“I dare say the Head will tell you as much of what I said as he thinks good for you,” he observed. “But I really don’t see why I should. You see he takes the view that prefects are not to be dictated to by two or three members of the fifth form. Bad precedent, you know; it might lead to a couple of fellows out of the fourth form dictating to you. Jevons and a friend might make a super-Court of Appeal. Rather funny that would be.”
David passed the ghost of a wink to Gregson. He wanted to draw Manton on a little further, before he unmasked his batteries. It required some control to assume an attitude of humility, when delicious sentences were beginning to seethe in his brain. But it was heavenly to see Manton’s malicious little eyes beaming at him through his spectacles, and notice what an awful scug he looked with his hair, rather long behind, lying outside his collar. He gave a sigh.
“I say, I’m afraid we’re in for it,” he said disconsolately.
Manton let his mouth expand into an odious smile.
“Yes, I should say you were,” he observed. “You see the Head’s view is that the authority of prefects is an institution which has his support, and he doesn’t quite see why it should be taken away by three fellows in the fifth. He asked me all sorts of questions, and so I had to give him a pretty full account. I should make a clean breast of it, I think, if I were you.”
David could stand this no longer. He felt that he must burst if he had to listen to any more of Manton’s advice.
“You say you gave him a pretty full account,” he said, “though you have not chosen to tell us what it was. Well, I shouldn’t wonder if we made it a bit fuller for you. I beg your pardon, brother Crabtree——”
Bags was leaning back, looking dreamily at Manton.
“Learned brother Gregson,” he observed, “do you remember one day how Mr. Manton wanted to whack a little boy called Babbington, and how he had to call in Mr. Crossley to help?”
Plugs assumed a portentous air.