Next day everyone had found a huge atlas which he propped up on the desk; and which completely hid everything except the student's actual head. There was now no fear of an open book being spotted, it was so very simple to shut it when Claremont began to walk about, and besides ... it made the lesson so much more interesting.
And so Gordon and Mansell were able to discuss football the whole of evening hall, never do a stroke of work, and yet get quite a respectable half-term report.
The interest in the Thirds was now becoming intense. As was expected, Buller's easily beat all the outhouses, with Claremont's house as runners-up. Claremont's house had once been the great athletic house, but when a house master takes but little interest in a house's performances, that house is apt to get stale, and soon Claremont's became a name for mediocrity. As a house it was like V. B, a happy land where no one worried about anything, and it was quite safe to smoke in the studies on a Sunday afternoon. A side made up of two houses that had never played together before was bound to lack the combination of a side that had played together for several weeks. But the School House was always playing against superior weight and strength, and more than once had found itself unable to sustain their efforts, and after leading up to half-time went clean to pieces in the last ten minutes. It is pretty hard to hold a "grovel" several stones heavier for over an hour, and this year even Armour was a little doubtful about the lightness of his side. To Gordon and Jeffries, of course, defeat seemed impossible. Last year Jeffries had played in a winning side and Gordon had yet to see the House lose a match. But Mansell smiled sadly; he had played in a good many losing sides. Gordon dreamed football night and day. He saw himself securing wonderful last-minute tries, and bringing off amazing collars when all seemed lost. But all his hopes were doomed to disappointment. Two days before the game he slipped coming downstairs, fell with his wrist under him, and with his arm in splints and sling had to watch from the touch-line an outhouse victory of ten points to nothing. The usual thing happened—the House was just not strong enough. Jeffries played a great game, and fought an uphill fight splendidly; Lovelace only missed a drop goal by inches; Fletcher, an undisciplined forward, did great damage till warned by the referee. But weight told, and during the whole of the last half the House were penned in their twenty-five, while the school got over twice. Very miserably the House sat down to tea that evening. It added insult to injury when an impertinent fag from Buller's walked in in the middle and demanded the cup. Armour managed to keep his temper, but that fag did not forget for weeks the booting Gordon gave him the next day. Still it was a poor revenge for a lost cup.
Whatever little chance there had ever been of Gordon getting a place in the Two Cock was, of course, quite destroyed by his accident. The doctor said he ought not to play again for at least three weeks. And so it was that, as far as football was concerned, Gordon found himself rather out of it. All his friends were in the thick of everything. Mansell was captain of the Two Cock, Jeffries was leading the scrum, Hunter was being tried as scrum half, and Lovelace was in training as a reserve. He alone was doing nothing. For a few days the afternoons seemed unbearably long. But Gordon had a remarkable gift for adapting himself to circumstances. And he had very little difficulty in striking up new acquaintances. So far, he had had very little to do with those outside his actual set; with the majority of the House he was hardly on speaking terms, and of Archie Fletcher he knew little except the name.
Archie Fletcher was a great person; "great" in fact was the only adjective that really fitted him. He had only two real objects in life, one was to get his House cap, the other was to enjoy himself. And his love of pleasure usually took the form of ragging masters. Ragging with him did not consist in mere spasmodic episodes of bravado which usually ended in a beating. He had reduced it to a science. It was to him the supreme art. At present he was suffering from a kick on the knee which he had received in the Thirds, and he and Gordon found themselves constantly thrown together.
Archie (no one ever called him anything else), was a splendid companion. He had an enormous repertoire of anecdotes which he was never tired of telling, and every one finished in exactly the same way: "Believe me, Caruthers, some rag." Oh, a great man, forsooth, was Archie! He had cynically examined every master with whom he had anything to do, picked him to pieces, found out his faults, and then played on his weaknesses. Sometimes, however, he went a little too far. On one occasion he was doing chemistry with a certain Jenks, a very fiery little man, who really believed in the educational value of "stinks." So did Archie; it gave him scope to exercise his genius for playing the fool. But this day he overstepped the bounds. In the distance, he saw Blake, his pet aversion, carefully working out an experiment. A piece of glass tubing was at hand; Jenks was not looking; Archie fixed the tube to the waterspout, turned the tap; a cascade of H2O rose in the air and fell on Blake's apparatus; there was a crash of falling glass. Jenks spun round.
"Oh, is that you, Fletcher, you stupid fellow? Come over here. I shall have to beat you. Now then, where's my cane gone! Oh, then I shall have to use some rubber tubing—stoop down, stoop down!"
Laboriously Archie bent down; Jenks bent a piece of india-rubber tubing double—its length was hardly a foot—and gave Archie a feeble blow. It could not possibly have hurt him. But the victim leapt in the air, clutching the seat of his trousers.
"Oh!" he screamed. "Oh, sir, oh, sir! You have hurt me, sir. You are so strong, sir."
"Oh, then you are coward, too, are you?" said the delighted Jenks. "Stoop down again; stoop down!"