“May I know what source?” asked David.
“Yes, I don’t mind telling you, but you must be officially ignorant. Jevons went to breakfast with the Head the other day, and remarked, in an outburst of confidence, that you were far the biggest swell in the house, because you were the President of the Court of Appeal. He said it in all innocence, but the Head was naturally interested to hear more, and applied to—well, to the proper quarter, which was Manton.”
David recovered from his spurt of temper.
“That funny little Jev probably thought it all quite regular,” he said.
“Of course he did; he wouldn’t have given you away on purpose. Go on; we’ve got to the soap in the kettle.”
David laughed.
“Yes, sir, you should have seen it coming all rainbowy out of the spout. So of course Manton sent for the—the fellow who did it, and he couldn’t even cane him alone, but had to have Crossley in to help. It’s perfectly degrading, sir, to have prefects like that. So Crossley held the fellow down, and, just as Manton began to lay on, the fellow kicked out, and Crossley slipped across to get out of the way, and Manton landed him an awful wipe over the shin. And so Crossley let go, and stamped about, and they made such a row between them that I had to look in. I’d gone on tiptoe to the door, sir, in case anything funny occurred, and so, as I say, I looked in, and there was Babbington—oh, name slipped out by accident—fit to burst himself with laughing, and the kettle boiling over again with soap-bubbles, and Crossley hopping about on one leg, and Manton apologising to him. And then Manton turned on me, and told me I was undermining discipline; so I had to say there seemed a precious lot of discipline to undermine. And then Manton lost his presence of mind and whacked out again at Babbington, and missed him and smashed his electric light. O Lor’! I never saw anything so funny!”
David shrieked with laughter again at the remembrance, and Adams could not resist joining him as he turned to beat out his pipe against the bars of the fire.
“Well?” he said at length.
“I could tell you heaps of stories like that,” said David, wiping his eyes. “Another time it was Crossley who told a fellow to write out fifty lines. So he wrote out ‘Fifty lines,’ just like that, on a sheet of paper, and showed it up. Fancy doing that to Frank, or Crookles! Why, you couldn’t! And then Crossley told him to write them out twice. So he took another bit of paper and wrote ‘Them out twice’ on it. And then Crossley said he would cane him, so Jevons—Lord, there’s another name; please forget it, sir—Jevons came and appealed. Precious lot of good that did him, for the Court were satisfied that he’d deserved his fifty lines, and so I gave him six frightful stingers myself, as I knew Crossley wasn’t fit to, for cheek to a prefect. And yet you and Manton say I’m undermining discipline, sir,” added David in a voice of outraged virtue. “Why, we’re enforcing it. Jev had to write out his hundred lines, and got a whacking too. Though the Court of Appeal can reverse a prefect’s decision, it also may enforce it, and then the—the appellant gets it twice as hot for having appealed. Same as in English law, sir.”