David Blaize

“Do you reverse many of the prefects’ rulings?” asked Adams.

“Oh no, sir, not now,” said David, anxious to do such justice as could be done to those two impotent figureheads. “You see, neither of them liked their silly rulings reversed, and they’ve become much more sensible. But you simply can’t have a prefect looking in your study when you’re out, and wanting to cane you because he finds a pipe there. Fancy Frank or Cruikshank doing a scruggish, low-down trick like that!”

“You seem rather fond of that instance,” said Adams.

“Yes sir, because it’s so jolly typical,” said David.

Adams got up.

“I’m considering what to say to the Head,” he remarked. “I shall certainly tell him there’s another side to the question, besides Manton’s.”

“Oh, ripping!” said David cordially. “I felt sure you’d see it.”

“I suppose you enjoyed the Court of Appeal a good deal?” he asked.

“Rather, sir,” said David. “I should think we did. Wish you could have heard one of the trials, with us three on the bench, and Manton as defendant, and some junior as plaintiff. You see, sir, Manton and Crossley consented to it all; that’s another point in our favour, isn’t it! Gregson planned all the ritual, because his pater’s a real judge in Appeal Courts, and we call each other ‘My learned brother Crabtree’ or ‘Blaize,’ for of course there are no nicknames or Christian names in Court. It’s all quite serious; there’s no rag about it. We were thinking of appointing a permanent counsel to plead for plaintiffs – ”

Adams laughed.

“David, you don’t suppose that the Court of Appeal is going to be allowed to remain in existence?” he asked.

“That’s as you wish, sir,” he said. “But – ”

“Well?” asked Adams.

“Nothing sir. I was only thinking that there’ll be rather rows again.”

“I hope not,” said Adams. “That’s exactly what you and fellows like you have got to prevent.”

“But how can we if you’re going to stop it?” asked David.

“In hundreds of ways: by backing the prefects up without over-riding them. You’re sensible enough to know that.”

David considered this.

“Is the Head sick about it, sir?” he asked.

“He’s never sick about anything till he’s in full possession of the facts. He was prepared to be uncommonly sick, when he had only heard the other side. In fact, he said something about giving you another lesson with regard to obeying authorities. But after what you’ve told me I don’t think you need be alarmed.”

“Oh, I’m not,” said David. “Of course he’ll see there’s another side to it, same as you’ve done. Something had to happen when we got Manton and Crossley instead of Frank and Cruikshank.”

At this moment a small and completely soaked boy burst into the room, not seeing Adams, who was sitting behind the door, but only David.

“Letter for you, Blaize,” he said. “Oh, and I want to appeal. Sorry, sir, I didn’t see you.”

“You do now, Jevons,” said Adams. “So go on, tell Blaize what the appeal’s about.”

“Well, sir, somebody put my sponge on the top of Manton’s door, made a booby-trap, and because it’s my sponge he says I’m responsible unless I find out who put it there.”

Adams nodded to David.

“Go on, learned brother Blaize,” he said.

“Notice in writing, Jev,” he said.

He had seen the handwriting of his letter, and tore it open.

“Oh, I say, how ripping!” he said. “Frank’s mother’s ill, and is ordered out of England for Christmas – at least, it’s beastly that she’s ill – but Frank wants to know if he can stay with us for a week. I say, Jev, you’re awfully wet, aren’t you? I mean, you couldn’t get much wetter, so I wonder if you’d take a tellywag just down to the office.”

“Rather. And I’ll put my appeal in your study, shall I!”

“Yes.”

“Right. I’ll be back in a second if you’ll have your tellywag ready.”

“Is the telegram to Frank saying he can come?” asked Adams.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then hadn’t you better write to your father first? It might not be convenient.”

The impulsive David had already written “Ripping: stay as long as you can,” but he paused.

“Oh well, I suppose it would be best, sir,” he said; “I wish you hadn’t thought of it.”

David got up to go to his study, and write the note which was so far outstripped by his desire.

“And may I talk to Bags and Plugs about the Court of Appeal, sir!” he said.

“Certainly. You can talk it over with Manton, too, if you like. In fact, I rather recommend it.”

