"Hullo, Caruthers."
In a huge brown coat, Lovelace charged across from the porter's lodge. "Had any cricket? What price Middlesex—below Hants, rotten county—you should watch Leicester now."
"Oh, dry up, Middlesex has had bad luck this year." The defeat at Lord's by Worcester and Kent in the same week was a sore point with Gordon.
"Oh, did they? I call them rotten players. But, look here, who are pres?"
"Oh, Tester, Betteridge, Clarke, Mansell, all the whole crowd."
"Good God, 'some' pres! Wait a sec. for me. I am only going to see Chief for a second. I am going to get confirmed, I think. I heard you get off some work for it. Half a sec."
Back to the old life again. Nothing was changed. The same talk, the same interests, all the old things the same. Only he was altered. He felt as if he wanted to stand on the Abbey tower, and shout aloud that the School was wasting its opportunities, and was struggling blindly in the dark, following will-o'-the-wisps. And yet, for all that, he would not have Lovelace, or Mansell or any other of his friends the least bit different. He did not know what he wanted. It was better to let them go on as they were. As it had been, it would be. He could not do much, and at the moment he decided that, whatever he might think or feel, he would outwardly remain the same. The world was not going to look at his soul. He would go on as he had begun, putting things behind him as he outgrew them, and as they appeared childish to him. Only a very few should ever see him as he really was. The rest would not understand him, they would think him strange, unnatural; and he did not want that.
The first few days passed quickly. The entrance of Ferrers, the new master, into the placid Fernhurst atmosphere caused a mild sensation. The school first saw him walking across the courts after the masters' meeting on the first day of term. His walk was a roll; he talked at the top of his voice; his left arm sustained a pile of books; his right arm gesticulated wildly.
"Good Gawd," said Tester, "what a bounder."
"Maybe, but he's the sort of man to wake up the school," said Betteridge.