christopher woolf roe was painfully surprised. he had arrived at harley by a train previously notified to his father in bold and legible handwriting and not a soul had met him. he had not exactly expected an ornamental awning over the station exit, but he had presumed that somebody of standing in the school would have been waiting upon the platform keenly peering into the carriages as the train came in; somebody who would escort him to the school and introduce him to its leading lights, who would converse with him amiably as they went along the highroad, congratulating him repeatedly upon his delightful father.
there had, as a matter of fact, been a suggestion made that he should be received by a comb-and-paper band comprised of school prefects who would march funereally in front of him all the way from the station to the school, but word from terence nicholson had gone forth that this would not be in keeping with school dignity.
hence he had come unwelcomed and unsung.
arrived at the school, he had sought out his father. his father had been out. this had put the finishing touch to his complete depression. so far, all he knew was that, according to his father’s letter, circumstances had arisen which made it advisable that he should come to harley. another letter to the new head of wilton had intimated, possibly in more detail, that he should do so as soon as possible, 128and this had turned out to be in three days’ time. but as to the real why and wherefore, and as to what the circumstances were he was still completely in the dark.
he sought for aid.
the school porter fetched the bursar, who told him that he would be in seymour’s house, and who coldly pointed out the way to him with a pencil. here another porter had shown him to a vacant study. on the way there he had, of course, passed any number of boys. not one solitary soul amongst them, from the oldest to the youngest, had paid the slightest attention to him. he might have been invisible.
two hours later he had seen his father and he understood.
“the secretary,” dr roe had told him, “is a boy called smythe.”
he sought smythe out.
smythe was sitting in his study hidden behind a book, and his first impression when, having said “come in,” he peered over the top of his volume to see who came, was that a stray pig was nosing into the room, and he rose with a sweeping gesture intending to drive it out. but as seconds passed he was held spellbound. behind the snout, which was all he had first seen, and to either side of it, appeared two little pig-like eyes. he also perceived two pouting lips. finally, when the head came properly into view around the door, smythe became alarmed.
“come in!” he commanded angrily. “come in, man!”
the visitor entered slowly, with short steps, and when he was approximately in the centre of the room he halted.
“i’m roe,” he observed.
smythe withstood the shock with the greatest 129gallantry. all the same, he did not extend his hand in a warm welcome. he just looked.
“i understand,” observed the other, “that i am to be captain of football here, and that you are secretary.”
he had pointed at smythe accusingly and now he beamed.
smythe hastened to correct him.
“a few days ago i was,” said he; “but i have just completed my duties, and now i have resigned. so far as i know there is no footer secretary in this school at present.”
“no secretary! but why not?”
“because,” said smythe logically enough, “there is no football.”
“but surely——” said the other. “why ... i’m captain of football.”
“i believe you are,” responded smythe; “but my last duty was to scratch the whole of our fixtures for the season.”
roe was visibly shaken.
“of course,” added smythe presently, “it’s a rotten position for you.”
“no, no,” replied the new boy. “i don’t mind a bit. we must arrange some more fixtures now that i’ve come.”
for a moment smythe stared at him. then he turned, reached for his book, sat down and commenced to read.
“i must make some notices out,” said roe. “you must introduce me to the team.”
he waited hopefully for an answer. smythe merely turned over a page.
“of course,” continued roe, “when i first heard about this i was only told that circumstances had arisen which made it desirable that i should leave wilton.”
smythe looked up.
130“well, i can tell you now,” said he, “that the circumstances which have arisen make it very desirable that you should go back to wilton as speedily as you came.”
“you mean to say, then, that there isn’t going to be any football at all?”
“there will be house games only—under the control of the games master—a matter of arrangement between the captains of the houses. there will be no football which will require the services of a school captain—no school matches. and i have resigned.” he paused. “i commend that example to you,” he observed.
next moment he was deep in his book again.
roe looked miserably round the study.
“why did he fetch me from wilton then?”
“goodness only knows! it may be that he wanted you to see the country.”
“but,” said roe, “this is all rot. i’ve got definite instructions from my father. he told me distinctly that i——”
“you go back to him,” said smythe, “and make sure that you heard him correctly. tell him what you’ve found out. and if i were you i should ask him whether you can’t go back.” he moved across the room and opened the door. “this is the way out,” said he.
that evening smythe recounted this incident to rouse.