Adams’s recommendation seemed to be rather sensible when David thought over it, though not perhaps strictly in accordance with Adams’s idea in suggesting it. It would give the Court an opportunity perhaps of finding out what Manton had said to the Head, and, should Manton not choose to tell them, it was easy to threaten, as a counter-move, that the Court, when called upon, as it undoubtedly would be, to appear before the Head, would give a highly coloured account, strictly based upon facts, of what had led to its formation. Also they could put before Manton and Crossley a very depressing picture of what their position would be if the Court was dissolved, and, privately, chose not to back up their restored authority. It required but small imagination to picture the status of those two unfortunate prefects if they had to enforce discipline in the house without the support of what had been the Court.

Bags and Gregson had just come in from their run, and Gregson, being in his bath and in the superior position of having no clothes on, could take reprisals by water on David’s having refused to go out. David, in fact, had to dodge a soaking sponge thrown at him, before he had time to begin to explain.

“Oh, pax a minute,” he said. “There’s a damned – an awful serious thing happened, Plugs. The Head knows all about the Court of Appeal, and it’s goin’ to be gone into.”

“Rot,” said Gregson, filling his sponge again. “Now who wouldn’t go out for a sweat, David?”

“’Tisn’t rot,” shrieked David, snatching up a towel to shield himself. “I swear it isn’t. While you brutes have been having an innocent happy sweat along the road this nice weather, I’ve been jawed by Adams. It’s a solid fact. We’re all going to be hauled up before the Head, and he was disposed to be uncommonly sick about it, so Adams said. Do shut up being funny with sponges.”

“Right oh,” said Plugs, “if you swear you’re not lying.”

“Swear!” said David. “Hurry up and dress, and come to my study, because you and I and Bags have to talk. It’s – it’s a welter of politics.”

The Court accordingly met in about ten minutes’ time in David’s study, where he had made tea for them, and where, on the table, lay Jevons’s appeal. He laid before the other two all his talk with Adams, reproducing it with laudable accuracy.

“And as it’s a dead cert that we shall appear before the Head,” he finished up, “we’ve got to agree exactly what we say. We mustn’t give different accounts of it.”

Bags caressed what he hoped was going to be a moustache.

“Of course not,” he said. “We’ve just got to say what’s happened. Truth, whole truth, and nothing but.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean we were to make things up,” said David, “but the only question is, how much we tell the Head. I vote for a conference – Adams suggested it – with Manton and Crossley, and see if we can’t let each other down easily.”

“Compromise out of Court?” suggested Plugs.

“Yes: something of the kind. We can give them away hopelessly by saying how inefficient they were, and they can give us away, by saying that we have undermined the prefects’ authority. Don’t you see? It might all be toned down a bit.”

“That’s no use,” said Bags, “if Manton’s given us away already.”

“But that’s just what we don’t know,” said David. “I vote we try to get Manton to tell us what he told the Head. He may not have told him much; he may have said it was an amicable sort of arrangement. On the other hand, he may have told him that our object was to undermine prefects’ authority. Well, as I told Adams, there’s another side to that; we generally supported it, except when it was manifestly unfair. I want to know what Manton told him. That we have put ourselves above the prefects is true, but we did it in the cause of order, though of course we all enjoyed it frightfully.”

“And the house accepted us,” said Bags.

“Lot the Head will care for that! I want to get Manton and Crossley to come and talk. Crossley doesn’t matter, but Manton anyhow, as he’s already seen the Head. You see, when the Head has us up, we can tell him a lot if we choose. He’ll ask us for our account of it. Manton’ll see that. He isn’t a fool, though he is such a squirt.”

With Plugs as well as Bags, David was the master-mind, and after a few minutes Bags went to Manton’s study, and quite politely asked him to come round and confer with the Court.

Manton rather liked this: he promised himself a pleasant time in telling the Court that the Head was going into the whole matter himself, and that he had nothing more to do with it. He was prepared to be maliciously civil and courteous, and to express his regret the Court had made such an ass of itself as its spontaneous generation implied. He thought it would be rather fun, and came very blandly, with his spectacles on, and a book that he was reading. His finger kept his place in a cursory manner.

“Here I am,” he said. “Hullo, Blaize! Hullo, Gregson! Yes; the Court of Appeal. It wasn’t I who went to the Head about it, you know; it was that little fellow, Blaize’s friend, who let it out. What’s his name! I forget.”

