“Wodyer want?” he asked, abruptly.
Eckleton was not a great distance from London, and, as a consequence, many of London’s choicest blackguards migrated there from time to time. During the hopping season, and while the local races were on, one might meet with two Cockney twangs for every country accent.
“I want to see the old gentleman who lives here,” said Fenn.
“Wot old gentleman?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know his name. Is this a home for old gentlemen? If you’ll bring out all you’ve got, I’ll find my one.”
“Wodyer want see the old gentleman for?”
“To ask for my cap. I left it here last night.”
“Oh, yer left it ’ere last night! Well, yer cawn’t see ’im.”
“Not from here, no,” agreed Fenn. “Being only eyes, you see,” he quoted happily, “my wision’s limited. But if you wouldn’t mind moving out of the way—”
“Yer cawn’t see ’im. Blimey, ’ow much more of it, I should like to know. Gerroutovit, cawn’t yer! You and yer caps.”
And he added a searching expletive by way of concluding the sentence fittingly. After which he slipped back and slammed the door, leaving Fenn waiting outside like the Peri at the gate of Paradise.
His resemblance to the Peri ceased after the first quarter of a minute. That lady, we read, took her expulsion lying down. Fenn was more vigorous. He seized the knocker, and banged lustily on the door. He had given up all hope of getting back the cap. All he wanted was to get the doorkeeper out into the open again, when he would proceed to show him, to the best of his ability, what was what. It would not be the first time he had taken on a gentleman of the same class and a similar type of conversation.
But the man refused to be drawn. For all the reply Fenn’s knocking produced, the house might have been empty. At last, having tired his wrist and collected a small crowd of Young Eckleton, who looked as if they expected him to proceed to further efforts for their amusement, he gave it up, and retired down the High Street with what dignity he could command—which, as he was followed for the first fifty yards by the silent but obviously expectant youths, was not a great deal.
They left him, disappointed, near the Town Hall, and Fenn continued on his way alone. The window of the grocer’s shop, with its tins of preserved apricots and pots of jam, recalled to his mind what he had forgotten, that the food at Kay’s, though it might be wholesome (which he doubted), was undeniably plain, and, secondly, that he had run out of jam. Now that he was here he might as well supply that deficiency.
Now it chanced that Master Wren, of Kay’s, was down town—without leave, as was his habit—on an errand of a very similar nature. Walton had found that he, like Fenn, lacked those luxuries of life which are so much more necessary than necessities, and, being unable to go himself, owing to the unfortunate accident of being kept in by his form-master, had asked Wren to go for him. Wren’s visit to the grocer’s was just ending when Fenn’s began.
They met in the doorway.
Wren looked embarrassed, and nearly dropped a pot of honey, which he secured low down after the manner of a catch in the slips. Fenn, on the other hand, took no notice of his fellow-Kayite, but walked on into the shop and began to inspect the tins of biscuits which were stacked on the floor by the counter.
XIX
The Guile of Wren
Wren did not quite know what to make of this. Why had not Fenn said a word to him? There were one or two prefects in the school whom he might have met even at such close quarters and yet have cherished a hope that they had not seen him. Once he had run right into Drew, of the School House, and escaped unrecognised. But with Fenn it was different. Compared to Fenn, lynxes were astigmatic. He must have spotted him.
There was a vein of philosophy in Wren’s composition. He felt that he might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. In other words, having been caught down town without leave, he might as well stay there and enjoy himself a little while longer before going back to be executed. So he strolled off down the High Street, bought a few things at a stationer’s, and wound up with an excellent tea at the confectioner’s by the post-office.
It was as he was going to this meal that Kennedy caught sight of him. Kennedy had come down town to visit the local photographer, to whom he had entrusted a fortnight before the pleasant task of taking his photograph. As he had heard nothing from him since, he was now coming to investigate. He entered the High Street as Wren was turning into the confectioner’s, saw him, and made a note of it for future reference.
When Wren returned to the house just before lockup, he sought counsel of Walton.
“I say,” he said, as he handed over the honey he had saved so neatly from destruction, “what would you do? Just as I was coming out of the shop, I barged into Fenn. He must have twigged me.”
“Didn’t he say anything?”
“Not a word. I couldn’t make it out, because he must have seen me. We weren’t a yard away from one another.”
“It’s dark in the shop,” suggested Walton.
“Not at the door; which is where we met.”
Before Walton could find anything to say in reply to this, their conversation was interrupted by Spencer.
“Kennedy wants you, Wren,” said Spencer. “You’d better buck up; he’s in an awful wax.”
Next to Walton, the vindictive Spencer objected most to Wren, and he did not attempt to conceal the pleasure he felt in being the bearer of this ominous summons.
The group broke up. Wren
