“Can’t read any more,” he said. “But anyhow one day, long before the cathedral was built, Publius Aelius set that up, because the gods had been good to him. What a lot of jolly things there are! And some fellows go mooning along never looking at anything.”
“I’m afraid you mean me,” suggested David modestly.
Maddox looked up at him over his shoulder.
“Well, I don’t,” he said. “And there’s a bit of an arch. Perhaps that came from the temple where P. Aelius put his altar.”
Maddox asked for (and was given) another look at the Keats before he left, and proposed to David that he should walk with him as far as the old palace.
“Best afternoon I’ve spent for ages,” said the Idol, as they parted. “I wish I wasn’t going away to-morrow, or I should ask to be allowed to come again. Anyhow, we meet at Adams’s in September.”
A haunting doubt had been present in David’s mind at intervals all that heavenly afternoon. Now it had to find expression.
“I say, I hope it hasn’t been awful cheek of me to have asked you to have tea, and all that?” he said.
“I can stand lots of that sort of cheek,” said the other.
Chapter VIII
It was the afternoon of such a November day as the pessimistic call typical: a cold, south-westerly gale drove streaming flocks of huddled cloud across the sky, like some fierce and boisterous shepherd, and the whole of the great court at Marchester stood ankle-deep in gravelly pools of wind-flecked, rain-beaten water. The gale had stripped bare of their few remaining leaves the avenue of lime-trees which ran between the gate and the in-boarders’ house at the far end of the court, and to-day they stood, stark pyramids of dripping branches and twigs, that whistled as the wind hissed through them. Though the day was Saturday, and in consequence a half-holiday, there were but few signs of outdoor animation, for the conditions of the weather were sufficiently diabolical to tinge with some touch of respect the contempt in which healthy boys hold the vagaries of climate. One occasionally, with collar turned up, fled splashing across the court from one house to another, or now and then a small company of drenched enthusiasts would trot in, in dripping shorts and sweaters, from their training run along the London Road, or a couple of figures, with racquets protected under their coats, would dash across from the racquet-court. But football had been officially announced to be “off,” since the field was neither more nor less than a morass, and without doubt the most comfortable conditions of life were to-day to be obtained in front of a fire with a novel to read, or, under stress of necessity, arrears of work to be overhauled and demolished.
There was, however, in one of the open five-courts near the porter’s lodge a notable exception to this indoor tendency. There two boys, capless and streaming with water, were absorbingly engaged in playing squash, a most apt occupation, since they and the earth and the sky generally seemed to be in a condition of squash. Even in the drier parts of the court the ball, as it bounced, sent up a squirt of water; at other times it pitched in more definite puddles, and so did not bounce at all. But the two, David and Bags, were quite undeterred by such small drawbacks, and David talked without the least intermission.
“Six all,” he said; “and, as I gave you six, I’ve caught you up before you’ve scored. Have some more points, won’t you? Very well, if you’re proud, you needn’t, but if I played squash at all like you, I should be damned humble. O Bags, you ass, I don’t believe you’ll ever be the slightest good. Why can’t you hit the ball with the middle of your racquet for a change? There, look at that: exactly one-eighth of an inch above the line. I like them like that. Seven, six. Oh, good shot, jolly well got up, but observe! You can’t get that, so what’s the use of throwing yourself against the wall? Eight, six . . . oh, damn! Puts you in: six, eight. . . . I’ll give you two hands if you like. Oh, you’ll take that, will you? . . . one hand out then. . . . Oh, do get on: run, can’t you? it’s raining. There; suck it! You expected it the other side of the court, and that’s exactly why I didn’t send it there. Puts me in. . . . I’ll play you for sixpence if you like, next game, and give you eight and two hands. . . . No? Prudent fellow. I wish the rain wouldn’t get into my eyes, though it’s sweat as well, I expect. Lord, I am hot! Isn’t it ripping?”
David paused a moment both from talk and athletics, a truce gladly accepted by the panting Bags, and pushed his dripping hair out of his eyes. He was a completely dishevelled and yet a very jolly object, and was quite altogether wet, his knickerbockers clinging like tights to his thighs, the skin of which showed pink through them, while the water trickled steadily down his bare calves into the dejected socks that lay limply round the tops of his shoes. They and his legs were stained with splashes of watery gravel, his shirt, open at the neck and slightly torn across the shoulder, lay like a wet bag glued to his back, and his hair was a mere yellow plaster from which the water could have been wrung in pints. Bags was in similar plight, except that he wore a thick woollen jersey over his shirt, which gave him a slightly less drowned aspect.
The game, and with it David’s running comments, were resumed after a minute or two, and neither of the two saw a figure with trousers much turned up and a large golfing umbrella who had paused on his way to the gate, just behind them.
“Yes, I’m going to play racquets for the school some time next century,” David was saying, “and squash is jolly good practice. Nine, six: that’s rather a sell, Bags! Oh, I say, look at that for a half-volley. Just a shade Maddoxy, I don’t think.”
The half-volley in question, that clung close to the left wall of the court, finished the rally, and David turned to run to pick it up, and found that Maddox was the spectator.
“David, you juggins, why haven’t you got a sweater on?” asked he.
“Hullo!” said David. “Oh, because I couldn’t find mine. Some brute’s collared it, I suppose.”
“Well, by rights you ought to get pneumonia, and be prayed for in chapel, and die in spite of it.”
David pushed back his hair again and laughed.
“Thanks awfully, but otherwise engaged,” he said.
“Are you going up to house after you’ve finished being drowned?” asked Maddox.
“No, I was going to have tea with a fellow in college,” said David. “But I’m rather wet, I’m afraid.”
“You’ll go up to house and change first, do you see?” said Maddox. “And you might bring up a parcel there will be for me at the lodge. Hasn’t come yet, but it’ll come any minute.”
“Right,” said David.
The game was resumed, but Maddox still lingered. Both boys played with redoubled keenness before so honourable a spectator, but David’s artless and incessant conversation was felt by him to be unsuitable. Maddox watched in silence for a minute.
“No, let the ball drop more,” he said, Bags having made an egregiously futile return. “Don’t take an easy ball like that till it’s quite low. David, you play with your whole arm like a windmill, whereas you only want your wrist. Just keep flicking it: look here.”
Maddox gave David the large umbrella to hold and, taking his racquet, knocked up down the left-hand wall of the court, sending each ball parallel and close to it, with easy accuracy. “Like that more or less,” he said. “Now I’m wet, blast you both.”
He took his umbrella again, reminded David of the parcel, and splashed off across the quadrangle.
Familiarity and closer acquaintance had not in the least made David get over the glory and wonder of Maddox.
“By