“Oh, Jevons,” said David.

“Yes, Jevons told the Head about it, and so of course the Head asked me more. He put it rather nicely: he said it was my business to tell him about it, as head of the house.”

David was seated between his two learned brothers, just as if a regular Court was going on.

“Oh, we know about Jevons,” he said. “We can leave Jevons out.”

“Waive!” said Plugs formally.

“Yes, we can waive Jevons,” said David, “as my learned brother suggests – ”

Manton gave a little cackle of laughter.

“I shouldn’t wonder if you had to waive everything,” he observed pleasantly.

“Oh, we’re not going to waive you just yet, if you count for anything,” retorted David. “But perhaps you don’t count for much.”

Bags suddenly laughed in a hoarse manner.

“I beg pardon, brother Blaize,” he said.

“Right oh, brother Crabtree, but just contain yourself. Well, Manton, you’ve been to the Head with your version, and next we go to the Head with ours. We can make it pretty sultry for you if we choose, and we shouldn’t mind doing it a bit. But it all depends on what you have told the Head. That’s what we should like to know.”

Manton still felt in a very superior position. All he had told the Head was quite true, namely, that these three fifth-form boys put themselves in a position above the prefects, so that any order or punishment by the two sixth-form boys in the house could be appealed against, and if they thought proper could be reversed. The Head had been extremely grave about it, and at present there was no doubt in Manton’s mind that he was going to uphold the authority of the prefects in a summary manner, and probably make it very hot for those who had set themselves above it. He felt quite secure and comfortable, and smiled in rather a lofty manner.

“I dare say the Head will tell you as much of what I said as he thinks good for you,” he observed. “But I really don’t see why I should. You see he takes the view that prefects are not to be dictated to by two or three members of the fifth form. Bad precedent, you know; it might lead to a couple of fellows out of the fourth form dictating to you. Jevons and a friend might make a super-Court of Appeal. Rather funny that would be.”

David passed the ghost of a wink to Gregson. He wanted to draw Manton on a little further, before he unmasked his batteries. It required some control to assume an attitude of humility, when delicious sentences were beginning to seethe in his brain. But it was heavenly to see Manton’s malicious little eyes beaming at him through his spectacles, and notice what an awful scug he looked with his hair, rather long behind, lying outside his collar. He gave a sigh.

“I say, I’m afraid we’re in for it,” he said disconsolately.

Manton let his mouth expand into an odious smile.

“Yes, I should say you were,” he observed. “You see the Head’s view is that the authority of prefects is an institution which has his support, and he doesn’t quite see why it should be taken away by three fellows in the fifth. He asked me all sorts of questions, and so I had to give him a pretty full account. I should make a clean breast of it, I think, if I were you.”

David could stand this no longer. He felt that he must burst if he had to listen to any more of Manton’s advice.

“You say you gave him a pretty full account,” he said, “though you have not chosen to tell us what it was. Well, I shouldn’t wonder if we made it a bit fuller for you. I beg your pardon, brother Crabtree – ”

Bags was leaning back, looking dreamily at Manton.

“Learned brother Gregson,” he observed, “do you remember one day how Mr. Manton wanted to whack a little boy called Babbington, and how he had to call in Mr. Crossley to help?”

Plugs assumed a portentous air.

“Yes, brother Crabtree,” he said, “and how soap-bubbles came out of Mr. Manton’s kettle, though he had not meant to wash.”

David chimed in.

“And we all remember, my learned brother,” he said, “how the house was a perfect bear-garden for the first month of this term before we started our worshipful Court, and how – ”

David turned to Manton.

“Perhaps you didn’t tell the Head that,” he said. “We shall. We shall tell him how you couldn’t get lines done for you, till we enforced the authority you hadn’t got. We shall say how you walk round the house in slippers, and when you get back to your own fuggy studies you daren’t walk straight in for fear of finding a booby-trap come down on your mangy heads. Jolly wise precaution, too, on your part. We shall tell the Head all that.”

David licked his lips, as he warmed to his work. He took Jevons’s appeal off the table in front of him.

