“I heard it from the matron at our place,” said Morrell. “She’s full of it. Mulholland was batting at the middle net, and somebody else—I forget who—was at the one next to it on the right. The bowler sent down a long-hop to leg, and this Johnny had a smack at it, and sent it slap through the net, and it got Mulholland on the side of the head. He was stunned for a bit, but he’s getting all right again now. But he won’t be able to conduct tonight. Rather bad luck on the man, especially as he’s so keen on the concert.”
“Who’s going to sub for him?” asked Silver. “Perhaps they’ll scratch the show,” suggested Kennedy.
“Oh, no,” said Morrell, “it’s all right. Kay is going to conduct. He’s often done it at choir practices when Mulholland couldn’t turn up.”
Fenn put down his empty saucer with an emphatic crack on the counter.
“If Kay’s going to run the show, I’m hanged if I turn up,” he said.
“My dear chap, you can’t get out of it now,” said Kennedy anxiously. He did not want to see Fenn plunging into any more strife with the authorities this term.
“Think of the crowned heads who are coming to hear you,” pleaded Jimmy Silver. “Think of the nobility and gentry. Think of me. You must play.”
“Ah, there you are, Fenn.”
Mr. Kay had bustled in in his energetic way.
Fenn said nothing. He was there. It was idle to deny it.
“I thought I should find you here. Yes, I wanted to see you about the concert tonight. Mr. Mulholland has met with an unfortunate accident, and I am looking after the entertainment in his place. Come with me and play over your piece. I should like to see that you are perfect in it. Dear me, dear me, what a noise those boys are making. Why are they behaving in that extraordinary way, I wonder!”
Kay’s juniors had left the pavilion, and were trooping back to their house. At the present moment they were passing the school shop, and their tuneful voices floated in through the open window.
“This is very unusual. Why, they seem to be boys in my house. They are groaning.”
“I think they are a little upset at the result of the match, sir,” said Jimmy Silver suavely. “Fenn did not arrive, for some reason, till the end of the innings, so Mr. Blackburn’s won. The wicket was good, but a little fiery.”
“Thank you, Silver,” replied Mr. Kay with asperity. “When I require explanations I will ask for them.”
He darted out of the shop, and a moment later they heard him pouring out a flood of recriminations on the groaning fags.
“There was once a man who snubbed me,” said Jimmy Silver. “They buried him at Brookwood. Well, what are you going to do, Fenn? Going to play tonight? Harkee, boy. Say but the word, and I will beard this tyrant to his face.”
Fenn rose.
“Yes,” he said briefly, “I shall play. You’d better turn up. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
Silver said that no human power should keep him away.
The School concert was always one of the events of the summer term. There was a concert at the end of the winter term, too, but it was not so important. To a great many of those present the summer concert marked, as it were, the last flutter of their school life. On the morrow they would be Old Boys, and it behoved them to extract as much enjoyment from the function as they could. Under Mr. Mullholland’s rule the concert had become a very flourishing institution. He aimed at a high standard, and reached it. There was more than a touch of the austere about the music. A glance at the programme was enough to show the lover of airs of the trashy, clashy order that this was no place for him. Most of the items were serious. When it was thought necessary to introduce a lighter touch, some staidly rollicking number was inserted, some song that was saved—in spite of a catchy tune—by a halo of antiquity. Anything modern was taboo, unless it were the work of Gotsuchakoff, Thingummyowsky, or some other eminent foreigner. Foreign origin made it just possible.
The school prefects lurked during the performance at the doors and at the foot of the broad stone steps that led to the Great Hall. It was their duty to supply visitors with programmes.
Jimmy Silver had foregathered with Kennedy, Challis, and Williams at the junior door. The hall was full now, and their labours consequently at an end.
“Pretty good ‘gate,’ ” said Silver, looking in through the open door. “It must be warm up in the gallery.”
Across the further end of the hall a dais had been erected. On this the bulk of the school sat, leaving the body of the hall to the crowned heads, nobility, and gentry to whom Silver had referred in his conversation with Fenn.
“It always is warm in the gallery,” said Challis. “I lost about two stone there every concert when I was a kid. We simply used to sit and melt.”
“And I tell you what,” broke in Silver, “it’s going to get warmer before the end of the show. Do you notice that all Kay’s house are sitting in a lump at the back. I bet they’re simply spoiling for a row. Especially now Kay’s running the concert. There’s going to be a hot time in the old town tonight—you see if there isn’t. Hark at ’em.”
The choir had just come to the end of a little thing of Handel’s. There was no reason to suppose that the gallery appreciated Handel. Nevertheless, they were making a deafening noise. Clouds of dust rose from the rhythmical stamping of many feet. The noise was loudest and the dust thickest by the big window, beneath which sat the men from Kay’s. Things were warming up.
The
