“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