There was no disguising the defeat. The victory was to Prout, but they grudged it not. If he had broken the rules of the game by calling in the Head, they had had a good run for their money.
The Reverend John sought the earliest opportunity of talking things over. Members of a bachelor Common-room, of a school where masters' studies are designedly dotted among studies and form-rooms, can, if they choose, see a great deal of their charges. Number Five had spent some cautious years in testing the Reverend John. He was emphatically a gentleman. He knocked at a study door before entering; he comported himself as a visitor and not a strayed lictor; he never prosed, and he never carried over into official life the confidences of idle hours. Prout was ever an unmitigated nuisance; King came solely as an avenger of blood; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, seldom forgot his office; but the Reverend John was a guest desired and beloved by Number Five.
Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent briar between his teeth, chin down in three folds on his clerical collar, and blowing like an amiable whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it appeared to them, and specially of that last interview with the Head--in the matter of usury.
"One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good," he said, twinkling and shaking all over; "and, as you say, you were entirely in the right.""Ra-ather, Padre! We could have proved it if he'd let us talk," said Stalky; "but he didn't. The Head's a downy bird.""He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! Well, you worked hard enough for it.""But he's awfully fair. He doesn't lick a chap in the morning an' preach at him in the afternoon," said Beetle.
"He can't; he ain't in Orders, thank goodness," said McTurk. Number Five held the very strongest views on clerical head-masters, and were ever ready to meet their pastor in argument.
"Almost all other schools have clerical Heads," said the Reverend John gently.
"It isn't fair on the chaps," Stalky replied. "Makes 'em sulky. Of course it's different with you, sir. You belong to the school--same as we do. I mean ordinary clergymen.""Well, I am a most ordinary clergyman; and Mr. Hartopp's in Orders, too.""Ye--es, but he took 'em after he came to the Coll. We saw him go up for his exam.
That's all right," said Beetle. "But just think if the Head went and got ordained!""What would happen, Beetle?"
"Oh, the Coll. 'ud go to pieces in a year, sir. There's no doubt o' that.""How d'you know?" The Reverend John was smiling.
"We've been here nearly six years now. There are precious few things about the Coll.
we don't know," Stalky replied. "Why, even you came the term after I did, sir. Iremember your asking our names in form your first lesson. Mr. King, Mr. Prout, and the Head, of course, are the only masters senior to us--in that way.""Yes, we've changed a good deal--in Common-room.""Huh!" said Beetle with a grunt. "They came here, an' they went away to get married.
Jolly good riddance, too!"
"Doesn't our Beetle hold with matrimony?"
"No, Padre; don't make fun of me. I've met chaps in the holidays who've got married house-masters. It's perfectly awful! They have babies and teething and measles and all that sort of thing right bung _in_ the school; and the masters' wives give tea-parties--tea-parties, Padre!--and ask the chaps to breakfast.""That don't matter so much," said Stalky. "But the house-masters let their houses alone, and they leave everything to the prefects. Why, in one school, a chap told me, there were big baize doors and a passage about a mile long between the house and the master's house. They could do just what they pleased.""Satan rebuking sin with a vengeance."
"Oh, larks are right enough; but you know what we mean, Padre. After a bit it gets worse an' worse. Then there's a big bust-up and a row that gets into the papers, and a lot of chaps are expelled, you know.""Always the wrong un's; don't forget that. Have a cup of cocoa, Padre?" said McTurk with the kettle.
"No, thanks; I'm smoking. Always the wrong 'uns? Pro-ceed, my Stalky.""And then"--Stalky warmed to the work--"everybody says, 'Who'd ha' thought it?
Shock-in' boys! Wicked little kids!' It all comes of havin' married house-masters, _I_ think.""A Daniel come to judgment."
"But it does," McTurk interrupted. "I've met chaps in the holidays, an' they've told me the same thing. It looks awfully pretty for one's people to see--a nice separate house with a nice lady in charge, an' all that. But it isn't. It takes the house-masters off their work, and it gives the prefects a heap too much power, an'--an'--it rots up everything. You see, it isn't as if we were just an ordinary school. We take crammers' rejections as well as good little boys like Stalky. We've got to do that to make our name, of course, and we get 'em into Sandhurst somehow or other, don't we?""True, O Turk. Like a book thou talkest, Turkey.""And so we want rather different masters, don't you think so, to other places? We aren't like the rest of the schools.""It leads to all sorts of bullyin', too, a chap told me," said Beetle.
"Well, you _do_ need most of a single man's time, I must say." The Reverend John considered his hosts critically. "But do you never feel that the world--the Common-room--is too much with you sometimes?""Not exactly--in summer, anyhow." Stalky's eye roved contentedly to the window. "Our bounds are pretty big, too, and they leave us to ourselves a good deal.""For example, here am I sitting in your study, very much in your way, eh?""Indeed you aren't, Padre. Sit down. Don't go, sir. You know we're glad whenever you come."There was no doubting the sincerity of the voices. The Reverend John flushed a little with pleasure and refilled his briar.
