“But what fellows in the school would have anything to do with a creature like that?”
“I don’t know,” said Jan. “We’re not all nobility and gentry; there’s some might get him to do some dirty work or other for them. It might be a bet, or it might be a bit of poaching, for all you know.”
“That doesn’t sound like a præpostor,” said Chips, speaking up for the Upper Sixth like a man after old Thrale’s heart.
“You never know,” said Jan.
The discussion was not prolonged. It was interrupted, first by a rising duet of invisible steps, and then by the apparition of Evan Devereux and his friend Sandham hurrying up the hill with glistening faces.
“Talk of the nobility and gentry!” said Chips, when the pair had passed with a greeting too curt to invite a stoppage. But Jan’s chance phrase was not the only coincidence. The encounter had occurred at the very corner where the same four fellows had met by similar accident on the last Sunday of last term. Moreover Evan, like Chips, was wearing the præpostor’s Sunday hat, while Sandham and Jan were in their ordinary school caps.
| [1] | Præpostors. |
CHAPTER XXII
THE OLD BOYS’ MATCH
Founder’s Day was mercifully fine. A hot sun lit the usual scene outside the colonnade, where the Old Boys assembled before the special service with which the day began, and greeted each other to the merry measure of the chapel bells. Most of the hardy annual faces were early on the spot, with here and there a bronzed one not to be seen every year, but a good sprinkling as smooth as the other day when they left the school. These were the men of fashion, coming down at last in any clothes they liked; among them Bruce, last year’s captain, and Stratten his wicket-keeper, who was also a friend of Jan’s.