The Gold Bat Part 3

"And what did you do till half-past seven?"

"We couldn't get back the way we'd come, so we slept in the boat-house."

"Well--I'm--hanged," was Trevor's comment on the story.

Clowes roared with laughter. O'Hara was a perpetual joy to him.

As O'Hara was going, Trevor asked him for his gold bat.

"You haven't lost it, I hope?" he said.

O'Hara felt in his pocket, but brought his hand out at once and transferred it to another pocket. A look of anxiety came over his face, and was reflected in Trevor's.

"I could have sworn it was in that pocket," he said.

"You _haven't_ lost it?" queried Trevor again.

"He has," said Clowes, confidently. "If you want to know where that bat is, I should say you'd find it somewhere between the baths and the statue. At the foot of the statue, for choice. It seems to me--correct me if I am wrong--that you have been and gone and done it, me broth av a bhoy."

O'Hara gave up the search.

"It's gone," he said. "Man, I'm most awfully sorry. I'd sooner have lost a ten-pound note."

"I don't see why you should lose either," snapped Trevor. "Why the blazes can't you be more careful."

O'Hara was too penitent for words. Clowes took it on himself to point out the bright side.

"There's nothing to get sick about, really," he said. "If the thing doesn't turn up, though it probably will, you'll simply have to tell the Old Man that it's lost. He'll have another made. You won't be asked for it till just before Sports Day either, so you will have plenty of time to find it."

The challenge cups, and also the bats, had to be given to the authorities before the sports, to be formally presented on Sports Day.

"Oh, I suppose it'll be all right," said Trevor, "but I hope it won't be found anywhere near the statue."

O'Hara said he hoped so too.

IV

THE LEAGUE'S WARNING

The team to play in any match was always put upon the notice-board at the foot of the stairs in the senior block a day before the date of the fixture. Both first and second fifteens had matches on the Thursday of this week. The second were playing a team brought down by an old Wrykinian. The first had a scratch game.

When Barry, accompanied by M'Todd, who shared his study at Seymour's and rarely left him for two minutes on end, pa.s.sed by the notice-board at the quarter to eleven interval, it was to the second fifteen list that he turned his attention. Now that Bryce had left, he thought he might have a chance of getting into the second. His only real rival, he considered, was Crawford, of the School House, who was the other wing three-quarter of the third fifteen. The first name he saw on the list was Crawford's. It seemed to be written twice as large as any of the others, and his own was nowhere to be seen. The fact that he had half expected the calamity made things no better. He had set his heart on playing for the second this term.

Then suddenly he noticed a remarkable phenomenon. The other wing three-quarter was Rand-Brown. If Rand-Brown was playing for the second, who was playing for the first?

He looked at the list.

"_Come_ on," he said hastily to M'Todd. He wanted to get away somewhere where his agitated condition would not be noticed. He felt quite faint at the shock of seeing his name on the list of the first fifteen. There it was, however, as large as life. "M. Barry." Separated from the rest by a thin red line, but still there. In his most optimistic moments he had never dreamed of this. M'Todd was reading slowly through the list of the second. He did everything slowly, except eating.

"Come on," said Barry again.

M'Todd had, after much deliberation, arrived at a profound truth. He turned to Barry, and imparted his discovery to him in the weighty manner of one who realises the importance of his words.

"Look here," he said, "your name's not down here."

"I know. _Come_ on."

"But that means you're not playing for the second."

"Of course it does. Well, if you aren't coming, I'm off."

"But, look here----"

Barry disappeared through the door. After a moment's pause, M'Todd followed him. He came up with him on the senior gravel.

"What's up?" he inquired.

"Nothing," said Barry.

"Are you sick about not playing for the second?"

"No."

"You are, really. Come and have a bun."

In the philosophy of M'Todd it was indeed a deep-rooted sorrow that could not be cured by the internal application of a new, hot bun. It had never failed in his own case.

"Bun!" Barry was quite shocked at the suggestion. "I can't afford to get myself out of condition with beastly buns."

"But if you aren't playing----"

"You a.s.s. I'm playing for the first. Now, do you see?"

M'Todd gaped. His mind never worked very rapidly. "What about Rand-Brown, then?" he said.

"Rand-Brown's been chucked out. Can't you understand? You _are_ an idiot. Rand-Brown's playing for the second, and I'm playing for the first."

"But you're----"

He stopped. He had been going to point out that Barry's tender years--he was only sixteen--and smallness would make it impossible for him to play with success for the first fifteen. He refrained owing to a conviction that the remark would not be wholly judicious. Barry was touchy on the subject of his size, and M'Todd had suffered before now for commenting on it in a disparaging spirit.

"I tell you what we'll do after school," said Barry, "we'll have some running and pa.s.sing. It'll do you a lot of good, and I want to practise taking pa.s.ses at full speed. You can trot along at your ordinary pace, and I'll sprint up from behind."

M'Todd saw no objection to that. Trotting along at his ordinary pace--five miles an hour--would just suit him.