He smiled and nodded as if he had just handed Jack a five-pound note, and Jack got out into the corridor, feeling that he had made a fool of himself.
"Jingo, though!" he exclaimed, "I was jolly lucky not to be carpeted before the Head. What a dickens of a mess I would have landed myself into! Hullo, Patchie!"
"How fares it, comrade?" asked Patch, in his usual grand manner, saluting Jack with an elaborate salaam. "What is this rumour that comes to my ears that you have met with a set-back in the course of that jape intended for the Cripples? Untrue, of course?"
"No such luck. We made an awful bloomer, and we'll have it in for those Cripple blighters worse than ever now. Instead of letting the Cripples have the sawdust, we made a slight miscalculation, and tipped it all over old 'Annie' and his class."
"'Annie,' I take it, is Monsieur Anastasie? I suppose he was sore?"
"Oh, he cut up a bit at first, but he soon cooled down. In fact, he was rather decent about it. Handed me two hundred lines, that's all."
"Bad luck, comrade. But it might have been worse, mightn't it?"
"Oh, easily! I might have dropped on Annie's head, and killed him, or perhaps the sawdust might have choked one of those grinning beggars in the extra French set. Or there might have been a tribe of death-adders hidden in the sawdust. Oh, yes; I came off pretty well considering." He laughed his usual happy, careless laugh. "Why, I've gone and forgotten that trial swim for this afternoon—down at the baths. Coming along?"
"Er—no thanks. In fact, comrade, I may confide that I—well, I can't swim."
"Oh, get out—you must. On a hot afternoon like this, too. Come along, I'll give you a few pointers about the game. What on earth would you do if you were left on a sinking ship with no lifebelts and unable to swim?"