Neville-Smith was thoroughly representative of the average Wrykynian.; He could play his part in any minor “rag” which interested him, and probably considered himself, on the whole, a daring sort of person.; But at heart he had an enormous respect for authority.; Before he came to Wyatt, he would not have dreamed of proceeding beyond words in his revolt.; Wyatt acted on him like some drug.
Neville-Smith came upon Wyatt on his way to the nets.; The notice concerning the holiday had only been given out that morning, and he was full of it.; He expressed his opinion of the headmaster freely and in well-chosen words.; He said it was a swindle, that it was all rot, and that it was a beastly shame.; He added that something ought to be done about it.
“What are you going to do?” asked Wyatt.
“Well,” said Neville-Smith a little awkwardly, guiltily conscious that he had been frothing, and scenting sarcasm, “I don’t suppose one can actually do anything.”
“Why not?” said Wyatt.
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you take the holiday?”
“What?; Not turn up on Friday!”
“Yes.; I’m not going to.”
Neville-Smith stopped and stared.; Wyatt was unmoved.
“You’re what?”
“I simply sha’n’t go to school.”
“You’re rotting.”
“All right.”
“No, but, I say, ragging barred.; Are you just going to cut off, though the holiday’s been stopped?”
“That’s the idea.”
“You’ll get sacked.”
“I suppose so.; But only because I shall be the only one to do it.; If the whole school took Friday off, they couldn’t do much.; They couldn’t sack the whole school.”
“By Jove, nor could they!; I say!”
They walked on, Neville-Smith’s mind in a whirl, Wyatt whistling.
“I say,” said Neville-Smith after a pause.; “It would be a bit of a rag.”
“Not bad.”
“Do you think the chaps would do it?”
“If they understood they wouldn’t be alone.”
Another pause.
“Shall I ask some of them?” said Neville-Smith.
“Do.”
“I could get quite a lot, I believe.”
“That would be a start, wouldn’t it?; I could get a couple of dozen from Wain’s.; We should be forty or fifty strong to start with.”
“I say, what a score, wouldn’t it be?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll speak to the chaps to-night, and let you know.”
“All right,” said Wyatt.; “Tell them that I shall be going anyhow.; I should be glad of a little company.”
* * * * *
The school turned in on the Thursday night in a restless, excited way.; There were mysterious whisperings and gigglings.; Groups kept forming in corners apart, to disperse casually and innocently on the approach of some person in authority.
An air of expectancy permeated each of the houses.
CHAPTER X
THE GREAT PICNIC
Morning school at Wrykyn started at nine o’clock.; At that hour there was a call-over in each of the form-rooms.; After call-over the forms proceeded to the Great Hall for prayers.
A strangely desolate feeling was in the air at nine o’clock on the Friday morning.; Sit in the grounds of a public school any afternoon in the summer holidays, and you will get exactly the same sensation of being alone in the world as came to the dozen or so day-boys who bicycled through the gates that morning.; Wrykyn was a boarding-school for the most part, but it had its leaven of day-boys.; The majority of these lived in the town, and walked to school.; A few, however, whose homes were farther away, came on bicycles.; One plutocrat did the journey in a motor-car, rather to the scandal of the authorities, who, though unable to interfere, looked askance when compelled by the warning toot of the horn to skip from road to pavement.; A form-master has the strongest objection to being made to skip like a young ram by a boy to whom he has only the day before given a hundred lines for shuffling his feet in form.
It seemed curious to these cyclists that there should be nobody about.; Punctuality is the politeness of princes, but it was not a leading characteristic of the school; and at three minutes to nine, as a general rule, you might see the gravel in front of the buildings freely dotted with sprinters, trying to get in in time to answer their names.
It was curious that there should be nobody about to-day.; A wave of reform could scarcely have swept through the houses during the night.
And yet—where was everybody?
Time only deepened the mystery.; The form-rooms, like the gravel, were empty.
The cyclists looked at one another in astonishment.; What could it mean?
It was an occasion on which sane people wonder if their brains are not playing them some unaccountable trick.
“I say,” said Willoughby, of the Lower Fifth, to Brown, the only other occupant of the form-room, “the old man did stop the holiday to-day, didn’t he?”
“Just what I was going to ask you,” said Brown.; “It’s jolly rum.; I distinctly remember him giving it out in hall that it was going to be stopped because of the O.W.’s day row.”
“So do I. I can’t make it out.; Where is everybody?”
“They can’t all be late.”
“Somebody would have turned up by now.; Why, it’s just striking.”
“Perhaps he sent another notice round the houses late last night, saying it was on again all right.; I say, what a swindle if he did.; Some one might have let us know.; I should have got up an hour later.”
“So should I.”
“Hullo, here is somebody.”
It was the master of the Lower Fifth, Mr. Spence.; He walked briskly into the room, as was his habit.; Seeing the obvious void, he stopped in his stride, and looked puzzled.
“Willoughby.; Brown.; Are you the only two here?; Where is everybody?”
“Please, sir, we don’t know.; We were just wondering.”
“Have you seen nobody?”
“No, sir.”
“We were just wondering, sir, if the holiday had been put on again, after all.”
“I’ve heard nothing about it.; I should have received some sort of intimation if it had been.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you mean to say that you have seen nobody, Brown?”
“Only about a dozen fellows,