In the days of his early youth Henry Hope had appeared to those about him to be an old, old man dressed in an Eton suit. His large rimmed spectacles had lent him the air of a scholastic genius, and he was, by habit, pitifully pedantic. In addition he was dignified, and self-reliant to a fault, and he had no ability of any kind at games. But at least his heart was in the right place. More than once his meditative resource had helped Terence and Rouse out of a sad scrape, and accordingly he was their beloved friend. In the course of the last few years he had been growing up—lengthways, that is to say—and Henry Hope had changed a little from the Henry Hope of old. In the atmosphere of Harley he had grown rather less of a hermit and rather more of a boy. He had opened out. He was still totally devoid of a sense of humour, and he still used grave words both in season and out, but he had become, in one sense at least, human. He was a devotee of the cinema. Also he had decided what he was going to be. He was going to be an actor in film plays. He knew one such actor already, and it seemed to him that this would provide him with an effective introduction into the right clique when the time came. Toby Nicholson was the actor. At one period of his life Toby had turned an honest penny by risking his life before the camera on selected days, and though this was, for obvious reasons, not the line of business in 63which Henry proposed to make his mark, it was at all events good to feel that he was not totally unacquainted with the way things were done.
Henry, as a matter of fact, was going to be one of those men to whom the ideal way of getting into a room is by way of the skylight, and the ideal way of getting out is through the window (though not, of course, by being pushed through).
It was conceivable that on occasion Henry might consent to act the part of a detective. Generally speaking, however, he would be the man who delays the play all the way through by persistently getting into predicaments through sheer stupidity merely for the sake of showing how to get out of them again.
He would be a man of rapid movement; he would look always to right and left before moving to his front; he would look all round a room before observing a prostrate body at his feet; he would invariably get his eye caught on a keyhole before entering a room. He would point out the way to a friend less keen of vision than he before walking down a long straight road; and at times he would be seen swaying against a wall with half-closed eyes whilst those who had stolen his all made their escape in their own time through an old-world garden, stopping to pick flowers as they went.
Above all there would be one dramatic performance which would constitute his star part. It would consist in a series of scenes turned rapidly upon the reel, each displaying a long wide road, and down these ways Henry would be featured running as never man ran before. His arms would be going like pistons. He would have lost his hat. (This, however, he would find again in time to doff it as indicating that somebody was dead.) Ever and again he would appear to be exhausted. To the lay mind it would seem impossible for any living man to maintain such a consistent speed down all those 64different roads. Nevertheless Henry would do it. He would do it on different days, of course, but that would not be realised; and he would, moreover, be running to save a soul. This would be known to the audience, who would cheer his attractive likeness every time it appeared at the far end of another road. He conceived that the energy with which he would run would immediately lift him into the front rank of famous players. He had once had a nightmare in which he had slipped up and fallen on the back of his neck whilst at the top of his speed, thus leading the audience to suppose that his performance was a comic one ... and once he had dreamt that owing to a slight stitch he had not been able to run up to form and had arrived twenty-five minutes too late to effect the rescue, for which he had been kicked by the man who had been turning the film all the time in expectation of his arrival; but he had never mentioned these incidents to anyone at all.
He practised a good deal, and it may almost be said that throughout the period covered by this tale he lived under the perpetual hallucination that all his movements were recorded by a camera for reproduction before a gaping audience.
He was under this impression when he shepherded Bobbie Carr and his own close friend, Hallowell, out of the new study. He made the movement a masterpiece of play without words, and when they were safely out of earshot in the corridor he drew himself up with a touch of characteristic dignity and spoke his only sentence. He did not believe in speaking any more than was really necessary at these times—no more, in fact, than it would be necessary for a film to speak, and always in the same crisp manner in which the film habitually does speak.
His voice was deep down in his boots.
“Something amiss,” said he. Then he was done.
As a matter of fact even this was not essential. 65If, after all his painstaking by-play, those present had still not tumbled to the fact that something was amiss, nothing would have ever made them understand. In reality they had both understood long ago and were now only hanging about in case there was any more of Henry’s performance to come, which, by going, they would miss.
Henry, however, had finished for the moment, so Bobbie Carr sighed and turned away.
“I’d better go and find Coles,” said he.
Hallowell looked at him.
“It’s a pity you’ve got to fag for Coles. Still, it may not be for long. How old are you—about fifteen, aren’t you? You’ll soon be done with fagging.”
There was silence for a moment. Carr could still not make up his mind whether to admit that he knew quite a lot about Coles already, and whilst he waited, half turning away, Henry drew near. He had had a rough term of fagging himself when he had first entered Harley, and he guessed what Carr must feel like with so many expressions of bad will towards Coles coming to his notice in such a short space of time. He reached out a hand and tapped the boy kindly on the shoulder, then he peered at him with an old-fashioned sincerity over the tops of his glasses and spoke in a slow and sepulchral tone.
“He’s in the First Fifteen,” said he. “But with us he cuts no ice.” He paused and nodded his head impressively. “Say, kid,” he added, “we’re wise to that guy.”
Such words if spoken in church by a venerable bishop would, one supposes, sound odd. Spoken by Henry they sounded more than odd. They sounded rotten. Trying to speak American slang was about the most inept thing Henry did. The result was not only incongruous, it went absolutely 66flat. Without having heard him it would be impossible to imagine how dull those crisp words really sounded. He did not even speak them through his nose. It was awful.
Nevertheless Bobbie Carr was comforted. There was something in Henry that inspired trust. There always had been. And in that moment Bobbie Carr decided that he liked him very much.
