Bags’s ideas in this discussion about cribbing were limited to the possibility of its being made systematic. It must be at once premised that no sense of the dishonourableness of the practice so much as entered his head, but it was absurd that there should be no standard about it. At present everybody in Tovey’s cribbed according to his lights, some to get full marks, others, more half-heartedly, like David, to avoid impositions. And that owl Tovey, in his view, was responsible for it. It was not a fellow detected in cribbing who ought to get into a row, but Tovey who made such a state of affairs possible. As stated before, in the parallel form which Bags graced by his presence, cribbing was unknown; this was probably owing to fashion, but no doubt the extraordinary quickness of eye possessed by Bills (Williams, the form-master) had something to do with it. There it was, anyhow: nobody cribbed in Bills’s; everybody cribbed in Tovey’s, and the same number of boys were terminally promoted from each division into the lower fifth. Bags himself ran a decent chance of promotion this half, whereas David had none, but he knew that he had not David’s brains, nor yet the half of them. David, for instance, had been proxime accessit in the scholarship examination last summer, whereas there had been no question of Bags going up for it. It was a rum world.
Bags and David shared their study together, presumably in equal quantities, but it was easy to see which was the master-mind, or, from certain aspects of it, the master-body. The room measured some ten feet by twelve, and appeared to be chiefly given up to David’s possessions and implements. There were a couple of racquets in a press, and a bag of racquet-balls, a squash racquet (for which he presently rushed in, buttoning his shirt), a cricket-bat, an old deflated football, and a bag of golf-clubs. There were school-books about equally divided, a few cribs belonging to David, and on the walls some half-dozen rather thin water-colours of the Archdeaconry and Cathedral at Baxminster, executed post-haste by Margery after the famous day when Maddox had declared that it was the rippingest cathedral in England, and David’s house the rippingest house in the close. There was also a pen-and-ink drawing made by David himself of the tower of the cathedral, which leaned in an unsatisfactory manner till he had framed it slightly crooked in a cardboard mount, which restored its dangerous want of equilibrium. The two tables, supposed to belong severally to them, had been chiefly annexed by David, since golf-balls, fives-gloves, and such paraphernalia usurped the one, while the other was littered with his books, Bags excavating a corner for himself when occasion absolutely demanded. But this predominance of David’s belongings was not accomplished so much by greed on the part of David as by Bags’s consistent self-effacement when David’s interests clashed with his own. Indeed, it indicated one of the most popular points in Bags’s character, namely that, as everybody said, he was so deucedly easy to get on with. David was easy to get on with too, owing to his intense appreciation of the humour of life in general. And even when it was not humorous he thought it was, which was a cheering way of looking at things. But of the two, David, both publicly and privately, was the substance, and Bags the shadow: the shadow danced in obedience to that which threw it.
But this morning Bags—the nickname had stuck to him in the new school, for it was simpler than “Crabtree” and there was not anything else in particular to say about him—Bags was meditating a dance of his own, independently of David. He felt certain that if David had been in his division, parallel to the one that he mildly cribbed in, where cribbing happened not to be the vogue, he would probably be somewhere near the top of the form, though, as it was, he was three-quarters of the way down. David himself bore the weight of “things as they were” with complete equanimity (for there they were) and he cribbed sufficiently to avoid the tedium of impositions, but not sufficiently to secure himself a decent place. He appeared to be quite content with this state of affairs, except in so far that it might lead to having a private tutor in the holidays, whereas to Bags it all seemed a gross miscarriage of justice. No doubt if David turned to and worked with industry and zeal he might make his difficult way upwards, but it was a tremendous handicap to be obliged to sweat your eyes out in order to get on level terms with people who slowly and correctly construed out of an English translation of the lesson, and David would have been the first to turn up his nose at such a proposal. It was less trouble to sit seventeenth in the form, and avoid impositions.
Bags was not very good at independent action: his line was action that fell in with other people’s wishes, and he meditated over any possible idea that might suggest itself to him in his new rôle. He would have liked to tell Adams (confidentially, of course) that Remove A relied so largely on Tovey’s well-known shortsightedness, but, apart from the general feeling that this would be sneaking, there was a considerable doubt in his mind as to how Adams would take it. Adams was a splendid chap, of course—that was the only possible view to hold of him; but it was undeniable that he didn’t want to be bothered. He liked things to be pleasant; he liked fellows to come and sit about in his study with clean hands and a parting in their hair, and to be happy and contented. He liked them also to be interested in general topics, and to bring their work to him for help; but he did not like to know that school-rules were being broken, or that the house was not getting on in a saintly and successful manner. He wanted it to manage its own affairs, while he, like a genial father coming home in the evening to his family, saw only bright and cheerful faces round him. Once, Bags remembered, Cruikshank had consulted him on a case where bullying was suspected, and Bags, at Cruikshank’s invitation, had been present as a witness. But Cruikshank’s reception, though perfectly cordial, had not been of a sort to encourage confidence. Adams had thanked him, had appreciated his good intentions, but had told him that he was sure the feeling of the house would prevent any such occurrence in the future. The feeling of the house was the best jury, and he wished to leave the matter in the hands of the prefects. Bags conjectured quite easily from his recollection of this what was likely to be his own reception if he informed Adams confidentially that Remove A consistently cribbed. No; that would not do, and David had been horrified at the idea of Maddox being told. . . .
Then quite suddenly all scheme of independent action was taken from Bags. Somewhere down the passage a door was opened, and David’s name was shouted. David, in any case, was not here, having gone to play squash, and, though the voice was Maddox’s, Bags saw no reason for going to tell him. If David did not answer, he would conclude that David did not hear. Probably Maddox only wanted him in a general sort of way. Then came a step along the passage from the bath-room, where the prefects’ studies were, and along the corridor and round the corner, and Maddox entered, genial and cordial as usual.
“David out?” he asked. “Why didn’t you shout ‘Not at home’? But when he comes in you might tell him——”
Maddox’s eye wandered round the study.
“I say, what a God-forsaken mess you and David keep your room in,” he said. “Piles of books and golf-balls in between. What’s this?”
Maddox suddenly took up from the table a book in a dark blue cover. It was an English translation of Thucydides, edited by the obliging Mr. Bohn.
“Is this yours?” he asked.