“That’s no use,” said Bags, “if Manton’s given us away already.”
“But that’s just what we don’t know,” said David. “I vote we try to get Manton to tell us what he told the Head. He may not have told him much; he may have said it was an amicable sort of arrangement. On the other hand, he may have told him that our object was to undermine prefects’ authority. Well, as I told Adams, there’s another side to that; we generally supported it, except when it was manifestly unfair. I want to know what Manton told him. That we have put ourselves above the prefects is true, but we did it in the cause of order, though of course we all enjoyed it frightfully.”
“And the house accepted us,” said Bags.
“Lot the Head will care for that! I want to get Manton and Crossley to come and talk. Crossley doesn’t matter, but Manton anyhow, as he’s already seen the Head. You see, when the Head has us up, we can tell him a lot if we choose. He’ll ask us for our account of it. Manton’ll see that. He isn’t a fool, though he is such a squirt.”
With Plugs as well as Bags, David was the master-mind, and after a few minutes Bags went to Manton’s study, and quite politely asked him to come round and confer with the Court.
Manton rather liked this: he promised himself a pleasant time in telling the Court that the Head was going into the whole matter himself, and that he had nothing more to do with it. He was prepared to be maliciously civil and courteous, and to express his regret the Court had made such an ass of itself as its spontaneous generation implied. He thought it would be rather fun, and came very blandly, with his spectacles on, and a book that he was reading. His finger kept his place in a cursory manner.
“Here I am,” he said. “Hullo, Blaize! Hullo, Gregson! Yes; the Court of Appeal. It wasn’t I who went to the Head about it, you know; it was that little fellow, Blaize’s friend, who let it out. What’s his name! I forget.”
“Oh, Jevons,” said David.
“Yes, Jevons told the Head about it, and so of course the Head asked me more. He put it rather nicely: he said it was my business to tell him about it, as head of the house.”
David was seated between his two learned brothers, just as if a regular Court was going on.