mr. Levy. “Only too glad to have been of use to you.”
II
Llanabba Castle
Llanabba Castle presents two quite different aspects, according as you approach it from the Bangor or the coast road. From the back it looks very much like any other large country house, with a great many windows and a terrace, and a chain of glass houses and the roofs of innumerable nondescript kitchen buildings disappearing into the trees. But from the front—and that is how it is approached from Llanabba station—it is formidably feudal; one drives past at least a mile of machicolated wall before reaching the gates; these are towered and turreted and decorated with heraldic animals and a workable portcullis. Beyond them at the end of the avenue stands the Castle, a model of medieval impregnability.
The explanation of this rather striking contrast is simple enough. At the time of the cotton famine in the ’sixties Llanabba House was the property of a prosperous Lancashire millowner. His wife could not bear to think of their men starving; in fact, she and her daughters organized a little bazaar in their aid, though without very substantial results. Her husband had read the Liberal economists and could not think of paying without due return. Accordingly “enlightened self-interest” found a way. An encampment of mill hands was settled in the park, and they were put to work walling the grounds and facing the house with great blocks of stone from a neighbouring quarry. At the end of the American war they returned to their mills, and Llanabba House became Llanabba Castle after a great deal of work had been done very cheaply.
Driving up from the station in a little closed taxi, Paul saw little of all this. It was almost dark in the avenue and quite dark inside the house.
“I am Mr. Pennyfeather,” he said to the butler. “I have come here as a master.”
“Yes,” said the butler, “I know all about you. This way.”
They went down a number of passages, unlit and smelling obscurely of all the ghastly smells of school, until they reached a brightly lighted door.
“In there. That’s the Common Room.” Without more ado, the butler made off into the darkness.
Paul looked round. It was not a very big room. Even he felt that, and all his life he had been accustomed to living in constricted spaces.
“I wonder how many people live here,” he thought, and with a sick thrust of apprehension counted sixteen pipes in a rack at the side of the chimneypiece. Two gowns hung on a hook behind the door. In a corner were some golf clubs, a walking stick, an umbrella and two miniature rifles. Over the chimneypiece was a green baize notice-board covered with lists; there was a typewriter on the table. In a bookcase were a number of very old textbooks and some new exercise books. There were also a bicycle pump, two armchairs, a straight chair, half a bottle of invalid port, a boxing glove, a bowler hat, yesterday’s Daily News, and a packet of pipe-cleaners.
Paul sat down disconsolately on the straight chair.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and a small boy came in.
“Oh!” he said, looking at Paul intently.
“Hullo!” said Paul.
“I was looking for Captain Grimes,” said the little boy.
“Oh!” said Paul.
The child continued to look at Paul with a penetrating impersonal interest.
“I
