The Pothunters Part 6

[5]

CONCERNING THE MUTUAL FRIEND

'I wonder where the dear Mutual gets to these afternoons,' said Dallas.

'The who?' asked MacArthur. MacArthur, commonly known as the Babe, was a day boy. Dallas and Vaughan had invited him to tea in their study.

'Plunkett, you know.'

'Why the Mutual?'

'Mutual Friend, Vaughan's and mine. Shares this study with us. I call him dear partly because he's head of the House, and therefore, of course, we respect and admire him.'

'And partly,' put in Vaughan, beaming at the Babe over a frying-pan full of sausages, 'partly because we love him so. Oh, he's a beauty.'

'No, but rotting apart,' said the Babe, 'what sort of a chap is he? I hardly know him by sight, even.'

'Should describe him roughly,' said Dallas, 'as a hopeless, forsaken unspeakable worm.'

'Understates it considerably,' remarked Vaughan. 'His manners are patronizing, and his customs beastly.'

'He wears spectacles, and reads Herodotus in the original Greek for pleasure.'

'He sneers at footer, and jeers at cricket. Croquet is his form, I should say. Should doubt, though, if he even plays that.'

'But why on earth,' said the Babe, 'do you have him in your study?'

Vaughan looked wildly and speechlessly at Dallas, who looked helplessly back at Vaughan.

'Don't, Babe, please!' said Dallas. 'You've no idea how a remark of that sort infuriates us. You surely don't suppose we'd have the man in the study if we could help it?'

'It's another instance of Ward at his worst,' said Vaughan. 'Have you never heard the story of the Mutual Friend's arrival?'

'No.'

'It was like this. At the beginning of this term I came back expecting to be head of this show. You see, Richards left at Christmas and I was next man in. Dallas and I had made all sorts of arrangements for having a good time. Well, I got back on the last evening of the holidays. When I got into this study, there was the man Plunkett sitting in the best chair, reading.'

'Probably reading Herodotus in the original Greek,' snorted Dallas.

'He didn't take the slightest notice of me. I stood in the doorway like Patience on a monument for about a quarter of an hour. Then I coughed.

He took absolutely no notice. I coughed again, loud enough to crack the windows. Then I got tired of it, and said "Hullo". He did look up at that. "Hullo," he said, "you've got rather a nasty cough." I said "Yes", and waited for him to throw himself on my bosom and explain everything, you know.'

'Did he?' asked the Babe, deeply interested.

'Not a bit,' said Dallas, 'he--sorry, Vaughan, fire ahead.'

'He went on reading. After a bit I said I hoped he was fairly comfortable. He said he was. Conversation languished again. I made another shot. "Looking for anybody?" I said. "No," he said, "are you?"

"No." "Then why the d.i.c.kens should I be?" he said. I didn't quite follow his argument. In fact, I don't even now. "Look here," I said, "tell me one thing. Have you or have you not bought this place? If you have, all right. If you haven't, I'm going to sling you out, and jolly soon, too." He looked at me in his superior sort of way, and observed without blenching that he was head of the House.'

'Just another of Ward's jars,' said Dallas. 'Knowing that Vaughan was keen on being head of the House he actually went to the Old Man and persuaded him that it would be better to bring in some day boy who was a School-prefect than let Vaughan boss the show. What do you think of that?'

'Pretty low,' said the Babe.

'Said I was thoughtless and headstrong,' cut in Vaughan, spearing a sausage as if it were Mr Ward's body. 'm.u.f.fins up, Dallas, old man.

When the sausages are done to a turn. "Thoughtless and headstrong."

Those were his very words.'

'Can't you imagine the old beast?' said Dallas, pathetically, 'Can't you see him getting round the Old Man? A capital lad at heart, I am sure, distinctly a capital lad, but thoughtless and headstrong, far too thoughtless for a position so important as that of head of my House.

The abandoned old wreck!'

Tea put an end for the moment to conversation, but when the last sausage had gone the way of all flesh, Vaughan returned to the sore subject like a moth to a candle.

'It isn't only the not being head of the House that I bar. It's the man himself. You say you haven't studied Plunkett much. When you get to know him better, you'll appreciate his finer qualities more. There are so few of them.'

'The only fine quality I've ever seen in him,' said Dallas, 'is his habit of slinking off in the afternoons when he ought to be playing games, and not coming back till lock-up.'

'Which brings us back to where we started,' put in the Babe. 'You were wondering what he did with himself.'

'Yes, it can't be anything good so we'll put beetles and b.u.t.terflies out of the question right away. He might go and poach. There's heaps of opportunity round here for a chap who wants to try his hand at that. I remember, when I was a kid, Morton Smith, who used to be in this House--remember him?--took me to old what's-his-name's place. Who's that frantic blood who owns all that land along the Badgwick road? The M.P. man.'

'Milord Sir Alfred Venner, M.P., of Badgwick Hall.'

'That's the man. Generally very much of Badgwick Hall. Came down last summer on Prize Day. One would have thought from the side on him that he was all sorts of dooks. Anyhow, Morton-Smith took me rabbiting there. I didn't know it was against the rules or anything. Had a grand time. A few days afterwards, Milord Sir Venner copped him on the hop and he got sacked. There was an awful row. I thought my hair would have turned white.'

'I shouldn't think the Mutual poaches,' said Vaughan. 'He hasn't got the enterprise to poach an egg even. No, it can't be that.'

'Perhaps he bikes?' said the Babe.

'No, he's not got a bike. He's the sort of chap, though, to borrow somebody else's without asking. Possibly he does bike.'

'If he does,' said Dallas, 'it's only so as to get well away from the Coll., before starting on his career of crime. I'll swear he does break rules like an ordinary human being when he thinks it's safe. Those aggressively pious fellows generally do.'

'I didn't know he was that sort,' said the Babe. 'Don't you find it rather a jar?'

'Just a bit. He jaws us sometimes till we turn and rend him.'

'Yes, he's an awful man,' said Vaughan.

'Don't stop,' said the Babe, encouragingly, after the silence had lasted some time. 'It's a treat picking a fellow to pieces like this.'

'I don't know if that's your beastly sarcasm, Babe,' said Vaughan, 'but, speaking for self and partner, I don't know how we should get on if we didn't blow off steam occasionally in this style.'

'We should probably last out for a week, and then there would be a sharp shriek, a hollow groan, and all that would be left of the Mutual Friend would be a slight discolouration on the study carpet.'

'Coupled with an aroma of fresh gore.'

'Perhaps that's why he goes off in the afternoons,' suggested the Babe.