"He won't raise any objection, will he?"
"I shouldn't think so, sir."
Akerman had difficulty in not smiling.
"Very well, then, you had better call a meeting of the Games Committee this afternoon and talk over the matter. If anyone makes a fuss, say I agree with it; and I expect it will be all right."
There was no need, however, for any recourse to the oracle. The Games Committee consisted of the captains of each house. None of them cared the least what happened to Caruthers; he was nothing to them. Pilcher supposed it was all right. The grand remonstrance was passed.
On Monday at twelve-thirty Gordon was summoned by a fag to attend in the school library. The six members of the Games Committee sat around a circular table on which lay two canes. It all looked very impressive.
Akerman rose. He began to read a speech off a piece of school paper. Gordon had wondered why he had been so very energetic in taking down notes during the Chief's divinity lecture that morning. The speech went on. It was full of the inevitable platitudes about esprit de corps and a sportsmanlike spirit. Now and then Akerman stumbled, and had some difficulty in reading his own writing. If there had not hung over him the prospect of a very severe beating, Gordon would have enjoyed himself thoroughly. Akerman was so pricelessly absurd. The rest looked painfully self-conscious. Why could not Akerman have learnt his speech? It was so bad that he could not imagine anyone having any difficulty in making it up as he went along. Akerman was afraid of expressing an opinion. He prefaced every remark with "Mr Buller says." It gave a sense of security. The speech ended; everyone except Gordon was relieved.
"Bend over there."
The beating was not so horrible an ordeal as he had expected. In the same spirit in which the outhouse captains had raised no objection, merely because they did not care in the least what happened to Gordon, so now they did not take any particular trouble to hurt him. The ordeal was rather a fiasco.
A halting oration had led to an even tamer execution. As Gordon walked down the library steps he was painfully aware of having been the principal character in a scene of sustained bathos. The body that represented Fernhurst football had scarcely risen to the dignity of its trust.