The last days of term were now drawing in. The House supper was only a few days off and the holidays very close. Everyone was glad on the whole to have finished the Christmas term, which is invariably the worst of the three. And this year it had not been improved by Clarke's military activities and the feeling of unrest that overhung the doings of the Fifteen, because of Lovelace major's never-ending broils with "the Bull." Two strong men both wanted their own way. On the whole, honours were even, though, if anything, slightly in Lovelace's favour, since he had filled up the scrum with a School House forward and a member of Benson's, a small and rather insignificant House, instead of giving the colours to men in Buller's.
But next term there would be fewer rows. There would be house matches, and each house captain would run things in his own house as he wished. The school captain did little except post up which grounds each house was to occupy. The School House always longed for the Easter term. It was their chance of showing the rest of the school what they were made of. As they were slightly bigger than any other house, they claimed the honour of playing the three best of the outhouses in the great Three Cock House Match for the Senior Challenge Cup. This year, with Lovelace and Meredith, a School House victory was looked on as almost certain. Besides this big event there were the Two Cock and Thirds House Match. In the "Thirds" the School House under sixteen house side played against the two best of the outhouses under sixteen sides, for the Thirds Challenge Cup. And in the Two Cock, the second House Fifteen—that is, the House Fifteen minus those with first and second Fifteen colours—played the two best of the outhouse second Fifteens for the Junior Challenge Cup. The results of these last two matches were very much on the knees of the gods. The House stood a fair chance, but the general opinion was that Buller's would win the Thirds; and Christy's, a house that was full of average players who were too slack to get their seconds, would pull off the Two Cock. At any rate, there would be no lack of excitement. There was always far more keenness shown about house matches than school matches, a fact which worried Buller immensely. He thought everything should be secondary to the interests of Fernhurst.
On the last Saturday of the term there was the House Supper. It was a noble affair. The bloods wore evening dress; even the untidiest junior oiled his hair and put on a clean collar. At the Sixth Form table sat the Chief, some guests, Lovelace, Clarke, and a certain Ferguson, who edited The Fernhurst School Magazine, and was to propose the health of the old boys, of whom about twenty had come down, several having helped to defeat the school by twenty points to sixteen in the afternoon. Never had so much food been seen before. Turner had boasted that he always went into training a week before the event, so as to enjoy it more. But the real triumph was the hot punch. As soon as dessert had begun the old boys trooped out, and brought in a huge steaming bowl of punch, from which they filled all the glasses. Gordon did not like it much. It seemed very hot and strong. But everyone else seemed to. Jeffries got a little excited.
Then speeches followed. The Chief proposed the fortune of the House, Clarke answered him. There was the usual applause and clapping. But the real event was Lovelace's speech. It had been a year of great success. The Three Cock had been lost by only a very small margin. The Two Cock had been won in a walk-over, and the Thirds by two points. The Senior Cricket and the Sports Cup had also been won. It was very nearly a record year. Lovelace was received with terrific applause; he congratulated the House on its performance; he mentioned individual names; each was the signal for a roar of cheering; and then, at the end, he said:
"And now I have a message to the House from the old boys. Let us have the Three Cock Cup back again on the School House sideboard. It is the place where it should be, and that's the place where we are going to put it! Gentlemen, The Three Cock!"
Amid a deafening noise the toast was drunk, and a voice from the back yelled out: "Three cheers for Lovelace!" His health, too, was drunk, and they sang For he's a Jolly Good Fellow.
After this all else seemed tame. Ferguson made a speech that was meant to be very funny, but rather missed fire. He had read Dorian Gray the whole of the evening before, underlining appropriate aphorisms. But to the average boy Oscar Wilde is (rather luckily perhaps) a little too advanced. The evening finished with Auld Lang Syne. Everyone stood on the table and roared himself hoarse. The score in damage was twenty plates broken beyond repair, sixteen punch glasses in fragments, fourteen cracked plates, two broken gas mantles. When the revellers had departed the hall looked rather gloomy, as probably Nero's did when his guests fled after the murder of Britannicus.
Next morning there was early service for communicants. But the School House was entirely pagan. Hardly a man went. On Sunday there was a great feed in Study 16. Somehow or other ten people got packed into as many square feet of room. Gordon was there; and Mansell, of course; Collins came to act as general clown; Fitzroy, a small friend of Jeffries, sat in a far corner looking rather uncomfortable. Spence, Carey and Tiddy made up the number; the last were quite the ordinary Public School type, their conversation ran entirely on games, scandal and the work they had not done. Lovelace was mildly bored.
"It's pretty fair rot, you know. Here have I been fair sweating away at the exams, every minute of my time, and Jeffries, who has not done a stroke, is above me."
Jeffries was bottom but one.