“i also have seen the man,” was the answer. “i made a point of it. i went up to him and i said: ‘bless me, i seem to know your face. yet you haven’t been at this school so long, surely?’ he said: ‘i came to-day. my name is roe.’ i pounced upon him. ‘roe!’ said i. ‘go on! not,’ i said, ‘young roe, the son of old roe? why, i know your father as well as anything. your 131father and i are the best of friends. many a time have i discussed your future with him in his private sanctum over a bowl of tea. “the boy,” we have always said, breaking a muffin between us—“the boy, now, what will he become?”’ he said: ‘i’ve become captain of football,’ but he didn’t seem very pleased about it. so i patted him kindly on the shoulder. ‘ah,’ said i, ‘come now. not captain of football—surely.... why, this school doesn’t play football.’ ‘what does it play, then?’ said he. ‘spillikins,’ said i. ‘i expect you’re captain of that.’”
in accordance with his instructions, roe reported to his father next morning and explained things as well as he could.
“the most decent fellow i’ve met so far,” said he, “is a chap called coles. he’s in the first fifteen, he tells me, and he does seem to have the best interests of the school at heart. he told me a good deal of what’s in the wind, too. the fellows were pretty near an open rebellion at one time, but it seems that mr nicholson, the games master, spoke to the chief boys in each house at a meeting, and he’s persuaded them that the reputation of the school comes first, and now it seems they’re going to try what they call passive resistance. smythe, who you told me was secretary to the team, has resigned, and his last act was to scratch the school fixtures for the season. the only football they’re going to play is inter-house friendlies. the games master persuaded them that as long as they kept up practice for the younger chaps the school wouldn’t suffer so much. so the whole school are standing on their dignity, and coles says that the next move’s with us.”
he stopped. so far he had spoken in a sing-song voice that was significant of blind obedience to his father; he seemed to have told the head not so 132much what he as schoolboy thought, as just what he believed his father would most like to hear.
dr roe clasped his hands and leaned forward over the table.
“certainly the next move is with us. and for this reason. there can be no question of warfare between boys and their headmaster. they must be made to yield to discipline. they may not like my views, but those views, right or wrong, whichever they be, will be forced upon them.”
his son ventured to speak again.
“this boy coles is almost the only chap who has spoken to me decently, and he says that, although at the moment the school is solid for rouse, he believes that in about a fortnight’s time they will begin to grow tired of being without school rugger and that their present enthusiasm will wane. he says that that will be my chance. if i can step into the breach then i shall probably get a few boys to join me in starting a first fifteen again—just a few at first—but by degrees more and more will turn and side with me. he says that if i play my cards well we shall have a proper school team again by half-term, and that only rouse and his closest friends will be missing from it.”
the head fixed him with a penetrating glance.
“that is this boy’s honest belief?”
roe nodded his head.
“it’s mine too,” said the head cleverly.
“there’s one other thing,” continued the son. “smythe, as i tell you, has resigned. there’s no school secretary. i shall have to have one because i shan’t know the chaps. coles pointed that out. he said i should need someone to tell me whom to give colours to and all that. he says that at present it might be unwise for his name to be mentioned, but that as soon as things have settled down a bit and the fellows have got used to the idea that i’ve come, 133and that i mean to stop, they may decide to make the best of it, and then he——”
the head made a sudden noise of keen satisfaction. he nodded his head briskly.
“quite,” said he, “quite. i take his point. you think now that he—he is already a member of the school team, you say?—he is a capable footballer?”
“oh yes, he is one of the most senior players here.”
“you think he would be willing to become the secretary?”
the boy blinked his pig-like eyes and smiled.
“it would make the fellow who has resigned look so silly, wouldn’t it, if he found we got another one in his place so easily? smythe was really very impertinent to me.”
the head pursed his lips.
“i will see this boy,” he announced. “ask him to come and speak to me to-morrow.”
roe nodded. at last he leaned forward dutifully. he shifted awkwardly upon his seat.
“i’ve talked it over with coles ... and we rather hope you might be able to move him to my house.... and if you can do it ... as if it were compulsory ... so that fellows wouldn’t know he’d asked for it ... he thinks that then he and i might get a decent team together in seymour’s.... he has some very good friends in that house ... and if we could get up a little excitement by challenging morley’s, who at present have the best fifteen, to a friendly ... and beat them ... coles thinks it might turn the tide in our favour.”
the head smiled shrewdly.
there was silence.
“how did you find out all this?” said he. “how did you meet coles?”
roe dipped into the recesses of his memory.
134“why, he came up to me ... and held out his hand ... and then he said: ‘circumstances have arisen which make you very welcome. come and have a chat in my study.’ that’s how it was.”
the following day roe appeared in school with the colours tie of the harley first fifteen knotted around his neck, and the result was immediately evident. rouse and smythe, the only two in the school who were entitled to wear that tie without the formality of winning it back for the coming season, were forthwith to be noted wearing the neat black tie of harley’s mourning.
