"You mustn't talk in that chatty way, Clayton," interrupted Linton. "'Prisoner at the bar's' the right expression to use. Why don't you let somebody else have a look in? You're the rottenest president of a court-martial I ever saw."
"Don't rag, Linton," said Clayton, with an austere frown. "This is serious."
"Glad you told me," said Linton. "Go on."
"Can't you sit down, Linton!" said Stanning.
"I was only waiting for leave. Thanks. You were saying something, Clayton. It sounded pretty average rot, but you'd better unburden your soul."
The president resumed.
"We want to know if you've anything to say—"
"You don't give him a chance," said Linton. "You bag the conversation so."
"—about disgracing the house."
"By getting the Gotford, you know, Sheen," explained Linton. "Clayton thinks that work's a bad habit, and ought to be discouraged."
Clayton glared, and looked at Stanning. He was not equal to the task of tackling Linton himself.
Stanning interposed.
"Don't rot, Linton. We haven't much time as it is."
"Sorry," said Linton.
"You've let the house down awfully," said Clayton.
"Yes?" said Sheen.
Linton took the paper out of his pocket, and smoothed it out.
"Seen the Sporter?" he asked casually. His neighbour grabbed at it.
"I thought it hadn't come," he said.
"Good account of Aldershot," said Linton.
He leaned back in his chair as two or three of the senior day-room collected round the Sportsman.
"Hullo! We won the gym.!"
"Rot! Let's have a look!"
This tremendous announcement quite eclipsed the court-martial as an object of popular interest. The senior day-room surged round the holder of the paper.
"Give us a chance," he protested.
"We can't have. Where is it? Biddle and Smith are simply hopeless. How the dickens can they have got the shield?"
"What a goat you are!" said a voice reproachfully to the possessor of the paper. "Look at this. It says Cheltenham got it. And here we are—seventeenth. Fat lot of shield we've won."
"Then what the deuce does this mean? 'Honours for St Paul's, Harrow, and Wrykyn'."
"Perhaps it refers to the boxing," suggested Linton.
"But we didn't send any one up. Look here. Harrow won the Heavies. St Paul's got the Middles. Hullo!"
"Great Scott!" said the senior day-room.
There was a blank silence. Linton whistled softly to himself.
The gaze of the senior day-room was concentrated on that ridge of purple beneath Sheen's left eye.
Clayton was the first to speak. For some time he had been waiting for sufficient silence to enable him to proceed with his presidential duties. He addressed himself to Sheen.
"Look here, Sheen," he said, "we want to know what you've got to say for yourself. You go disgracing the house—"
The stunned senior day-room were roused to speech.
"Oh, chuck it, Clayton."
"Don't be a fool, Clayton."
"Silly idiot!"
Clayton looked round in pained surprise at this sudden withdrawal of popular support.
"You'd better be polite to Sheen," said Linton; "he won the Light-Weights at Aldershot yesterday."
The silence once more became strained.
"Well," said Sheen, "weren't you going to court-martial me, or something? Clayton, weren't you saying something?"
Clayton started. He had not yet grasped the situation entirely; but he realised dimly that by some miracle Sheen had turned in an instant into a most formidable person.
"Er—no," he said. "No, nothing."
"The thing seems to have fallen through, Sheen," said Linton. "Great pity. Started so well, too. Clayton always makes a mess of things."
"Then I'd just like to say one thing," said Sheen.
Respectful attention from the senior day-room.
"I only want to know why you can't manage things of this sort by yourselves, without dragging in men from other houses."
"Especially men like Stanning," said Linton. "The same thing occurred to me. It's lucky Drummond wasn't here. Remember the last time, you chaps?"
The chaps did. Stanning became an object of critical interest. After all, who was Stanning? What right had he to come and sit on tables in Seymour's and interfere with the affairs of the house?
The allusion to "last time" was lost upon Sheen, but he saw that it had not improved Stanning's position with the spectators.
He opened the door.
"Good bye, Stanning," he said.
"If I hadn't hurt my wrist—" Stanning began.
"Hurt your wrist!" said Sheen. "You got a bad attack of Peteiro. That was what was the matter with you."
"You think that every one's a funk like yourself," said Stanning.
"Pity they aren't," said Linton; "we should do rather well down at Aldershot. And he wasn't such a terror after all, Sheen, was he? You beat him in two and a half rounds, didn't you? Think what Stanning might have done if only he hadn't sprained his poor wrist just in time.
"Look here, Linton—"
"Some are born with sprained wrists," continued the speaker, "some achieve sprained wrists—like Stanning—"
Stanning took a step towards him.
"Don't forget you've a sprained wrist," said Linton.
"Come on, Stanning," said Sheen, who was still holding the door open, "you'll be much more comfortable in your own house. I'll show you out."
"I suppose," said Stanning in the passage, "you think you've scored off me."
"That," said Sheen pleasantly, "is rather the idea. Good bye."
XXIV
BRUCE EXPLAINS
Mr Spence was a master with a great deal of sympathy and a highly developed sense of duty. It was the combination of these two qualities which made it so difficult for him to determine on a suitable course of action in relation to Sheen's out-of-bounds exploits. As a private individual he had nothing but admiration for the sporting way in which Sheen had fought his up-hill fight. He felt that he himself in similar circumstances would have broken any number of school rules. But, as a master, it was his duty, he considered, to report him. If a master ignored a breach of rules in one case, with which he happened to sympathise, he would in common fairness be compelled to overlook a similar breach of rules in other cases, even if he did not sympathise with them. In which event he would be of small use as a master.
On the other hand, Sheen's case was so exceptional that he might very well compromise to a certain extent between the claims of sympathy and those of duty. If he were to go to the headmaster and state baldly that Sheen had been in the habit for the last half-term of visiting an up-river public-house, the headmaster would get an entirely wrong idea of the matter, and suspect all sorts of things which had no existence in fact. When a boy is accused of frequenting a public-house, the head-magisterial mind leaps naturally to Stale Fumes and the Drunken Stagger.
So Mr Spence decided on a compromise. He sent for Sheen, and having congratulated him warmly on his victory in the Light-Weights, proceeded as follows:
"You have given me to understand, Sheen, that you were taught boxing by Bevan?"
"Yes, sir."
"At the 'Blue Boar'?"
"Yes, sir."
"This puts me in a rather difficult position, Sheen. Much as I dislike doing it, I am afraid I shall have to report this matter to the headmaster."
Sheen said he supposed so. He saw Mr Spence's point.
"But I shall not mention the 'Blue Boar'. If I did, the headmaster might get quite the wrong impression. He would not understand all the circumstances. So I shall simply mention that you broke bounds by going up the river. I shall tell him the whole story, you understand, and it's quite possible that you will hear no more of the affair. I'm sure I hope so. But you understand my position?"