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.
Chapter IV
David was swaggering about—neither more nor less—in the new school blazer and eleven-cap on the morning of the cricket-match against Eagles School, which was the great event of the