'I had occasion, sir, to beat a boy.'
'But you've no right to beat a boy. You're not a prefect any longer.'
'I was punishing him, sir, for a school and not a house offence. He was throwing stones against the cloisters. As a school prefect I felt myself bound to take official notice of his action.'
'But you know quite well, Morcombe,' the house master would answer hotly, 'that you've no right to do anything of the sort. You are only quibbling.'
'Then am I to understand, sir, that I have ceased to be a school prefect.'
'You are to understand you have no authority over any one in this house.'
'But that will make it difficult for me, sir; if I were to discover a boy in this house and a boy in another house smoking on a Sunday afternoon, I should be able to order the boy from another house to put out his cigarette and return to school at once, but the boy in my own house I should have to leave where he was. It would be suggested that I was favouring my own house.'
It is unlikely that the house master will have a reply; he will order Morcombe to return to his study and to cease being impertinent. It depends on the courage of Morcombe and the respect he has for his house master whether five minutes later there will be a tap on the door of the narrow study at the end of the passage and a quiet voice will ask: 'Please, sir, I hope you'll excuse my worrying you, but I am not quite certain whether you said I was, or was not, a school prefect. You see, sir, it's my turn to read the lessons in chapel to-morrow. I wondered whether I ought to run round and tell the head master that I am no longer privileged to read them.'
There will be several such imbroglios.
Whether or not the term will end without an actual conflagration is problematic. On the whole I should say that the chances were even. It is the end of the term. Spirits run high, constant supervision is impossible. On the last morning but one, for instance, there is no early chapel. There is a long lie in bed. The house master will return to his own part of the house to shave, bathe himself, and dress. There is no one left in the dormitories with any authority. Every one is good-tempered and excited with a surplus store of animal spirits. There is a lively exchange of compliments which terminate in a pillow being flung across the room. There is a moment's nervous hush. The power of the prefectorial system dies hard: a week ago such an act would have been dealt with instantly and severely. And, even now, a single word would be sufficient to restore order.