“They tell me you’ve given up cricket again. Why?”
“I don’t care for it, sir, never did. Everybody seems to have a notion that nothing can be of any use, or even right, but that confounded—I beg your pardon, sir—cricket and football. A fellow is never to be allowed to take his own line.”
“Yes, but it’s a good wholesome rule that if a fellow can’t take his own line he’d better adapt himself to the lines of others. Eh?”
Haviland did not reply. He merely smiled, cynically, disdainfully. Mr Sefton, watching his face, was interested, and more sorry for him than his official position allowed him to say. He went on:—
“Don’t mope. There’s nothing to be gained by it. Throw yourself into something. If one has lost a position, it is always possible to regain it. I know, and some others know, your influence has always been used in the right direction. Do you think that counts for nothing? Eh?”
“It hasn’t counted for much, sir, in a certain quarter,” was the bitter reply. “It isn’t the position I mind—I don’t care a hang about it, sir!” he burst forth passionately, “but to be stuck down in these three beastly fields, in the middle of a crowd all day and every day—I’d rather have been expelled at once.”
“Don’t be an ass, Haviland,” said the master, stopping short—for they had been walking up and down—and peering at him in his quaint way. “Do you hear? Don’t be an ass.”
This commentary, uttered as it was, left no room for reply, wherefore Haviland said nothing.
“Why don’t you go to the Doctor and ask him to remove your ‘gates’?” went on Mr Sefton.
“I wouldn’t ask him anything, sir.”