“I shall take this to the Head, and read it him,” he said. “Just listen: pretty dignified position for you, isn’t it? ‘To the Court of Appeal. Please Blaize, Manton got an awful soaker because somebody else put my sponge on the top of his door, which soused him; and because it was my sponge he says he’ll whack me unless I find out who did it and tell him, which isn’t fair, because it’s not my business. So I appeal. M. C. Jevons.’ ”

Manton was getting a little rattled. Otherwise he would not have done anything so foolish as try to grab this paper. David whisked it away.

“I shall say, too, that you tried to get hold of this,” he said. “Better sit down, Manton. That’s right. And I shall tell him that your notion of authority is to look in a fellow’s private drawer when he’s out, to see if you can nail a pipe.”

“I never did,” said Manton wildly. “That was Crossley.”

“Oh then, I suppose Crossley will explain that,” said David. “Of course it may all be stale news to the Head, since you gave him a pretty full account, but I’ll just see if the Head happened to listen to that part. You see, we don’t in the least mind telling you what we’re going to say to the Head, though you’re too superior to tell us what you said. I’ve told Adams about it already, and he thinks you’re an awfully good prefect, of course. And then, you see,” concluded David cheerfully, “when we’ve told him all that really happened, why shouldn’t we make up a lot that didn’t? Probably you did the same. Gosh, the Head will have a wonderful high opinion of you before I’ve done. I shouldn’t wonder if it isn’t more than he can bear, and jolly well breaks down and sobs and kneels and gives thanks that he has such a ripping couple of prefects in this house, to keep us all in order.”

“Well, you needn’t be sarcastic about it,” said Manton.

“Yes, I need, because you began about having a fourth-form Court of Appeal to override us. You think that it’s only you who can be so damned sarcastic and superior, and give any garbled account you like to the Head – ”

“It wasn’t garbled.”

“It must have been, or do you suppose that a sensible chap like the Head could have taken your side? Perhaps you didn’t invent things, but I swear you left out some jolly important ones, like your not being able to cane a cheeky junior without getting Crossley to help you, and then whacking him on the shin instead. You should have seen Adams shaking when I told him about it. And I bet you said we set ourselves in opposition to you. That’s a lie. We backed your authority up except when you made such utter squirts of yourselves that we couldn’t. We helped you, you goat! We did for you what you couldn’t do for yourselves! Lord, it makes me hot to talk to a chap like you. Go on, Bags – I mean, Brother Crabtree.”

Manton was beginning to present so ludicrous an appearance that learned brother Blaize could hardly prevent bubbling with laughter, which would have spoiled the forcibleness of the situation. His finger no longer kept his place in his book; his tight little mouth no longer complacently smiled, but had fallen open in dismay at David’s surprising remarks. And learned Brother Crabtree, with his suave style and slow sentences, did not reassure him.

“You see, there’s nothing like fair play, Manton,” said Bags. “I take it that you agree. And, as you’ve had an uninterrupted innings with the Head, and have run up a good score against us, I’m sure it is only proper that we should have our turn. Now, you were not wise in refusing to tell us what you had said to the Head; but the time for that is past now, and even if you wanted to, I don’t suppose we should listen to you. It was foolish of you, because you make us guess what it was, and naturally we guess that you made up a lot of lies, since we think that is the sort of thing you would do. So when you leave us now, which will be very soon, we shall make up some rippers about you and Crossley – really awful things, you know. I began making some up when Brother Blaize was addressing you. They are beauties.”

Gregson took up the tale with a wink at David in the eye away from Manton.

“And yet I don’t know that we need bother to make things up, Brother Crabtree,” he said. “It’s easier to say just a few of the things that really happened. We will tell the Head the sort of thing that goes on in Manton’s study when he thinks all the house are at preparation.”

Now Manton, for all his feebleness and ineffectiveness as a prefect, was as blameless as the Ethiopian.

“But I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

Gregson gave a little laugh which he transformed into a cough.

“Oh really?” he said. “But the Head will soon know what we mean. David – I mean Brother Blaize knows.”

David had caught the wink correctly. He put on a scornful face.

“Oh, that!” he said. “Yes, disgusting. You should be more careful about shutting your door, Manton. I and Gregson were walking about the house in slippers, following the example of the sixth form.”

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Manton.

“Right oh. We won’t talk about it any more – to you.”

