It was not the maid this time, but a bearded man-servant whom the boy had seen the previous night. Jan made the same reply as before, and no sort of secret of the way in which he had got out into the quad. He added that he should like to have a look at the studies; and Morgan, with a stare and a smile quite lost on Jan, showed him round.
They were absurdly, deliciously, inconceivably tiny, the studies at Heriot’s; each was considerably smaller than a dormitory “tish,” and the saddle-room of Jan’s old days would have made three or four of them. But they were undeniably cosy and attractive, as compact as a captain’s cabin, as private as friar’s cell, and far more comfortable than either. Or so they might well have seemed to the normal boy about to possess a study of his own, with a table and two chairs, a square of carpet as big as a bath-sheet, a book-shelf and pictures, and photographs and ornaments to taste, fretwork and plush to heart’s content, a flower-box for the summer term, hot-water pipes for the other two, and above all a door of his own to shut at will against the world! But Jan Rutter had not the instincts of a normal schoolboy, nor the temperament favourable to their rapid growth. He had been brought up too uncomfortably to know the value of comfort, and too much in the open air to appreciate the merits of indoor sanctuary. Artistic impulse he had none; and the rudimentary signs of that form of grace, to be seen in nearly all the studies he was shown, left him thoroughly unimpressed.
“Is it true,” he asked, “that every boy in the school has one of these holes?”
“Quite true,” replied Morgan, staring. “You didn’t say 'holes,’ sir?”
“I did,” declared Jan, enjoying his accidental hit.
“You’d better not let Mr. Heriot hear you, sir, or any of the gentlemen either!”
“I don’t care who hears me,” retorted Jan, boastfully; but it must not be forgotten that he had come to school against his will, and that this was his first opportunity of airing a not unnatural antagonism.
“You wait till you’ve got one of your own,” said the well-meaning man, “with a nice new carpet and table-cloth, and your own family portraits and sportin’ picters!”
“At any rate I should know a horse from a cow,” returned Jan, examining something in the nature of a sporting print, “and not hang up rot like that!”
“You let Mr. Shockley hear you!” cried Morgan, with a laugh. “You’ll catch it!”