Mates at Billabong Part 9

"Oh, nothing."

"I believe it's your cup," said his sister excitedly. "Do make him show me, Wally!"

"The mug it is!" said Wally, diving in under Jim's nose, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the article in question. "Don't be an a.s.s, Jimmy--d'you expect to keep it always in your boot-bag?"

"Very nice place for it," Jim was understood to mutter.

"Ripping--but you'll want it for your boots. Catch, Norah!"

The big silver cup flew across the room, and was deftly fielded by the lady on the end of the sofa.

"Oh, isn't it a beauty!" she said delightedly. "Jimmy, I'm so proud to know you!"

"You ought to have seen him going up to get it," Wally said. "Lovely sight--he blushed so prettily!"

"Blush be hanged!" said the victim.

"Don't be ashamed, my child; it's a very nice thing to be able to blush," Wally grinned. "No one would ever dream you could, either, so it's a happy surprise as well!"

"There's not a blush about you, that's one thing," said Jim, from the depths of his big box.

"Wore out all my powers that way blushing over you!" was Wally's prompt reply. "Norah, will you use that thing for cocoa, or what?"

"Don't be disrespectful--I'm admiring it," Norah answered, turning the cup round. "Dad will like it awfully."

"Has he shown you his prizes?"

"Prizes!" Norah exclaimed, falling off the arm of the sofa in amazement. "Jim, you horrid boy, you never told us. Show me at once!"

"Never thought about 'em," said the unhappy Jim, un-earthing two resplendent books. "Here you are, anyhow--and Wally needn't talk; he's got three!"

"I'm faint in the presence of so much learning!" Norah said, sitting down on a golf bag. "Who'd ever have suspected you? French and Prefect's Prize--oh, I'm so glad you got that one, Jim, dear." Her quick ear caught a step, and she called her father excitedly.

Mr. Linton entered, to be greeted by incoherent tidings of his son's success, to the meaning of which the two books lent aid.

"That's especially good news, old chap," he said quietly, whereat Jim grinned happily, blushed with fervour, and muttered something entirely inaudible. "The cup, too! that's a beauty, and no mistake!" He looked round the "perfick shambles," and laughed a little. "I don't think they're very safe here," he said. "With your permission, I'll take charge of them." He left the room, carrying the books and the cup with him.

At the door he paused.

"Don't forget Cecil," he said quietly, and was gone.

The trio looked blank.

"Cecil!" said Wally.

"Hang Cecil!" from Jim disgustedly.

"Oh, he's such a bore!" Norah said. "And he'd simply hate to be in here--he wouldn't see any fun in it. I--I really think I've had an overdose of Cecil."

"Poor old kid!" said Jim. "Well, we'll hurry up unpacking and then find him." They dismissed the "bit of a drawback" airily from their minds, and proceeded with the business in hand, hampered slightly by much energetic conversation. Jim's boxes were full of interesting things, the result of his six years at school; his packing, he said, with pained recollection, had been a "corker."

"Lucky I had that extra chest of drawers put in here," remarked Norah, stowing away numerous small articles. "Jim, how many boys gave you knives as farewell gifts?"

"Sorra a one of me knows," said her brother. "I lost count--and lost some of the knives, too. I've an idea Bill Beresford picked up one I dropped--the one Lance Western gave me; it's got a tortoise-sh.e.l.l handle, and a nick out of the big blade--and gave it to me for himself."

"It sounds the sort of economical thing Bill would do," Wally remarked.

"Then there are five magnifying gla.s.ses, seven pencil cases, and six pens," said Norah. "All tokens of affection, Jim? I'll put them in the middle drawer."

"What on earth I'm going to do with 'em all," said their hara.s.sed owner, "I'm sure I don't know. Does any one chap use five magnifiers in his life? Never used one yet! I wish the fellows hadn't been so kind--it was awfully brickish of them, though, wasn't it? And the Doctor gave me this." He held up a large and solemn--looking book.

"What is it?"

"'Self Help,' by a chap named Smiles. Shouldn't have thought there were many smiles about a book looking like that, but it shows you can't tell everything by the cover. And Mrs. Doctor gave me this tie--knitted it herself. It was jolly decent of her, wasn't it? She's always been awfully kind to me," said the big fellow, who had no idea of what "Mrs.

Doctor" thought of his cheerful habit of picking up two or three of her babies and treating them to a wild ride round the school grounds on his back; and who had on one occasion sat up all night with a sick three-year-old who had cried unreasonably for "Yinton" to come and carry him. The boy had recovered, somewhat against expectations, and Jim had thought no more of the matter, except to drop gently and firmly into a gorse bush a fellow who had chaffed him for being a nursemaid.

He had been amazed, and greatly embarra.s.sed, by the tears in little "Mrs. Doctor's" eyes as she bade him good-bye. Nothing on earth would have induced him to mention them.

"If the Doctor ever gives me anything barring the length of his tongue, I'll have apoplexy!" remarked Wally. "We don't twin-soul a bit better than we did. He caught me beautifully the other day. Three or four of us were going to have a supper. I'd been into town to the dentist, and was bringing home a lobster. Coming out, that idiot Bob Greenfield was next me on the train, and he amused himself by rubbing the lobster gently until the thin brown paper they wrap 'em in had worn through in places. I was talking cricket for all I was worth, and never noticed him. I'd bought an evening paper, and given him my lobster to hold while I looked up some scores."

"Yes?" said Norah, happily.

"Well, we came to the school, and off I jumped, and just inside the gate I ran into the Doctor. He was very affable, and we walked up together, and he asked me quite affectionately how I'd got on with the dentist, and altogether he might have been my long lost uncle!

Presently he glanced down at my parcel, and said, 'Been getting a boot mended, Meadows?' I didn't know what to say for a moment. And while I was floundering in my mind the string broke, and down went my parcel with a clatter on the asphalt!"

"Why do I miss these things?" asked Jim, plaintively.

"I wish I'd missed it instead of you!" said his chum. "I picked it up in a hurry, and the paper had burst pretty well all over-and-well, you know, there's no disguising the colour of a lobster! I just held it, and looked a fool, and the Doctor put up his eyegla.s.s and looked it and me all over. Then he said, 'Curious colour for a boot, Meadows'--and I promptly turned the same shade as the lobster."

"Did you get into a row?" Norah asked.

"No; I will say for the old chap that he was a perfect brick," Wally said. "He just grinned, and walked off, remarking that there was no need to push investigations too far. And I fled, and the lobster was tip-top, thank you."

"I don't see why you've any cause to grumble at the Doctor," was Norah's comment.

"That's you, feminine ignorance," returned Wally. "He made me feel small."

"Well, if I get a head mistress as easy-going--" said Norah, dolefully.

"Don't you get the idea into your mind that our revered Head's easy-going!" Wally retorted. "He thinks nothing of skinning a fellow on occasion--only he didn't happen to think a lobster was occasion--that night, anyhow. You see, it was near the end of term, and even Heads get soft!"

"Lots of em," said Jim; "look at your own!" He dodged a hairbrush neatly. "Have a little sense, young Wally; don't you see I'm busy?

Norah, old chap, did you see my blazer?"

"I hung it in your wardrobe," said Norah promptly "Also your overcoat, also your straw hat, also your cadet uniform--what are you going to do with that, by the way, Jim?"

"Get photographed in it," said Wally, wickedly.

"I'm likely to!" Jim said, with fine scorn. "Goodness only knows--I may find some fellow it'll fit. It certainly wouldn't fit me much longer."