The result of it was that Mansell and his friends got filled with an enormous sense of their own importance; they considered themselves the only people in the House who were keen. And they let the rest of the House know it. They groused about "the great days of Lovelace," and gave people like Rudd a most godless time. There is no more thoroughly self-satisfied person than the second-class athlete; and when he also imagines himself an Isaiah preaching repentance, he wants kicking badly. Unfortunately no one kicked Gordon or Lovelace; and they went on their way contented with themselves, though with no one else.
One of the easiest ways of discovering a person's social status at school is by watching his behaviour in the tuck-shop. The tuck-shop or "Toe," as it is generally called, is a long wooden building with corrugated iron roof, situated just opposite Buller's house, not far from the new buildings. It is divided by a wooden partition into two shops; at each end of the outer shop run two counters. On the right-hand counter, which is connected with a small kitchen, cakes, muffins and sausages are sold; on the left-hand side there are sweets and fruit. The inner and larger room is filled with tables, and round the room are photographs of all the school teams. At the far end, in huge green frames, are hung photographs of the two great Fernhurst Fifteens who went through the season without losing a match. The "Toe" is the noisiest place in the whole school. It is superintended by five waitresses, and they have a very poor time of it.
The real blood is easily recognised. He strolls in as if he had taken a mortgage on the place, swaggers into the inner room, puts down his books on the top table in the right-hand corner—only the bloods sit here—and demands a cup of tea and a macaroon. A special counter has been made by the bloods' table, so that the great men can order what they want without going back into the outer shop. No real blood ever makes a noise in the outer shop. When he is once inside the inner shop, however, he immediately lets everyone know it. If he sees anyone he knows, he bawls out:
"I say, have you prepared this stuff for Christy?"
The person asked never has.
"Nor have I. Rot, I call it."
No blood is ever known to have prepared anything.
The big man then sits down. If a friend of his is anywhere about, he flings a lump of sugar at him. When he gets up he knocks over at least one chair. He then strolls out, observing the same magnificent dignity in the outer shop. No one can mistake him.
But the only other person who makes no row in the outer shop is the small boy, who creeps in, and creeps out, unnoticed. Everyone with any claim to greatness asserts his presence loudly. The chief figures at this time were the junior members of Buller's, and especially the two Hazlitts. Their elder brother was the school winger, and an important person; but they had done nothing but make a noise during their two years at Fernhurst. Athleticism had had a disastrous effect on them. Because their house had won the Thirds, Two Cock and Three Cock, they thought themselves gods. In the tuck-shop they acted as avenging angels sent to punish a wicked world. Their chief amusement was to see a person leaning over a counter, kick his backside when he was not looking, and then run away. It was their class that were the real nuisance in the "Toe." They persecuted the girls in charge most damnably. Very often only one girl was in charge. The younger Hazlitt would at once seat himself on the other counter and shriek out: