It was already ten minutes to eight, and the school sergeant, a whiskered veteran, who visited the different class-rooms during early school, with orders from the Head, and summonses for boys who had been reported, had already passed the museum door without coming in, and David’s heart rose. If Glanders had reported him, it was quite certain that the sergeant would have conveyed the summons that he was to go to the Head after chapel, to his class-room, and yet he had passed without delivering it. From time to time these remissions happened. Glanders occasionally forgot to report, even when she had promised it; sometimes even in the act of complaining, the stoniness of her bosom relented. Then, with a sinking of the heart, proportionally greater owing to its premature uplifting, there was a tap on the door, and the sergeant entered, saluting.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” he said to Mr. Dutton, handing him a small slip of blue paper; “but I forgot this as I went by.”

Mr. Dutton glanced at it.

“Blaize to go to the Head after chapel,” he announced, and David thought he detected a faint smile showing the malicious glee of a fellow-sufferer.

Chapel, usually tedious, was not long enough that morning, and the psalms, the lesson, the hymns, and the prayers passed in a flash. Ferrers, as they went out, administered spurious consolation.

“If you stick your hands in cold water,” he said, “it’ll numb them a bit. I remember, last winter, I held mine in the snow for five minutes, and it didn’t sting nearly so much.”

“And there’s such a sight of snow about in July, isn’t there!” said David bitterly.

Ferrers shrugged his shoulders.

“All right, then,” he said, feeling slightly hurt. “And you’ve got your three cuts from Bags, too, haven’t you? I bet Bags lays on.”

A minute afterwards he was in the awful presence. Even as he entered he heard the jingle of keys, and when he advanced to the table, where its occupant was looking vexed, he saw that the fatal middle drawer was already open. That it could have been opened for any other reason did not strike him; he supposed that his case was already judged.

For the moment the Head seemed unaware of his presence, and continued to read the letter that apparently annoyed him.

“Pish!” he said at length, in a dreadful voice, and, looking up, as he tore it in fragments, saw David.

“Ah, Blaize,” he said, “I sent for you – yes, I want you to answer me a question or two.”

This looked as unpromising as possible. The drawer was already open, but it seemed that a “jaw” was coming first. Why couldn’t he cane him and have done with it, thought the dejected David.

The Head rapped the table sharply.

“Question one,” he said. “Is it the case that my daughters have incurred the wrath of the first form?”

David’s head reeled at the thickness of the troubles.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Good. Question two, which you need not answer if any sense of honour forbid you. Why have they deserved this – er disgrace? And why do you join in inflicting it?”

David drew a long breath; there was no sense of honour that would be violated in telling the Head, but to do so was like taking a high header into unknown waters, when it required all the courage you were possessed of to go off a low board into four feet of familiar swimming-bath.

“Please, sir, it’s quite obvious that Car – ”

He had begun with a rush, and the rush had carried him too far.

“Carrots,” said the Head suggestively.

(Lord! how did he know? thought David.)

“Please, sir, we felt sure that Miss Edith had got Ferrers into a row, because she saw him in Richmond week before last,” said David.

“And – and sneaked to me?” suggested the Head.

“Yes, sir, told you.”

“I dare say Miss Edith saw him,” said the Head, “but I haven’t the slightest idea whether she actually did or not. I saw him myself. Miss Edith had nothing to do with it. Kindly tell your friends so.”

“I’ll tell them,” said David. “They’ll be awfully glad, sir.”

“Why?” asked the Head.

Again David dived off the high header-board into dark waters.

“Because nobody wanted to think she was a sneak, sir,” he said. “We always thought she was a good chap – young lady, I mean, sir.”

The Head nodded, and for the next half-minute busied himself with the reports that had come in this morning.

“I think there was something else I wanted to see you about,” he said. “Yes: here it is. You are reported for being in Crabtree’s cubicle before dressing-bell this morning. Any explanation?”

“No, sir,” said David.

“You knew it was against the rules?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Head drew a large and dreaded book towards him, which contained a list of all the boys’ names, and against each the number of times they had been reported for any misconduct during the current term. Next the name of Blaize was that of Bellingham, and, glancing at it hastily, he credited David with Bellingham’s stainless record.

“I see you have not been reported before this term,” he said.

