The Jester of St. Timothy's Part 5

"I'd have shown you some strategy if you hadn't blundered into us,"

declared Carroll.

"Blundered into you! There was no need for Wes to give us such a poke, anyhow."

Westby replied merely with an irritating chuckle-irritating at least to Irving, who felt that he should be showing more contrition.

Collingwood and Morrill came alongside, both laughing, jeering at Westby and offering polite expressions of solicitude to the master. They told him to lay hold of the tail of their canoe, and then they towed him ash.o.r.e as rapidly as possible. When he drew himself up, dripping, on the bank, Baldersnaith, Dennison, and Smythe were all on the broad grin, and from the water floated the sound of Westby's merriment.

Irving stood for a moment, letting himself drip, quite undecided as to what he should do. He had never been ducked before, with all his clothes on; the clammy, weighted sensation was most unpleasant, the thought of his damaged and perhaps ruined suit was galling, the indignity of his appearance was particularly hard to bear. He felt that Baldersnaith and the others were trying to be as polite and considerate as possible, and yet they could not refrain from exhibiting their amus.e.m.e.nt, their delight.

Scarborough, who had swum ahead of the others, waded ash.o.r.e and looked him over. "I tell you what you'd better do, Mr. Upton," he said. "You'd better take your clothes off, wring them out, and spread them out to dry. They'll dry in this sun and wind. And while they're doing that, you can come in swimming with us."

Irving hesitated a moment; instinct told him that the advice was sensible, yet he shrank from accepting it; he felt that for a master to do what Scarborough suggested would be undignified, and might somehow compromise his position. "I think I'd better run home and rub myself down and put on some dry things," he replied.

"Well," said Scarborough, "just as you say. Sorry I got you into this mess."

"Oh, it's all right," said Irving.

He walked away, with the water trickling uncomfortably down him inside his clothes and swashing juicily in his shoes. He liked Scarborough for the way he had acted, but he felt less kindly towards Westby. He was by no means sure that Westby had not deliberately soused him and then pretended it was an accident. He remembered Westby's mirthful laugh just when the thing was happening; and certainly if it had really been an accident Westby had shown very little concern. He had been indecently amused; he was so still; his clear joyous laugh was ringing after Irving even now, and Irving felt angrily that he was at this moment a ridiculous figure. To be running home drenched!-probably it would have been better if he had done what Scarborough had suggested, less undignified, more manly really. But he couldn't turn back now.

He was cold and his teeth had begun to chatter, so he started to run. He hoped that when he came out of the woods he might be fortunate enough to elude observation on the way to the Upper School, but in this he was disappointed. As he jogged by the Study building, with his clothes jouncing and slapping heavily upon his shoulders, out came the rector and met him face to face.

"Upset canoeing?" asked the rector with a smile.

"Yes," Irving answered; he stood for a moment awkwardly.

"Well, it will happen sometimes," said the rector. "Don't catch cold."

And he pa.s.sed on.

There was some consolation for Irving in this matter-of-fact view. In the rector's eyes apparently his dignity had not suffered by the incident. But when a moment later he pa.s.sed a group of Fourth Formers and they turned and stared at him, grinning, he felt that his dignity had suffered very much. He felt that within a short time his misfortune would be the talk of the school.

At supper it was as he expected it would be. Westby set about airing the story for the benefit of the table, appealing now and then to Irving himself for confirmation of the pa.s.sages which were least gratifying to Irving's vanity. "You _did_ look so woe-begone when you stood up on sh.o.r.e, Mr. Upton," was the genial statement which Irving especially resented. To have Westby tell the boys the first day how he had called the new master a new kid and the second day how he had ducked him was a little too much; it seemed to Irving that Westby was slyly amusing himself by undermining his authority. But the boy's manner was pleasantly ingratiating always; Irving felt baffled. Carroll did not help him much towards an interpretation; Carroll sat by self-contained, quietly intelligent, amused. Irving liked both the boys, and yet as the days pa.s.sed, he seemed to grow more and more uneasy and anxious in their society.

In the cla.s.sroom he was holding his own; he was a good mathematical scholar, he prepared the lessons thoroughly, and he found it generally easy to keep order by a.s.signing problems to be worked out in cla.s.s. The weather continued good, so that during play time the fellows were out of doors instead of loafing round in dormitory. They all had their own little affairs to organize; athletic clubs and literary societies held their first meetings; there was a process of general shaking down; and in the interest and industry occasioned by all this, there was not much opportunity or disposition to make trouble.

