Mr. Dutton had just come out of meat-tea with the other masters, and was feeling autocratic. He called David in a peremptory and abrupt manner.
“Come here, Blaize,” he said.
Now Mr. Dutton was not at all a nice young man, and his unpopularity in the school was perfectly justified. He had favourites, usually pink, pretty little boys, whose misdoings he treated with leniency, while those who were not distinguished with his regard he visited with the hundred petty tyrannies which his mastership gave him the opportunity of exercising. He also had an effective trick of sarcastic speech which is an unfair weapon to employ to those who are not in a position to answer back. And of all those under his charge there was none whom he so cordially disliked as David, who returned the aversion with uncommon heartiness. Mr. Dutton was often not quite sure whether David, under a polite demeanour, was not “cheeking” him (though he need not have had any doubt whatever on the matter), and he was also aware that all the impositions which he set the boy did not make him in the least an object of reverence. However, in a small way, he could make himself burdensome.
“It’s after lock-up, Blaize,” he said. “What are you doing out?”
“Only walking about, sir,” said David.
“Did you know it was after lock-up?”
David looked guilty and shifted from one foot to another.
“Ye-es, sir,” he said.
“Then you will write out two hundred lines of the fourth ‘Æneid’ and bring them to me on Monday evening. I suppose you thought that your heroic performance to-day, that splendid innings of yours which came to an end a little prematurely, perhaps, and the wonderful catch you so nearly held, entitled you to place yourself above school-rules.”
This was excellent Duttonese, cutting and insulting, and impossible to answer without risk of further penalties for insolence. For the moment David’s face went crimson with anger, and Mr. Dutton rejoiced in his mean heart, and proceeded to pile up irony. He had forgotten the pipe in his pocket, the smoke of which curled thinly up. But David had not forgotten it, nor did he fail to see that the Head was coming up across the field towards them with his swift, rocking motion, and a vengeance of a singularly pleasant kind suggested itself to him. Had not Dubs made himself so gratuitously offensive, he would not have dreamed of taking it; if he had even only stopped there, he might not have done so. But the disgusting Dubs, intoxicated with his own eloquence, and rejoicing to see David writhing under it, did not stop.
“It was a grand day for you, was it not?” proceeded this odious man, “with your father to look on, and call out ‘Well played, Blaize’—I beg your pardon, ‘Well played, David.’ And to finish with being late for lock-up is a fine achievement.”
The Head was close to them now, coming up silently, on the grass behind Mr. Dutton. At a few yards distance he joined in the colloquy.
“What is all this? What is all this?” he inquired.
Mr. Dutton turned.
“Blaize is late for lock-up,” he said. “I have just set him two hundred lines.”
“Well, Blaize?” said the Head.
David shook off the guilty slouch, and stood erect and confident.
“Please, sir, I was walking with my father,” he said. “Mr. Dutton didn’t ask me to explain, as he went on about my being out first ball and missing that catch.”
“You have only just left your father?” asked the Head.
“Yes, sir, two minutes ago.”
The Head nodded.
“We will remit that imposition,” he observed.
Then David suddenly stared at that which he had been secretly glancing at, namely, the whorl of smoke from Mr. Dutton’s pocket.
“Please, sir, you’re burning,” he said, anxiously pointing at it. “Something is burning in your pocket.”
The Head transferred his awful eye to Mr. Dutton, and sniffed with his omniscient nose.
“You may go, Blaize,” he said. “Well, Mr. Dutton?”
David scuttled off.
“Scored off, you cad,” he said to himself, still hot with indignation at these insults.
But, as David had expected, there were far worse things to be faced than the sarcasms of Mr. Dutton. Since the conclusion of the match, David’s performances, heavily handicapped by those of his father, had been subjected to serious debate, and had been found to be wholly unsatisfactory. It was true that he had captured a quantity of Eagles’ wickets at small cost, but with the match in his hands, literally in his hands, he had let it go. Taking his record as a whole, therefore, his futile innings being also brought under scrutiny, it was fair to make unkind allusions to his father. There were dissentients from the general view, the chief of whom was Bags, who said hotly that it was a “chouse” to rag Blazes, considering that if it hadn’t been for him Eagles would probably have won by eight wickets instead of one, for who stood the slightest chance of getting out the fellow whose father had made fifty for England, even weighted as he was with salad of many lobsters? But this view was that of a small minority, and an untrustworthy sort of hush settled down on the first-form class-room as David entered with simulated composure. No master was in charge during this hour of preparation on Saturday evening, and though every boy had to sit at his desk, talking was allowed. Sometimes a sort of patrol-master visited them, and occasionally, for a pleasant surprise, the Head came round, the knowledge of which possibility checked any exuberance; but, provided that no row was made, there was nothing to be feared.
So there was an uncomfortable silence when David entered, the sarcastic intention of which was not lost on him, for there was no mistaking the chilliness of his reception. Bags, it is true, greeted him with a “Hullo, Blazes,” but otherwise nothing was said. Then trouble gently began to accumulate, like the quiet piling up of thunder-clouds, with Old Testament allusions.
“I say, Jesse must have been a fine old chap,” said somebody. “He had such lots of sons.”
“Oh, did he?” asked somebody else politely. “How many?”
“ ’Bout ten. But the elder ones didn’t seem to matter much.”
There was a dead silence, and David gathered himself up within himself. Then conversation began again, with rustling of the leaves of Bibles, to refresh memories.
“I suppose Jesse was a Jew.”
“Oh, rather. That’s why Bags is so keen about his kids. I say, it’s sausages to-morrow, isn’t it?”
“Yes; Bags and Jesse and the kids won’t have any breakfast. Bad luck.”
David looked up, and caught Bags’s mild eye, which was gleaming with sympathetic martyrdom. Then the attack became more direct.
“I say, Da—I mean, Blazes—I hope you had a good blow-out to-night.”
David had got a certain fighting-light in his eye, which Bags altogether lacked. He replied briskly:
“Yes, thanks,” he said. “But why?”
“Oh, I didn’t know. As there are sausages for breakfast——” and a subdued giggle went round.
David opened