"Come out here, Caruthers."
It hurt tremendously; he went back wishing he had taken the hundred lines. But the others thought it amazingly brave of him. Lovelace minor, handsome, debonair, a swashbuckler in the teeth of authority, came up afterwards and said:
"Damned plucky of you. My brother's a bit of an ass at times."
It was not really plucky, it was merely the fear of doing the wrong thing. But the House thought that, after all, there might be something in at least one of those wretched new kids. One or two people looked at him almost with interest that night in hall.
That was Gordon's first step. Afterwards things were not so hard. Mansell began to think him rather a sport, as well as an indispensable aid to classical studies, and Mansell counted for something. Meredith smiled at him one day.... A public School was not such a bad hole after all. And his cup of happiness seemed almost running over when one afternoon after a game of rugger he overheard Lovelace minor say to Hunter:
"That kid Caruthers wasn't half bad."
For he saw that the sure way to popularity lay in success on the field; and because it was the weak as the strong point of his character that he longed with a wild longing for power and popularity, it was already his ambition to be some day captain of the House, and to lead his side to glorious victories.
CHAPTER III: THE NEW PHILOSOPHY
"Of course 'the Bull' may be a jolly fine fellow and all that, but he does exceed the limit at times."