Harvey went, and, waiting till the coast was clear, attached himself to the handle with a prehensile grasp, and put his back into one strenuous tug. It was even as Renford had said. The door was locked beyond possibility of doubt.
Renford and he went over to school that morning with long faces and a general air of acute depression. It was perhaps fortunate for their purpose that they did, for had their appearance been normal it might not have attracted O"Hara"s attention. As it was, the Irishman, meeting them on the junior gravel, stopped and asked them what was wrong. Since the adventure in the vault, he had felt an interest in Renford and Harvey.
The two told their story in alternate sentences like the Strophe and Antistrophe of a Greek chorus. ("Steichomuthics," your Greek scholar calls it, I fancy. Ha, yes! Just so.)
"So ye can"t get in because they"ve locked the door, an" ye don"t know what to do about it?" said O"Hara, at the conclusion of the narrative.
Renford and Harvey informed him in chorus that that _was_ the state of the game up to present date.
"An" ye want me to get them out for you?"
Neither had dared to hope that he would go so far as this. What they had looked for had been at the most a few thoughtful words of advice.
That such a master-strategist as O"Hara should take up their cause was an unexampled piece of good luck.
"If you only would," said Harvey.
"We should be most awfully obliged," said Renford.
"Very well," said O"Hara.
They thanked him profusely.
O"Hara replied that it would be a privilege.
He should be sorry, he said, to have anything happen to the ferrets.
Renford and Harvey went on into school feeling more cheerful. If the ferrets could be extracted from their present tight corner, O"Hara was the man to do it.
O"Hara had not made his offer of a.s.sistance in any spirit of doubt. He was certain that he could do what he had promised. For it had not escaped his memory that this was a Tuesday--in other words, a mathematics morning up to the quarter to eleven interval. That meant, as has been explained previously, that, while the rest of the school were in the form-rooms, he would be out in the pa.s.sage, if he cared to be. There would be no witnesses to what he was going to do.
But, by that curious perversity of fate which is so often noticeable, Mr Banks was in a peculiarly lamb-like and long-suffering mood this morning. Actions for which O"Hara would on other days have been expelled from the room without hope of return, today were greeted with a mild "Don"t do that, please, O"Hara," or even the ridiculously inadequate "O"Hara!" It was perfectly disheartening. O"Hara began to ask himself bitterly what was the use of ragging at all if this was how it was received. And the moments were flying, and his promise to Renford and Harvey still remained unfulfilled.
He prepared for fresh efforts.
So desperate was he, that he even resorted to crude methods like the throwing of paper b.a.l.l.s and the dropping of books. And when your really scientific ragger sinks to this, he is nearing the end of his tether.
O"Hara hated to be rude, but there seemed no help for it.
The striking of a quarter past ten improved his chances. It had been privily agreed upon beforehand amongst the members of the cla.s.s that at a quarter past ten every one was to sneeze simultaneously. The noise startled Mr Banks considerably. The angelic mood began to wear off. A man may be long-suffering, but he likes to draw the line somewhere.
"Another exhibition like that," he said, sharply, "and the cla.s.s stays in after school, O"Hara!"
"Sir?"
"Silence."
"I said nothing, sir, really."
"Boy, you made a cat-like noise with your mouth."
"What _sort_ of noise, sir?"
The form waited breathlessly. This peculiarly insidious question had been invented for mathematical use by one Sandys, who had left at the end of the previous summer. It was but rarely that the master increased the gaiety of nations by answering the question in the manner desired.
Mr Banks, off his guard, fell into the trap.
"A noise like this," he said curtly, and to the delighted audience came the melodious sound of a "Mi-aou", which put O"Hara"s effort completely in the shade, and would have challenged comparison with the war-cry of the stoutest mouser that ever trod a tile.
A storm of imitations arose from all parts of the room. Mr Banks turned pink, and, going straight to the root of the disturbance, forthwith evicted O"Hara.
O"Hara left with the satisfying feeling that his duty had been done.
Mr Banks" room was at the top of the middle block. He ran softly down the stairs at his best pace. It was not likely that the master would come out into the pa.s.sage to see if he was still there, but it might happen, and it would be best to run as few risks as possible.
He sprinted over to the junior block, raised the trap-door, and jumped down. He knew where the ferrets had been placed, and had no difficulty in finding them. In another minute he was in the pa.s.sage again, with the trap-door bolted behind him.
He now asked himself--what should he do with them? He must find a safe place, or his labours would have been in vain.
Behind the fives-court, he thought, would be the spot. n.o.body ever went there. It meant a run of three hundred yards there and the same distance back, and there was more than a chance that he might be seen by one of the Powers. In which case he might find it rather hard to explain what he was doing in the middle of the grounds with a couple of ferrets in his possession when the hands of the clock pointed to twenty minutes to eleven.
But the odds were against his being seen. He risked it.
When the bell rang for the quarter to eleven interval the ferrets were in their new home, happily discussing a piece of meat--Renford"s contribution, held over from the morning"s meal,--and O"Hara, looking as if he had never left the pa.s.sage for an instant, was making his way through the departing mathematical cla.s.s to apologise handsomely to Mr Banks--as was his invariable custom--for his disgraceful behaviour during the morning"s lesson.
XIX
THE MAYOR"S VISIT
School prefects at Wrykyn did weekly essays for the headmaster. Those who had got their scholarships at the "Varsity, or who were going up in the following year, used to take their essays to him after school and read them to him--an unpopular and nerve-destroying practice, akin to suicide. Trevor had got his scholarship in the previous November. He was due at the headmaster"s private house at six o"clock on the present Tuesday. He was looking forward to the ordeal not without apprehension.
The essay subject this week had been "One man"s meat is another man"s poison", and Clowes, whose idea of English Essay was that it should be a medium for intempestive frivolity, had insisted on his beginning with, "While I cannot conscientiously go so far as to say that one man"s meat is another man"s poison, yet I am certainly of opinion that what is highly beneficial to one man may, on the other hand, to another man, differently const.i.tuted, be extremely deleterious, and, indeed, absolutely fatal."
Trevor was not at all sure how the headmaster would take it. But Clowes had seemed so cut up at his suggestion that it had better be omitted, that he had allowed it to stand.
He was putting the final polish on this gem of English literature at half-past five, when Milton came in.
"Busy?" said Milton.
Trevor said he would be through in a minute.
Milton took a chair, and waited.
Trevor scratched out two words and subst.i.tuted two others, made a couple of picturesque blots, and, laying down his pen, announced that he had finished.
"What"s up?" he said.
"It"s about the League," said Milton.