It was Mr. Banks’ practice to set his class sums to work out, and, after some three-quarters of an hour had elapsed, to pass round the form what he called “solutions.” These were large sheets of paper, on which he had worked out each sum in his neat handwriting to a happy ending. When the head of the form, to whom they were passed first, had finished with them, he would make a slight tear in one corner, and, having done so, hand them on to his neighbour. The neighbour, before giving them to his neighbour, would also tear them slightly. In time they would return to their patentee and proprietor, and it was then that things became exciting.
“Who tore these solutions like this?” asked Mr. Banks, in the repressed voice of one who is determined that he will be calm.
No answer. The tattered solutions waved in the air.
He turned to Harringay, the head of the form.
“Harringay, did you tear these solutions like this?”
Indignant negative from Harringay. What he had done had been to make the small tear in the top left-hand corner. If Mr. Banks had asked, “Did you make this small tear in the top left-hand corner of these solutions?” Harringay would have scorned to deny the impeachment. But to claim the credit for the whole work would, he felt, be an act of flat dishonesty, and an injustice to his gifted collaborateurs.
“No, sir,” said Harringay.
“Browne!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Did you tear these solutions in this manner?”
“No, sir.”
And so on through the form.
Then Harringay rose after the manner of the debater who is conscious that he is going to say the popular thing.
“Sir—” he began.
“Sit down, Harringay.”
Harringay gracefully waved aside the absurd command.
“Sir,” he said, “I think I am expressing the general consensus of opinion among my—ahem—fellow-students, when I say that this class sincerely regrets the unfortunate state the solutions have managed to get themselves into.”
“Hear, hear!” from a back bench.
“It is with—”
“Sit down, Harringay.”
“It is with heartfelt—”
“Harringay, if you do not sit down—”
“As your ludship pleases.” This sotto voce.
And Harringay resumed his seat amidst applause. O’Hara got up.
“As me frind who has just sat down was about to observe—”
“Sit down, O’Hara. The whole form will remain after the class.”
“—the unfortunate state the solutions have managed to get thimsilves into is sincerely regretted by this class. Sir, I think I am ixprissing the general consensus of opinion among my fellow-students whin I say that it is with heartfelt sorrow—”
“O’Hara!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Leave the room instantly.”
“Yes, sir.”
From the tower across the gravel came the melodious sound of chimes. The college clock was beginning to strike ten. He had scarcely got into the passage, and closed the door after him, when a roar as of a bereaved spirit rang through the room opposite, followed by a string of words, the only intelligible one being the noun-substantive “globe,” and the next moment the door opened and Moriarty came out. The last stroke of ten was just booming from the clock.
There was a large cupboard in the passage, the top of which made a very comfortable seat. They climbed on to this, and began to talk business.
“An’ what was it ye wanted to tell me?” inquired Moriarty.
O’Hara related what he had learned from Trevor that morning.
“An’ do ye know,” said Moriarty, when he had finished, “I half suspected, when I heard that Mill’s study had been ragged, that it might be the League that had done it. If ye remember, it was what they enjoyed doing, breaking up a man’s happy home. They did it frequently.”
“But I can’t understand them doing it to Trevor at all.”
“They’ll do it to anybody they choose till they’re caught at it.”
“If they are caught, there’ll be a row.”
“We must catch ’em,” said Moriarty. Like O’Hara, he revelled in the prospect of a disturbance. O’Hara and he were going up to Aldershot at the end of the term, to try and bring back the light and middleweight medals respectively. Moriarty had won the lightweight in the previous year, but, by reason of putting on a stone since the competition, was now no longer eligible for that class. O’Hara had not been up before, but the Wrykyn instructor, a good judge of pugilistic form, was of opinion that he ought to stand an excellent chance. As the prizefighter in Rodney Stone says, “When you get a good Irishman, you can’t better ’em, but they’re dreadful ’asty.” O’Hara was attending the gymnasium every night, in order to learn to curb his “dreadful ’astiness,” and acquire skill in its place.
“I wonder if Trevor would be any good in a row,” said Moriarty.
“He can’t box,” said O’Hara, “but he’d go on till he was killed entirely. I say, I’m getting rather tired of sitting here, aren’t you? Let’s go to the other end of the passage and have some cricket.”
So, having unearthed a piece of wood from the debris at the top of the cupboard, and rolled a handkerchief into a ball, they adjourned.
Recalling the stirring events of six years back, when the League had first been started, O’Hara remembered that the members of that enterprising society had been wont to hold meetings in a secluded spot, where it was unlikely that they would be disturbed. It seemed to him that the first thing he ought to do, if he wanted to make their nearer acquaintance now, was to find their present rendezvous. They must have one. They would never run the risk involved in holding mass-meetings in one another’s studies. On the last occasion, it had been an old quarry away out on the downs. This had been proved by the not-to-be-shaken testimony of three schoolhouse fags, who had wandered out one half-holiday with the unconcealed intention of finding the League’s place of meeting. Unfortunately for them, they had found it. They were going down the path that led to the quarry before-mentioned, when they were unexpectedly seized, blindfolded,
