Neither Reece nor Marriott had arrived at the moment. Both were in the habit of returning at the latest possible hour, except at the beginning of the summer term. The Bishop determined to reserve his story until the following evening.
Accordingly, when the study kettle was hissing on the Etna, and Wilson was crouching in front of the fire, making toast in his own inimitable style, he embarked upon his narrative.
“I say, Marriott.”
“Hullo.”
“Do you notice a subtle change in me this term? Does my expressive purple eye gleam more brightly than of yore? It does. Exactly so. I feel awfully bucked up. You know that kid Farnie has left?”
“I thought I missed his merry prattle. What’s happened to him?”
“Gone to a school in France somewhere.”
“Jolly for France.”
“Awfully. But the point is that now he’s gone I can tell you about that M.C.C. match affair. I know you want to hear what really did happen that afternoon.”
Marriott pointed significantly at Wilson, whose back was turned.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Gethryn. “Wilson.”
“Yes?”
“You mustn’t listen. Try and think you’re a piece of furniture. See? And if you do happen to overhear anything, you needn’t go gassing about it. Follow?”
“All right,” said Wilson, and Gethryn told his tale.
“Jove,” he said, as he finished, “that’s a relief. It’s something to have got that off my chest. I do bar keeping a secret.”
“But, I say,” said Marriott.
“Well?”
“Well, it was beastly good of you to do it, and that sort of thing, I suppose. I see that all right. But, my dear man, what a rotten thing to do. A kid like that. A little beast who simply cried out for sacking.”
“Well, at any rate, it’s over now. You needn’t jump on me. I acted from the best motives. That’s what my grandfather, Farnie’s pater, you know, always used to say when he got at me for anything in the happy days of my childhood. Don’t sit there looking like a beastly churchwarden, you ass. Buck up, and take an intelligent interest in things.”
“No, but really, Bishop,” said Marriott, “you must treat this seriously. You’ll have to let the other chaps know about it.”
“How? Put it up on the notice-board? This is to certify that Mr. Allan Gethryn, of Leicester’s House, Beckford, is dismissed without a stain on his character. You ass, how can I let them know? I seem to see myself doing the boy-hero style of things. My friends, you wronged me, you wronged me very grievously. But I forgive you. I put up with your cruel scorn. I endured it. I steeled myself against it. And now I forgive you profusely, every one of you. Let us embrace. It wouldn’t do. You must see that much. Don’t be a goat. Is that toast done yet, Wilson?”
Wilson exhibited several pounds of the article in question.
“Good,” said the Bishop. “You’re a great man, Wilson. You can make a small selection of those biscuits, and if you bag all the sugar ones I’ll slay you, and then you can go quietly downstairs, and rejoin your sorrowing friends. And don’t you go telling them what I’ve been saying.”
“Rather not,” said Wilson.
He made his small selection, and retired. The Bishop turned to Marriott again.
“I shall tell Reece, because he deserves it, and I rather think I shall tell Gosling and Pringle. Nobody else, though. What’s the good of it? Everybody’ll forget the whole thing by next season.”
“How about Norris?” asked Marriott.
“Now there you have touched the spot. I can’t possibly tell Norris myself. My natural pride is too enormous. Descended from a primordial atomic globule, you know, like Pooh Bah. And I shook hands with a duke once. The man Norris and I, I regret to say, had something of a row on the subject last term. We parted with mutual expressions of hate, and haven’t spoken since. What I should like would be for somebody else to tell him all about it. Not you. It would look too much like a put-up job. So don’t you go saying anything. Swear.”
“Why not?”
“Because you mustn’t. Swear. Let me hear you swear by the bones of your ancestors.”
“All right. I call it awful rot, though.”
“Can’t be helped. Painful but necessary. Now I’m going to tell Reece, though I don’t expect he’ll remember anything about it. Reece never remembers anything beyond his last meal.”
“Idiot,” said Marriott after him as the door closed. “I don’t know, though,” he added to himself.
And, pouring himself out another cup of tea, he pondered deeply over the matter.
Reece heard the news without emotion.
“You’re a good sort, Bishop,” he said, “I knew something of the kind must have happened. It reminds me of a thing that happened to—”
“Yes, it is rather like it, isn’t it?” said the Bishop. “By the way, talking about stories, a chap I met in the holidays told me a ripper. You see, this chap and his brother—”
He discoursed fluently for some twenty minutes. Reece sighed softly, but made no attempt to resume his broken narrative. He was used to this sort of thing.
It was a fortnight later, and Marriott and the Bishop were once more seated in their study waiting for Wilson to get tea ready. Wilson made toast in the foreground. Marriott was in football clothes, rubbing his shin gently where somebody had kicked it in the scratch game that afternoon. After rubbing for a few moments in silence, he spoke suddenly.
“You must tell Norris,” he said. “It’s all rot.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I shall.”
“No, don’t. You swore you wouldn’t.”
“Well, but look here. I just want to ask you one question. What sort of a time did you have in that scratch game tonight?”
“Beastly. I touched the ball exactly four times. If I
