Or Lillywhite’s Guide!”
Many fellows liked old Chips nowadays, and more took a charitable view of his writings; but few would have picked him out as a born leader of men, and he certainly had no practice in the little dormitory at the top of the house. It was rather by way of being a cripples’ ward, for Carpenter was still debarred from football by his bronchitis, and the small boy Eaton, who was not so young as he looked, but an amusing rogue, had trumped up a heart of the type imputed to Jan Rutter when he fainted in the Spook’s mathematical. Eaton was a shameless “sloper,” but he had heaps of character, and he saved the prospective captain of the house some embarrassment by leaving at Christmas.
Chips had taken to photography as a winter pursuit; and so rare was the hobby in those days that for some time he was the only photographer in the school. Eaton accompanied him on many a foray, and swung the tripod while Chips changed the case containing the camera from hand to hand. They obtained excellent negatives of some of the delightful old churches in the neighbourhood, including the belfry tower at Burston, seen through its leafless beeches, and the alabaster monument in the chancel at Stoke Overton. But by far the most popular success was the speaking picture of Mr. and Mrs. Maltby, on the doorstep of their famous resort in the market-place; to satisfy the vast demand for that masterpiece, the præpostor was placed in a bit of a quandary, but young Eaton borrowed the negative and did a roaring trade at sixpence a print.
In the meantime Evan Devereux had been elected Captain of Games: a most important officer in the Easter term, the games in question being nothing of the kind, except in an Olympic sense, but just the ordinary athletic sports. The Captain of Games arranged the heats, fixed the times, acted as starter, superintended everything and exercised over all concerned a control that just suited Evan. He proved himself a born master of ceremonies, with a jealous eye for detail, but a little apt to fuss and strut at the last moment on a course cleared of the common herd. He dressed well, and had a pointed way of taking off his hat to the master’s ladies. There were those, of course, who crudely described his mannerisms as mere “roll”; but on the whole it would have been hard to find a keener or more capable Captain of Games.
The office was usually held by a member of the Eleven or of the Fifteen. Evan was in neither yet, though on the edge of both. On the other hand, he was very high in the Upper Sixth; for he had lost neither his facility for acquiring knowledge, nor his inveterate horror of laying himself open to rebuke.
It is at first sight a little odd that such a blameless boy should ever have made a friend of one Sandham, a big fellow low down in the school, and in another house. Sandham, however, was a handsome daredevil of strong but questionable character, and it suited him to have a leading præpostor for his friend. One hesitates to add that he was a younger son of a rather prominent peer, lest the statement be taken as in any way accounting for Evan’s side of the friendship. It is only the thousandth boy, however, who troubles himself to think twice about another’s fellow’s people, high or low. Of all beings boys are in this respect the least snobbish, and Evan Devereux was of all schoolboys the last to embody an exception to that or any other general rule. Sandham was not the only fellow whose hereditary quality was denoted by a “Mr.” in the list; the others were nobodies in the school, and neither Evan nor anybody else made up to them. But to the aristocracy of athletics he could bow as low as his neighbour, and his friend Sandham was an athlete of the first water. Half-back in the fifteen, as good a bat as there was in the Eleven, and a conjuror at extra cover, the gifted youth must needs signalise his friend’s Captaincy of Games by adding the Athletic Championship to his bag of honours. Winner of the Steeplechase, Hurdles, Hundred-yards, Quarter-mile and Wide-jump, not only was Sandham Champion but the rest were nowhere in the table of marks. It must be added that he wore his halo with a rakish indifference which lent some colour to the report that “Mr.” Sandham had been removed from Eton before old Thrale gave him another chance.
“He’s a marvellous athlete, whatever else he is,” said Chips to Jan, on the last Sunday of the Easter term.
“I’m blowed if I know what else he is,” replied Jan, “but I should be sorry to see quite so much of him if I were Evan.”
“Not you,” cried Chips, “if you were Evan! You’d jolly well see all you could of anybody at the top of the tree!”
“Look here, Chips, dry up! Evan’s pretty near the top himself.”