The Cock-House at Fellsgarth Part 17

Whereupon Fisher major entered the room.

"Yorke wants D'Arcy, Ashby, and my minor. Come at once, he's waiting."

"Don't he want me?" said Wally, evidently afraid lest his services were going to be overlooked. "I was in it too, you know, Fisher."

"Were you? Oh, you'd better come too, then."

"Thanks."

And the four, disposing themselves meekly for their coming honours, followed, single file, into the captain's room.

"Wally wished to come too," explained Fisher. "He says he was in it."

It perplexed the four heroes to see Dangle there. What did he want!

And why did the captain look so stern? And, oh, horrors, what was that switch on the table for?

Gradually it dawned upon them that the honours in store for them would fall rather thicker than they were prepared for; and Wally, for one, wished he had stayed at home.

"You youngsters," said the captain, "it is said that you four behaved unfairly last election, by keeping out five boys from voting. Is that true?"

"Yes," said Ashby.

"They were only Modern kids," explained D'Arcy.

"They wouldn't have got in for the second vote, if it hadn't been for me," remarked Wally.

"I didn't catch any boys; I couldn't find any," said Fisher minor.

"You see, Yorke," said D'Arcy, who began to realise that he was "boss of this show," "these two kids are new kids; they oughtn't to be licked; it's Wally and me."

"Me?" exclaimed the injured Wally; "I like your style, young D'Arcy; what did _I_ do?"

"All right, it's me then, if you like!"

"I don't mind being in it, to give you a leg-up," said Wally, touched by the heroism of his friend, "but you might let a chap bowl himself out, you know. All right, Yorke, it was me and D'Arcy."

"You should say _I_ and D'Arcy," said Ranger. "What, were _you_ in it?

Good old--"

"No, you young a.s.s; it's bad grammar to say _me_ and D'Arcy were in it."

"I never knew you were. It's the first we've heard of it; isn't it, you chaps?"

The chaps most emphatically agreed that it was.

"Let them be, Ranger," said the captain. "There'll be time enough for a grammar lesson after."

"Can't do it to-day, we've got syntax this afternoon," said D'Arcy.

"Now, you youngsters, look here," said the captain. "You may think you're very clever; but this sort of thing is cheating, and cheating is what cads do. We don't want any of it inside Fellsgarth. Dangle, here are the youngsters, and here is the switch; will you lick them, or shall I?"

"I don't want to lick them. Let them off," growled Dangle.

The hopes of the culprits rose for a moment, but they went down below zero when Yorke picked up the cane.

"Wheatfield, come here."

Wally held out his case-hardened hand and received half a dozen cuts, for which it is saying a good deal that they made the recipient dance.

D'Arcy followed, and received his six with meek indifference. If he had come first, he would probably have danced. But as Wally had done that, he stood firm.

Ashby received three cuts only, which astonished him dreadfully. It was his first acquaintance with the cane. He had never realised before what a venomous instrument it can be. Still, he bore it like a man.

Poor Fisher minor had a similar experience. With his brother looking on, and his messmates to watch how he bore it, he pa.s.sed through the ordeal creditably. His three "Ohs" varied in cadence from anguish to surprise, and from surprise to mild expostulation, "Oh!" "Ehee!" "Ow!"

after which he felt very pleased, on his brother's account, that he had not shed tears.

"Now cut," said the captain, "and if you're bowled out in that sort of thing again, you won't be let off so easy."

"Yorke's a beast," said Wally, when the shattered forces mastered once more in his study, "but he's a just beast. He gave it us all hot alike."

No one disputed the proposition.

"I thought he'd let you new kids off, but he didn't. It's just as well.

It'll do you good, and make you sit up."

"Jolly sell for that cad Dangle," said D'Arcy. "He thought Yorke was going to shirk it."

"He can't say that now," said Ashby, rubbing the palm of his hand up and down his thigh.

Dangle, meanwhile, had returned to his quarters with the unsatisfactory report of his mission.

"Bother them!" said Clapperton. "They take advantage of us whenever there's a chance. Now they've offered a new election, and licked the youngsters, the wind is out of our sails."

"When it comes to the time, I shall decline to be nominated," said Brinkman.

"That won't be much good. You'll get some of our fellows voting for you whether you stand or not. And if some vote, all must."

"We shall have to see all our men turn up," said Dangle. "It was a tight enough shave for the secretaryship."

"Yes. If we don't carry it now, we'd much better have left it alone. I only wish we had."

"There's this to be said," said Dangle, anxious to make the best of his mistake; "if we do get three officers to their one, there should be no doubt about our getting properly represented in the fifteen next week."

"Ah--yes; we've still that bone to pick with them."

As the Friday approached, signs of excitement in the coming conquest were plainly visible. By tacit agreement the return match between Percy's adherents and Wally's was postponed till after the election.

Absentees at the last election were diligently looked up by their respective prefects, and ordered to be in attendance. Minute calculations were made by the knowing ones, which decided within one or two what Brinkman's majority would be. Even in Wakefield's it was admitted that the Cla.s.sic chance was a slender one.