The moment he had spoken he saw his mistake; on the line below was David’s record, showing that lie had been reported twice. But he waited for David’s answer. He had not considered what he should do if David accepted the statement, but he believed, and wanted to prove to himself, that David would not.

A joyful possibility whirled through David’s mind; it was conceivable that previous reports against him had not been entered. And then, not really knowing why, he spoke.

“No, sir, I have been reported before,” he said.

“For the same offence?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Once before?” asked the Head, feeling that his test stood firm.

“No, sir, twice,” said David, squeezing his hands together.

The Head closed the book. He put it in the middle drawer and closed that also.

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” he said. “And now I want you, as a personal favour, to make an effort to keep school-rules. They are made for that purpose. Good-bye, my boy. Ah, you are late for breakfast, so come and have breakfast with me. If you are late for school afterwards, explain to Mr. Dutton.”

David was joyfully late for school, and not only explained briefly then, but categorically afterwards to his form in the interval at half-past ten.

“Sausages,” he said, “and poached eggs and bacon, and sloshy buttered toast and strawberries. Gosh, the Head does himself well. He has breakfast like that every day, I expect. Didn’t I tuck in? Oh, and another thing: Carrots didn’t sneak at all, it was the Head himself who saw Ferrers in Richmond. He told me so.”

“Don’t believe it,” said Ferrers, who had misogynistic tendencies.

“Well then, you’ve got to. The Head never lies, and so Carrots is all right. And the Head’s my pal.”

“Can’t think why he didn’t whack you, though,” said Ferrers. “Perhaps he knew you were going to catch it from Bags. He’s been binding his racquet-handle, too, to get a firm grip.”

This was slightly malicious on Ferrers’s part, but what with special tea last night, and special breakfast this morning, and the recovery of the Monarch, and the remission of a caning, he thought David a little above himself. But even this information about Bags did not appear to depress him, and he cocked his yellow head on one side, like a meditative canary, and half-shut his eyes, as if focussing something.

“Blow it, if I hadn’t forgotten all about Bags,” he said. “Ferrers, there’s something rummy about Bags’s show. Why did Bags not want to take up my challenge, if he knew the Monarch wasn’t in his cubicle? And why didn’t he take a dozen cuts at me? It’s all rot of him to say that he didn’t care about whacking me. Any decent chap’s mouth would water to lick a fellow who had accused him of stealing.”

The two boys had wandered away in this half-hour’s interval between schools to a distant corner of the field below the chestnut-tree. There David lay down flat, and Ferrers flicked the fallen flowers at his face. But he stopped at this.

“You see, I caught him a juicy hack, too, last night,” continued David. “And he’s a revengeful beast in a general way.”

“Perhaps it’s the Day of Atonement or something,” suggested Ferrers.

David sat up.

“No, that can’t be it,” he said. “Else he’d want to make me atone. Hallo, here he comes across the field, racquet-handle and all.”

He suddenly gave a shrill whistle through his broken front tooth.

“I say, will you back me up whatever I say?” he asked. “I’ve thought of something ripping.”

Ferrers peered short-sightedly across the field. He did not often wear his spectacles, since they were supposed to give him a resemblance to Goggles, which was the rise of intolerable comment. So they seldom graced his freckled nose.

“Yes, here he comes,” he said. “I’ll back you up. But, what is it?”

“Oh, you’ll see,” said David.

Bags made a truculent approach, swinging his racquet-handle. He had done all that could humanly be done in the easing of his conscience, and since he had been literally unable to get out of the rôle of executioner with honour, he had wisely determined to dwell on the bright side of it, and hit as hard as he could in the same place.

“I’ll lick you now if you like,” he said brightly.

David turned a cold face on him.

“Thanks, awfully,” he said, “but we settled it for twelve. You see, a good deal may happen before twelve. Ferrers and I were just talking it over. Wasn’t it a pity that Ferrers Minor slept so badly last night?”

This remark seemed slightly to disconcert Bags, but he carried it off with fair success.

“The point?” asked Bags politely, slapping his leg gently with the racquet-handle.

“Oh, thought you might see it,” said David. “The point is that he didn’t go to sleep before – when was it, Ferrers?”

“He heard the clock strike one,” said Ferrers, at a venture.

A shade of relief crossed Bags’s face, which the Machiavellian David noticed.

“I still don’t see the point,” said Bags.

