There was some consolation for Irving in this matter-of-fact view. In the rector’s eyes apparently his dignity had not suffered by the incident. But when a moment later he passed a group of Fourth Formers and they turned and stared at him, grinning, he felt that his dignity had suffered very much. He felt that within a short time his misfortune would be the talk of the school.
At supper it was as he expected it would be. Westby set about airing the story for the benefit of the table, appealing now and then to Irving himself for confirmation of the passages which were least gratifying to Irving’s vanity. “You did look so woe-begone when you stood up on shore, Mr. Upton,” was the genial statement which Irving especially resented. To have Westby tell the boys the first day how he had called the new master a new kid and the second day how he had ducked him was a little too much; it seemed to Irving that Westby was slyly amusing himself by undermining his authority. But the boy’s manner was pleasantly ingratiating always; Irving felt baffled. Carroll did not help him much towards an interpretation; Carroll sat by self-contained, quietly intelligent, amused. Irving liked both the boys, and yet as the days passed, he seemed to grow more and more uneasy and anxious in their society.
In the classroom he was holding his own; he was a good mathematical scholar, he prepared the lessons thoroughly, and he found it generally easy to keep order by assigning problems to be worked out in class. The weather continued good, so that during play time the fellows were out of doors instead of loafing round in dormitory. They all had their own little affairs to organize; athletic clubs and literary societies held their first meetings; there was a process of general shaking down; and in the interest and industry occasioned by all this, there was not much opportunity or disposition to make trouble.
But the first Sunday was a bad day. In a boys’ school bad weather is apt to be accompanied by bad behavior; on this Sunday it poured. The boys, having put on their best clothes, were obliged, when they went out to chapel, to wear rubbers and to carry umbrellas—an imposition against which they rebelled. After chapel, there was an hour before dinner, and in that hour most of the Sixth Formers sought their rooms—or sought one another’s rooms; it seemed to Irving, who was trying to read and who had a headache, that there was a needless amount of rushing up and down the corridors and of slamming of doors. By and by the tumult became uproarious, shouts of laughter and the sound of heavy bodies being flung against walls reached his ears; he emerged then and saw the confusion at the end of the corridor. Allison was suspended two or three feet above the floor, by a rope knotted under his arms; it was the rope that was used for raising trunks up to the loft above. In lowering it from the loft some one had trespassed on forbidden ground. Westby, Collingwood, Dennison, Scarborough, and half a dozen others were gathered, enjoying Allison’s ludicrous struggles. His plight was not painful, only absurd; and Irving himself could not at first keep back a smile. But he came forward and said,—
“Oh, look here, fellows, whoever is responsible for this will have to climb up and release Allison.”
Westby turned with his engaging smile.
“Yes, but, Mr. Upton, who do you suppose is responsible? I don’t see how we can fix the responsibility, do you?”
“I will undertake to fix it,” said Irving. “Westby, suppose you climb that ladder and let Allison down.”
“I don’t think you’re approaching this matter in quite a judicial spirit, Mr. Upton,” said Westby. “Of course no man wants to be arbitrary; he wants to be just. It really seems to me, Mr. Upton, that no action should be taken until the matter has been more thoroughly sifted.”
The other boys, with the exception of Allison, were chuckling at this glib persuasiveness. Westby stood there, in a calmly respectful, even deferential attitude, as if animated only by a desire to serve the truth.