“I’ll come along with you,” said Henry. “I know something about Coles and I can put you up to some of his habits. It may be a help to you. He may not be in just now, and if he doesn’t want you we can go and have another look at our new study before it’s too late.”
“I’ll clear off then,” said Hallowell. “I’ve not done my prep. properly yet. See you later.”
He offered them a cheery gesture of farewell, to which Henry, for his part, responded by looking at him gravely over the tops of his spectacles as if he were some form of peculiar insect.
Then he set off with Bobbie Carr, and as he went he spoke in a deep, gruff voice of Coles and the kind of things he did.
“Any time you find yourself up against him,” said he, “you come and tell me. Don’t you go doing half the things he’ll want you to. He goes in for betting, and he smokes and drinks and borrows money. He’ll want you to fall in with his ideas and help him out of holes. Don’t you do it. I notice Coles a good deal. I see without being seen. That’s rather a gift I have got. And if I find that you’re afraid to refuse the things he asks you to do I shall be disappointed in you, and then perhaps when you really want my help one day I shan’t be inclined to give it. You come to me. I can’t punch his head myself but I’m friendly with some who can. In fact one of my best chums here is the captain of Rugby football.” He wound up on a note of distinct 67self-congratulation. “Here,” he added, “this is his place. You knock on his door and go in. Explain who you are and see if he wants to speak to you. I’ll wait out here.”
Bobbie went to the door and knocked. He was a lithe youngster, and even Henry could not help noticing the easy grace of his movements. For a moment he stood there listening. There was no answer. He knocked again.
“Go in,” said Henry solemnly. “He isn’t there.”
Bobbie opened the door and looked inside. It was perfectly true. The room was empty. Henry moved from his position against the wall and came up behind him.
“While there’s nobody here, then,” said he, “I’ll show you where he keeps his things. Maddock used to have this study and I was Maddock’s fag. The teapot’s in that cupboard there. This is where he puts anything he’s got to eat, and I expect his footer kit’s in that box.”
The door was suddenly kicked sideways and a heavy step sounded behind him.
“Now then,” said Coles. “What are you doing in my study? What do you mean by crawling in here? Are you looking for something to pinch?”
Henry turned and glared at him with concentrated fury. Coles took him by the collar.
“You get out,” said he.
Then he lifted a leg and planted a boot so severely behind Henry that he shot foolishly forward and cannoned into the door. He turned and seemed about to speak. Coles gave him no opportunity at all. He lifted his foot again, and this time the force of its drive sent Henry clean out of the room with one bounce and dropped him against the wall on the far side of the corridor. Coles was one of the best dropkicks in the school. Then he slammed the door and turned upon Carr.
68And the thing that troubled Henry most was not the pain or the suddenness of those blows behind him, but the particularly stupid way in which he had made his exit from the stage.
Coles stared at Carr for a few moments thoughtfully, then he moved to his chair and, sitting down, planted his feet upon the table.
“Well?” said he. “I suppose you’ve come to report?”
“I thought I’d see if you wanted anything.”
“There is something I don’t want,” said Coles, “and that’s your friends. I take a pride in my fag. I never expect to have to call for you twice, and when I do call for you I don’t want all the riff-raff of the school trotting in behind you like the tail of a crocodile. If you’re palling up with that fellow Hope you’d better drop him. He makes me feel ill. Whenever I see that fellow I want to stamp him into the carpet, and if I see you about together it’ll make me angry with you, and then you won’t be happy.”
Carr said nothing at all. He just looked at him straightly.
“Do you know,” asked Coles, “why you’ve been made my fag?”
“No,” said Bobbie.
“It’s because I asked for you. And do you know why I asked for you?”
“No.”
“It’s because I’m said to be rather a difficult man to fag for. Young fellows like you get a bit tired of me. I want a good deal done and I expect my fag to be absolutely trustworthy. If I tell you a thing in confidence and I find you split, I simply hit you on the top of the head with a book, and your head sings for twenty-four hours. I’ve an idea, though, that I shan’t need to hit you much. That’s why I managed to get you allotted to me. I think you’ll quite like to fag for me—you’ll know that if ever you get to 69know a secret of mine I’ve got a secret of yours, and that’ll keep you quiet, won’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’re ashamed of your father, aren’t you?”
“Ashamed of him?” said Bobbie hotly. “No, I’m not.”
“But you say that you don’t want anyone here to know how he makes his living.”
“I promised I wouldn’t say, that’s all. There’s a reason.”
“Precisely,” answered Coles. “And I’m the only one that knows.” He made an expressive gesture. “You see what I mean?”
“I suppose you mean you’ll tell.”
“I mean that that would be less trouble than hitting you on the head with a book and considerably more effective.”
Bobbie’s face was expressionless.
“That threat,” said Coles frankly, “starts from to-day. Now we understand one another.” He looked at the boy fixedly. “You can go,” said he. “You come in and see me to-morrow in the luncheon hour.”
“Well,” said Henry, when Bobbie bumped into him standing proudly round a corner of the corridor, “what did he say?”
Bobbie shrugged his shoulders.
“Nothing much. I’ve got to go and see him again to-morrow.”
Henry appeared to be deep in thought. At last he lifted his head and looked at Bobbie pertly over the tops of his spectacles.
“Did you notice him try to kick me?”
Bobbie’s behaviour was straightway that of a perfect gentleman. He glanced at Henry politely.
“Yes,” he answered. “He didn’t get you, did he?”
70An immediate change came over Henry. His lips slowly parted in ecstasy. He spoke no word. He looked at the new boy instead with the grateful light of intense relief shining from his eyes, and from that moment their friendship was finally cemented.