But the first Sunday was a bad day. In a boys' school bad weather is apt to be accompanied by bad behavior; on this Sunday it poured. The boys, having put on their best clothes, were obliged, when they went out to chapel, to wear rubbers and to carry umbrellas-an imposition against which they rebelled. After chapel, there was an hour before dinner, and in that hour most of the Sixth Formers sought their rooms-or sought one another's rooms; it seemed to Irving, who was trying to read and who had a headache, that there was a needless amount of rushing up and down the corridors and of slamming of doors. By and by the tumult became uproarious, shouts of laughter and the sound of heavy bodies being flung against walls reached his ears; he emerged then and saw the confusion at the end of the corridor. Allison was suspended two or three feet above the floor, by a rope knotted under his arms; it was the rope that was used for raising trunks up to the loft above. In lowering it from the loft some one had trespa.s.sed on forbidden ground. Westby, Collingwood, Dennison, Scarborough, and half a dozen others were gathered, enjoying Allison's ludicrous struggles. His plight was not painful, only absurd; and Irving himself could not at first keep back a smile. But he came forward and said,-

"Oh, look here, fellows, whoever is responsible for this will have to climb up and release Allison."

Westby turned with his engaging smile.

"Yes, but, Mr. Upton, who do you suppose is responsible? I don't see how we can fix the responsibility, do you?"

"I will undertake to fix it," said Irving. "Westby, suppose you climb that ladder and let Allison down."

"I don't think you're approaching this matter in quite a judicial spirit, Mr. Upton," said Westby. "Of course no man wants to be arbitrary; he wants to be just. It really seems to me, Mr. Upton, that no action should be taken until the matter has been more thoroughly sifted."

The other boys, with the exception of Allison, were chuckling at this glib persuasiveness. Westby stood there, in a calmly respectful, even deferential att.i.tude, as if animated only by a desire to serve the truth.

"We will have no argument about it, Westby," said Irving. "Please climb the ladder at once and release Allison."

"I beg of you, Mr. Upton," said Westby in a tone of distress, "don't, please don't, confuse argument with impartial inquiry; nothing is more distasteful to me than argument. I merely ask for investigation; I court it in your own interest as well as mine."

Irving grew rigid. His head was throbbing painfully; the continued snickering all round him and Westby's increasing confidence and fluency grated on his nerves. He drew out his watch.

"I will give you one minute in which to climb that ladder," he said.

"Mr. Upton, you wish to be a just man," pleaded Westby. "Even though you have the great weight of authority-and years"-Westby choked a laugh-"behind you, don't do an unjust and arbitrary thing. Allison himself wouldn't have you-would you, Allison?"

The victim grinned uncomfortably.

"Mr. Upton," urged Westby, "you wouldn't have me soil these hands?" He displayed his laudably clean, pink fingers. "Of course, if I go up there I shall get my hands all dirty-and equally of course if I had been up there, they would be all dirty now. Surely you believe in the value of circ.u.mstantial evidence; therefore, before we fix the responsibility, let us search for the dirty pair of hands."

"Time is up," said Irving, closing his watch.

"But what is time when justice trembles in the balance?" argued Westby.

"When the innocent is in danger of being punished for the guilty, when-"

"Westby, please climb that ladder at once."

"So young and so inexorable!" murmured Westby, setting his foot upon the ladder.

Irving's face was red; the t.i.ttering of the audience was making him angry. He held his eyes on Westby, who made a slow, grunting progress up three rungs and then stopped.

"Mr. Upton, Mr. Upton, sir!" Westby's voice was ingratiating. "Mayn't Allison sing for us, sir?"

Allison grinned again foolishly and sent a sprawling foot out towards his persecutor; the others laughed.

"Keep on climbing," said Irving.

Westby resumed his toilsome way, and as he moved he kept murmuring remarks to Allison, to the others, to Irving himself, half audible, rapid, in an aggrieved tone.

"Don't see why you want to be conspicuous this way, Allison.-Won't sing-amuse anybody-ornamental, I suppose-good timekeeper though-almost hear you tick. Mr. Upton-setting watch by you now-awfully severe kind of man-"

So mumbling, with the responsive t.i.tter still continuing below and Irving standing there stern and red, Westby disappeared into the loft.

There was a moment's silence, then a sudden clicking of a ratchet wheel, and Allison began to rise rapidly towards the ceiling.

"A-ay!" cried Allison in amazement.

The boys burst out in delighted laughter.

"Westby! Westby! Stop that!" Irving's voice was shrill with anger.

Allison became stationary once more, and Westby displayed an innocent, surprised face at the loft opening.

"If there is any more nonsense in letting Allison down, I shall really have to report you." Irving's voice rose tremulously to a high key; he was trying hard to control it.

Westby gazed down with surprise. "Why, I guess I must have turned the crank the wrong way, don't you suppose I did, Mr. Upton?-Don't worry, Allison, old man; I'll rescue you, never fear. I'll try to lower you gently, so that you won't get hurt; you'll call out if you find you're coming down too fast, won't you?"