"It was jolly fine," I said. "But what about Stopford?"
"If he would meet me publicly and argue it out——" said Richmond minimus.
I laughed.
"That's not the way of Stopford," I said. "He won't argue about it; but he'll give you his sort of sermon when he gets you alone in a corner some evening after dark. Preachers are often pretty nearly martyred before they've done with it; and they die gladly; and very likely Stopford will martyr you."
"Very likely he will," said Richmond minimus; but not as if he looked forward to it.
II
Everybody in the lower school expected some pretty fearful things would happen to Richmond, but instead a miracle seemed to occur and Stopford did nothing. Gideon thought that he might have taken an action for libel against Richmond minimus if he had been grown up, owing to young Richmond's saying what he said about stealing sweets. It was well known to be true, but Gideon said that, curiously enough in law it didn't matter in the least if you said the truth. Because the law is often down on the truth far worse than on a lie. But Stopford never mentioned the matter again, and actually behaved kindly to Richmond and gave him two new kinds of nibs for his nib collection. He also let him have a picture of a very beautiful girl out of a box of cigarettes. I asked Richmond minimus what he thought of it, and he said Stopford was converted, and that Stopford was his first triumph. He was so earnest and hopeful about it that I felt when he became a missionary and went into those lands near the equator, that he wouldn't be contented with converting niggers, but jolly well want to convert lions and everything.
Encouraged by the remarkable success of Stopford, Richmond minimus preached several times more, and it got to be a regular lark, and chaps came from the other houses to hear him. Stopford always came and took it frightfully seriously; and then happened the row about Dr. Dunstan's medlar tree, and Mr. Browne caught Stopford after dark and reported him, and Mr. Mannering, the 'blue,' flogged Stopford at the order of the Doctor.
Now this Browne was the least but one of all the masters, and without doubt the utterest squirt that ever came to Merivale as a master. It is true that he was a Cambridge man, but there was nothing more to be said for him. Young Forrest, however, knew something more, for it happened by a curious accident that he came from the same place that Mr. Browne did. What it was that Forrest knew we couldn't understand; but it appeared that Browne gave Forrest a great deal of help with his prep. on condition that he would not mention it.
This man was very ignorant and could only teach kids, and even them he didn't teach well. It was well known that he had many cribs in his room, and often—especially when he had to take the fourth in algebra—he would creep away from time to time and look at his crib swiftly, and return, and do off a sum on the blackboard as if he had no difficulty at all. He was great at having favourites, and he always chose sneaks, and often turned on them afterwards, as he did on Fowle, and also on Stopford over the medlars; though when caught, Stopford solemnly swore to Browne that he was getting the medlars for him.