It was in vain that Manton assured himself that, as was perfectly true, his conscience was as clear as noon-day, for this wicked and subtly-acted fraud on the part of those fifth-form devils made him uncomfortable in spite of himself. And though he had not told the Head anything false about this beastly Court of Appeal, he certainly had not put their side of the case before him with the directness that it now appeared they were going to do on their own behalf. He had not, for instance, said that the Court of Appeal propped up, endorsed, supported the authority of himself and Crossley far more than they overrode it, though it was perfectly true (as he had told the Head) that they arrogated the supreme authority to themselves. Nor had it occurred to him to tell the Head that he and Crossley were quite incompetent to maintain discipline, that they got ragged to the point of having soap put in their kettles, that they toured the house in slippers. Truly the supplement to his tale was likely to be as voluminous as the tale itself.

Then David rose.

“Well, I don’t think we need detain you,” he said politely, “in fact, we’ve got a good deal to talk over among ourselves. Thanks awfully for coming. I expect we shall all meet again at the Head’s. That’s all then.”

But Manton was not quite sure that this was all. Various remarks by one or other of the members of the Court were beginning to cause him somewhat acute internal questionings. In especial he disliked the fact that Adams was in possession of the Court’s side of the case, and as like as not would give the Head the benefit of it.

“Perhaps we might discuss it all a little more,” he said, with a faint air of condescension still lingering about him. “I can – well, go to the Head, because he told me that if I had anything more to tell him, I was to. I might say – I really should be quite glad to – that Crossley and I didn’t want to get you into trouble.”

“Oh that’s all right,” said David cheerfully. “Don’t bother about that; you’ve got us into no trouble at all. I expect we shall come out perfectly right.”

“But the Head was awfully sick about it,” said Manton. “He laid a good deal of stress on the fact that you did set yourselves up as an authority superior to the prefects.”

“I expect I’ll make that all square,” said David. “I dare say I shall put our case as strongly as you put yours. Adams will have done the same too, I’m pretty sure. Of course we thought we might let you down more easily if you told us what you told the Head, and, after all, we gave you an opportunity of doing so. But you didn’t take it, so that’s finished.”

“Well, I think perhaps I was wrong not to tell you,” said Manton.

“I’m sure you were,” assented Bags warmly. “Isn’t it an awful pity one doesn’t think of that sort of thing sooner?”

“And so, if you like, I’ll tell you now,” said Manton, finishing his sentence.

“Oh, we don’t care a hang either way,” said David. “If you wish you may tell us, but it’ll be because you ask us if you may. We don’t want to hear it.”

“But I thought you asked me to,” said this dismal prefect.

“We did, but it’s no use to us now. We’ve made up our minds what to do.”

“Well, shall I tell the Head that you did often support the authority of the sixth? It might make him less sick with you.”

“Rubbish!” said Gregson. “You’re proposing these things now simply because you want us not to tell the Head our side of it. Is that the reason, or not?”

“I think it would – ”

“ ‘Yes’ or ‘no,’ ” said Brother Blaize in a terrible voice.

“Yes.”

“Why not have asked for mercy sooner then, instead of giving yourself all these airs? Get on!”

It was a very unstuffed Manton who was left at the end of this recital, for though he had not told the Head anything palpably false, yet the picture the Head must have drawn of the whole affair was about as erroneous as it could possibly be. He had let the Head assume that the authority of the prefects over the house was complete and satisfactory until the Court of Appeal set itself up, and he had certainly not said that the Court in most cases endorsed their authority, and saw that their orders were obeyed. All this was drawn from him by cool and ruthless questioning.

At the end David gave a long whistle.

“Well, ’pon my word, you are in a mess,” he said. “I’m not at all sure that I shouldn’t resign my prefectship if I were you before the Head kicked me out. You are the deuce of a hand at suppressio veri– ain’t that it, Brother Gregson? Why there isn’t an ounce of truth that you haven’t suppressed. And it’s all as full of suggestio– er – ”

“Falsi,” said Bags.

“Yes, suggestio falsi, as it can stick. The best thing you can do is to go and talk it over with Crossley, and then come back and tell us what you propose to tell the Head. If you don’t make a clean breast of it to him, and let him see that he’s only got a garbled – yes, I said garbled – version of it at present, you may be sure we shall. And when you’ve made up your minds, come back and tell us. Tap at the door first.”

The unstuffed Manton rose.