David pursued his ripping plan.

“No, you’ve mixed it up, you goat,” he said to Ferrers. “Your minor told me he awoke and heard the clock strike one, and lay awake till dressing-bell. Bang, wide awake, like – like toothache.”

“Sorry, of course it was,” said Ferrers, backing his fellow-conspirator up.

Bags shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away.

“Afraid I can’t see the point,” he said. “So I’ll whack you at twelve, Blazes.”

David lay down again with complete unconcern.

“Right oh,” he said. “But, of course, if you’ve got anything to say about it all, you might be wise to say it yourself, and not let – well, somebody else say it for you. Ferrers Minor hasn’t told anybody yet, except his major and me. Not yet, you know,” he added.

Bags appeared to take no notice of this, unless he strolled away rather more deliberately than before. Then David turned quickly to Ferrers and whispered in his ear.

“Go and find your minor,” he said, “and don’t let Bags talk to him. I’m going to stop here. I shouldn’t wonder if Bags came back.”

“But what on earth is it all about?” asked Ferrers.

David’s eyes sparkled with devilish intrigue.

“Can’t explain now,” he said. “Just go and stick on to your minor, and don’t let Bags question him. There’s something up.”

Ferrers obeyed the bidding of the master-mind, and by a rapid flank march got in front of Bags, who called to him. But he took no notice, and presently David saw him lead off his minor like a policeman. At that his habitually seraphic face grew a shade more angelic, and any one who did not know him must have been surprised that wings did not sprout from his low slim shoulders. The Machiavellian device which he had practised had come to him like an inspiration: if Bags’s conscience was clear, he would not mind a scrap for the wakefulness of young Ferrers, and David was morally (or immorally) sure that Bags’s conscience was not immaculate. He had had something to do with the disappearance of the stag-beetles, though exactly what David had no idea. Then he gave a little cackle of delight, for he saw that Bags had stopped in his indolent stroll with the racquet-handle; then that he turned and was coming back towards him. David lay down at full length and whistled in an absent manner. Without looking, he became aware that Bags was standing close to him.

“I say, Blazes, I want to tell you something,” said that conscious-stricken one at length.

David sat up with an air of great surprise.

“Hallo: that you?” he said. “Tell away then, if it won’t take too long.”

“Well, it’s private. You must swear not to tell any one.”

David shook his head.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” he said.

“Why not?”

David turned on him an indulgent glance.

“Oh, I expect you know,” he said. “It’s partly because I know already what you’re going to tell me, and partly because you’re a swindling, stealing liar, and the sooner other chaps know that the better.”

Bags made a swinging blow in the air with his racquet-handle.

“Well then, I don’t care,” he said. “I’ll give you three of the jolliest cuts you ever had at twelve.”

“Will you? After Ferrers Minor has told his story?” asked David.

“Well, I tried to get out of it,” said the unhappy Bags.

“There was an awful bright moon last night, Crabtree,” said David thoughtfully. “But about what you want to tell me. It might make a difference if you told me voluntarily.”

Bags capitulated.

“Well, then, I took your beastly stag-beetles, and put them back on your bed when you had gone to your bath.”

“Oh, that was the way it was?” said David. “Pretty cute. But then, you see, I was cuter. Ferrers Minor didn’t lie awake a minute, as far as I know. But I saw you had a bad conscience. Can’t think why you didn’t accept my challenge straight off. Why didn’t you?”

He looked at the dejected Bags, and his funny boyish little soul suddenly grew perceptive.

“What’s the row, Bags?” he asked.

Bags sat down on the grass by him.

“I feel perfectly beastly,” he said. “You’re always horrid to me, and – and I like you so awfully. You kicked me fit to kill last night, just because I threw an ink-dart at you. I only did it for a lark, just because I felt fit. And after I had taken your stags I was sorry, and I tried to get out of your challenge, though I knew you would lose it.”

David ceased to sit in the seat of the scornful. Whatever Bags had done (and he really had done a good deal) he had blurted out that “he liked him so awfully.” It was no time to inquire whether he had seen Glanders and not warned him, or to examine further into “the bally show.” What Bags had said in all sincerity took rank over anything Bags might have done. And with that he wiped the whole affair clean off his mind, and held out a rather grubby hand.

“I bet we get on rippingly after this,” he said hopefully.