Mr. Horbury was an old Luptonian; he was, in the words of Canon Diver, but “a big boy at heart,” and so he gave orders that Meyrick was to be sent in the study directly he came in, and he looked at the clock on the desk before him with satisfaction and yet with impatience. A hungry man may long for his delayed dinner almost with a sense of fury, and yet at the back of his mind he cannot help being consoled by the thought of how wonderfully he will enjoy the soup when it appears at last. When seven struck, Mr. Horbury moistened his lips slightly. He got up and felt cautiously behind one of the bookshelves. The object was there, and he sat down again. He listened; there were footfalls on the drive. Ah! there was the expected ring. There was a brief interval, and then a knock. The fire was glowing with red flashes, and the wretched toad was secured.
“Now, Ambrose, you must understand quite definitely that this sort of thing isn’t going to be tolerated any longer. This is the third time during this term that you have been late for lockup. You know the rules: six o’clock at latest. It is now twenty minutes past seven. What excuse have you to make? What have you been doing with yourself? Have you been in the Fields?”
“No, Sir.”
“Why not? You must have seen the Resolution of the Sixth on the notice-board of the High School? You know what it promised any boy who shirked rocker? ‘A good sound thrashing with tuds before the First Thirty.’ I am afraid you will have a very bad time of it on Monday, after Graham has sent up your name to the Room.”
There was a pause. Mr. Horbury looked quietly and lengthily at the boy, who stood white and sick before him. He was a rather sallow, ugly lad of fifteen. There was something of intelligence in his expression, and it was this glance that Chesson, the Headmaster, had resented. His heart beat against his breast, his breath came in gasps and the sweat of terror poured down his body. The master gazed at him, and at last spoke again.
“But what have you been doing? Where have you been all this time?”
“If you please, Sir, I walked over to Selden Abbey.”
“To Selden Abbey? Why, it’s at least six miles away! What on earth did you want to go to Selden Abbey for? Are you fond of old stones?”
“If you please, Sir, I wanted to see the Norman arches. There is a picture of them in Parker’s Glossary.”
“Oh, I see! You are a budding antiquarian, are you, Ambrose, with an interest in Norman arches—eh? I suppose we are to look forward to the time when your researches will have made Lupton famous? Perhaps you would like to lecture to the school on St. Paul’s Cathedral? Pray, what are your views as to the age of Stonehenge?”
The wit was heavy enough, but the speaker’s position gave a bitter sting to his lash. Mr. Horbury saw that every cut had told, and, without prejudice to more immediate and acuter pleasures, he resolved that such biting satire must have a larger audience. Indeed, it was a long time before Ambrose Meyrick heard the last of those wretched Norman arches. The method was absurdly easy. “Openings” presented themselves every day. For example, if the boy made a mistake in construing, the retort was obvious:
“Thank you, Meyrick, for your most original ideas on the force of the aorist. Perhaps if you studied your Greek Grammar a little more and your favourite Glossary of Architecture a little less, it would be the better. Write out ‘Aorist means indefinite’ five hundred times.”
Or, again, perhaps the Classic Orders were referred to. Mr. Horbury would begin to instruct the form as to the difference between Ionic and Doric. The form listened with poor imitation of interest. Suddenly the master would break off:
“I beg your pardon. I was forgetting that we have a great architectural authority amongst us. Be so kind as to instruct us, Meyrick. What does Parker say? Or perhaps you have excogitated some theories of your own? I know you have an original mind, from the extraordinary quantities of your last copy of verse. By the way, I must ask you to write out ‘The e in venio is short’ five hundred times. I am sorry to interfere with your more important architectural studies, but I am afraid there is no help for it.”
And so on; while the form howled with amusement.
But Mr. Horbury kept these gems for future and public use. For the moment he had more exciting work on hand. He burst out suddenly:
“The fact is, Ambrose Meyrick, you’re a miserable little humbug! You haven’t the honesty to say, fair and square, that you funked rocker and went loafing about the country, looking for any mischief you could lay your hands on. Instead of that you make up this cock-and-bull story of Selden Abbey and Norman arches—as if any boy in his senses ever knew or cared twopence about such things! I hope you haven’t been spending the afternoon in some low public-house? There, don’t speak! I don’t want to hear any more
