“Why? What on earth about? I haven’t been doing anything,” answered the other, in genuine surprise—“at least—” he added as a recollection of the smack on the head he had administered to Jarnley occurred to him. But no, it couldn’t be that, for therein he had been strictly discharging his duty.
“I don’t know myself,” rejoined Laughton. “He stopped me as I passed him in the cloisters just now, and told me to tell you. He was looking jolly glum too.”
Another half-smothered shout or two of “Silence” interrupted them, and then you might have heard a pin drop as the master of the week entered, in this case the redoubtable “Head” himself, an imposing figure in his square cap and flowing gown as he swept up to the great central desk, and gave the signal for the calling-over to begin.
Haviland, shouting out name after name on his list, did so mechanically, and his mind was very ill at ease. His conscience was absolutely clear of any specific offence, but that was no great consolation, for the Doctor’s lynx eye had a knack of unearthing all sorts of unsuspected delinquencies, prefects especially being visited with vicarious penalties. That was it. He was going to suffer for the sins of somebody else, and it was with the gloomiest of anticipations that he closed his note-book and went up to make his report.
Chapter Two.
The Headmaster.
The Reverend Nicholas Bowen, D.D., headmaster of Saint Kirwin’s, ruled that institution with a sway that was absolutely and entirely despotic. His aim was to model it on the lines of the greater public schools as much as possible, and to this end his assistant staff were nearly all university graduates, and more than half of them in Holy Orders. He was a great believer in the prefectorial system, and those of the school selected to carry it out were entrusted with large powers. On the other hand, they were held mercilessly responsible even for unconscious failures of duty, and on this ground alone the luckless Haviland had ample cause for his misgivings.
The outward aspect, too, of the Doctor was eminently calculated to command the respect of his juvenile kingdom. He was very tall and strongly built, and half a lifetime of pedagogic despotism had endowed him with a sternness of demeanour awe-inspiring enough to his charges, though when turned towards the outside world, as represented by his clerical colleagues for instance, it smacked of a pomposity bordering on the absurd. He had his genial side, however, and was not averse to the cracking of pedagogic jokes, at which he expected the form to laugh. It is almost unnecessary to add that the form never by any chance disappointed him.