Alas for any such hopes! On the way out of hall the fatal summons came: “Haviland to go to the Doctor’s study after prep, bell.”
“All up!” groaned the implicated one.
When, at the appointed time, Haviland entered the dread presence, there was no doubt but that the headmaster was “in one of his rotten moods,” as Laughton had so graphically put it. Seated there at his study table, his face wore a very thundercloud of sternness, as he curtly invited the other to make his explanation. This was exactly the same as that offered to Mr Williams, but here it was received with a wrathful grunt—and then in his most magisterial manner the Doctor proceeded to deliver himself.
“You have been guilty of a double breach of rules, in that you were absent from calling-over—for a part of which, by virtue of your office, you were personally responsible—and you were late for chapel. It is no excuse to say that your watch stopped; if that were any valid reason, why then half the school might stay away from calling-over, and, indeed, we might as well do away with calling-over altogether, or any other rule. For a prefect to break the rules, which it is his bounden duty to help in enforcing—to do which, indeed, is the very reason of his official existence—has always been, in my eyes, a ten times greater offence than the same conduct on the part of a junior.
“Now, over and above this double breach of the rules you have been guilty of two further and very serious offences. You have disturbed the decorum and dignity of divine service by entering the chapel in the way you did, and you practised deceit in making that entrance in such manner that you hoped it would escape my observation. Let me tell you that nothing escapes my observation—”
“No, by Jingo it doesn’t!” thought the delinquent, ruefully.
”—and of late that observation has convinced me that you are unfit to hold the office you bear, for I have had you specially under my notice for some time past. As, therefore, you have proved yourself utterly unfit to hold office, I have made up my mind to deprive you of it, and you may now consider yourself no longer a prefect.”
Here Haviland broke in desperately:—
“Sir, has there ever been any report against me—I mean of any disorder arising where I was in charge?”
The unheard-of audacity of this expostulation seemed to take away the Doctor’s breath, to render him utterly speechless. He to be answered, remonstrated with! Why, the thing was unprecedented!