PAGE 3
The Guardian
by
Thomas looked up.
“What the dickens are you going with my book? Pass it back!”
“Oh, is this yours?” said Thomas. “Here you are.”
He walked towards him, carrying the book. At two yards range he fired it in. It hit Burge with some force in the waistcoat, and there was a pause while he collected his wind.
Then the thing may be said to have begun.
Yes, said Burge, interrogated on the point five minutes later, he had had enough.
“Good,” said Thomas pleasantly. “Want a handkerchief?”
That evening he wrote to his mother and, thanking her for kind inquiries, stated that he was not being bullied. He added, also in answer to inquiries, that he had not been tossed in a blanket, and that–so far–no Hulking Senior (with scowl) had let him down from the dormitory window after midnight by a sheet, in order that he might procure gin from the local public-house. As far as he could gather, the seniors were mostly teetotallers. Yes, he had seen Spencer several times. He did not add that he had seen him from a distance.
* * * * *
“I’m so glad I asked Mrs. Davy to get her nephew to look after Tom,” said Mrs. Shearne, concluding the reading of the epistle at breakfast. “It makes such a difference to a new boy having somebody to protect him at first.”
“Only drawback is,” said his eldest brother gloomily–“won’t get cheek knocked out of him. Tom’s kid wh’ought get’sheadsmacked reg’ly. Be no holding him.”
And he helped himself to marmalade, of which delicacy his mouth was full, with a sort of magnificent despondency.
By the end of the first fortnight of his school career, Thomas Beauchamp Algernon had overcome all the little ruggednesses which relieve the path of the new boy from monotony. He had been taken in by a primaeval “sell” which the junior day-room invariably sprang on the new-comer. But as he had sat on the head of the engineer of the same for the space of ten minutes, despite the latter’s complaints of pain and forecasts of what he would do when he got up, the laugh had not been completely against him. He had received the honourable distinction of extra lesson for ragging in French. He had been “touched up” by the prefect of his dormitory for creating a disturbance in the small hours. In fact, he had gone through all the usual preliminaries, and become a full-blown Eckletonian.
His letters home were so cheerful at this point that a second postal order relieved the dwindling fortune of Spencer. And it was this, coupled with the remonstrances of Phipps, that induced the Dencroftian to break through his icy reserve.
“Look here, Spencer,” said Phipps, his conscience thoroughly stirred by this second windfall, “it’s all rot. You must either send back that postal order, or go and see the chap. Besides, he’s quite a decent kid. We’re in the same game at cricket. He’s rather a good bowler. I’m getting to know him quite well. I’ve got a jolly sight more right to those postal orders than you have.”
“But he’s an awful ass to look at,” pleaded Spencer.
“What’s wrong with him? Doesn’t look nearly such a goat as you,” said Phipps, with the refreshing directness of youth.
“He’s got yellow hair,” argued Spencer.
“Why shouldn’t he have?”
“He looks like a sort of young Sunday-school kid.”
“Well, he jolly well isn’t, then, because I happen to know that he’s had scraps with some of the fellows in his house, and simply mopped them.”
“Well, all right, then,” said Spencer reluctantly.
The historic meeting took place outside the school shop at the quarter to eleven interval next morning. Thomas was leaning against the wall, eating a bun. Spencer approached him with half a jam sandwich in his hand. There was an awkward pause.