"Isn't it rather like applying a stomach-pump to a man who is only fit for a small dose of Eno's Fruit Salt?"
"Nous verrons."
And in the bustle of a new term Ferrers was forgotten.
Gordon was in the Sixth, and its privileges were indeed sweet. He felt very proud as he sat in the same room with Harding, a double-first, and head of the House, and with Hazelton, the captain of the House. Though it was an ordeal to go on to "con" before them, it was very magnificent to roll down to the football field just before the game began without attending roll.
"I say, Caruthers," Lovelace would yell across the changing-room, "do buck up; it's nearly twenty-five to three, and roll is at a quarter to."
"I don't go to roll," came the lordly answer.
And he felt the eyes of admiring juniors fixed on him. It was sheer joy, too, to wear the blue ribbon of the Sixth Form and to carry a walking-stick; to stroll into shops that were to the rest of the school out of bounds; to go to the armoury and the gym. after tea without a pass. But it was in hall that the new position meant most.
While the rest of the house had to stay in their studies and make some pretence of work, he would wander indolently down the passage and pay calls. When he paused outside a study he heard the invariable sound of a novel flying into the waste-paper basket, of a paper being shoved under the table, or a cake being relegated to the window-seat. Then he came in.
A curse always greeted him.
"Oh, damn you, Caruthers, I thought it was a prefect. Foster, hoist out that cake; we were just having a meal."