O’Hara gave up the search.
“It’s gone,” he said. “Man, I’m most awfully sorry. I’d sooner have lost a ten-pound note.”
“I don’t see why you should lose either,” snapped Trevor. “Why the blazes can’t you be more careful.”
O’Hara was too penitent for words. Clowes took it on himself to point out the bright side.
“There’s nothing to get sick about, really,” he said. “If the thing doesn’t turn up, though it probably will, you’ll simply have to tell the Old Man that it’s lost. He’ll have another made. You won’t be asked for it till just before Sports Day either, so you will have plenty of time to find it.”
The challenge cups, and also the bats, had to be given to the authorities before the sports, to be formally presented on Sports Day.
“Oh, I suppose it’ll be all right,” said Trevor, “but I hope it won’t be found anywhere near the statue.”
O’Hara said he hoped so too.
IV
The League’s Warning
The team to play in any match was always put upon the notice-board at the foot of the stairs in the senior block a day before the date of the fixture. Both first and second fifteens had matches on the Thursday of this week. The second were playing a team brought down by an old Wrykinian. The first had a scratch game.
When Barry, accompanied by McTodd, who shared his study at Seymour’s and rarely left him for two minutes on end, passed by the notice-board at the quarter to eleven interval, it was to the second fifteen list that he turned his attention. Now that Bryce had left, he thought he might have a chance of getting into the second. His only real rival, he considered, was Crawford, of the School House, who was the other wing three-quarter of the third fifteen. The first name he saw on the list was Crawford’s. It seemed to be written twice as large as any of the others, and his own was nowhere to be seen. The fact that he had half expected the calamity made things no better. He had set his heart on playing for the second this term.
Then suddenly he noticed a remarkable phenomenon. The other wing three-quarter was Rand-Brown. If Rand-Brown was playing for the second, who was playing for the first?
He looked at the list.
“Come on,” he said hastily to McTodd. He wanted to get away somewhere where his agitated condition would not be noticed. He felt quite faint at the shock of seeing his name on the list of the first fifteen. There it was, however, as large as life. “M. Barry.” Separated from the rest by a thin red line, but still there. In his most optimistic moments he had never dreamed of this. McTodd was reading slowly through the list of the second. He did everything slowly, except eating.
“Come on,” said Barry again.
McTodd had, after much deliberation, arrived at a profound truth. He turned to Barry, and imparted his discovery to him in the weighty manner of one who realises the importance of his words.
“Look here,” he said, “your name’s not down here.”
“I know. Come on.”
“But that means you’re not playing for the second.”
“Of course it does. Well, if you aren’t coming, I’m off.”
“But, look here—”
Barry disappeared through the door. After a moment’s pause, McTodd followed him. He came up with him on the senior gravel.
“What’s up?” he inquired.
“Nothing,” said Barry.
“Are you sick about not playing for the second?”
“No.”
“You are, really. Come and have a bun.”
In the philosophy of McTodd it was indeed a deep-rooted sorrow that could not be cured by the internal application of a new, hot bun. It had never failed in his own case.
“Bun!” Barry was quite shocked at the suggestion. “I can’t afford to get myself out of condition with beastly buns.”
“But if you aren’t playing—”
“You ass. I’m playing for the first. Now, do you see?”
McTodd gaped. His mind never worked very rapidly. “What about Rand-Brown, then?” he said.
“Rand-Brown’s been chucked out. Can’t you understand? You are an idiot. Rand-Brown’s playing for the second, and I’m playing for the first.”
“But you’re—”
He stopped. He had been going to point out that Barry’s tender years—he was only sixteen—and smallness would make it impossible for him to play with success for the first fifteen. He refrained owing to a conviction that the remark would not be wholly judicious. Barry was touchy on the subject of his size, and McTodd had suffered before now for commenting on it in a disparaging spirit.
“I tell you what we’ll do after school,” said Barry, “we’ll have some running and passing. It’ll do you a lot of good, and I want to practise taking passes at full speed. You can trot along at your ordinary pace, and I’ll sprint up from behind.”
McTodd saw no objection to that. Trotting along at his ordinary pace—five miles an hour—would just suit him.
“Then after that,” continued Barry, with a look of enthusiasm, “I want to practise passing back to my centre. Paget used to do it awfully well last term, and I know Trevor expects his wing to. So I’ll buck along, and you race up to take my pass. See?”
This was not in McTodd’s line at all. He proposed a slight alteration in the scheme.
“Hadn’t you better get somebody else—?” he began.
“Don’t be a slack beast,” said Barry. “You want exercise awfully badly.”
And, as McTodd always did exactly as Barry wished, he gave in, and spent from four-thirty to five that afternoon in the prescribed manner. A suggestion on his part at five sharp that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go and have some tea was not favourably received by the enthusiastic three-quarter, who proposed to devote what time remained before lockup to practising drop-kicking. It was a painful alternative that faced McTodd. His allegiance to Barry demanded that he should consent to the scheme. On the other hand, his allegiance to afternoon tea—equally strong—called
