It seemed a heroik thing of Bradwell to say that, feeling as he did to Browne. He thought for a bit, but told me not to go.
“Of corse,” he said, “this must be returned. All’s fair in--in a case of this kind, but--”
Then he thought very deeply and read the sonnit again. Suddenly he took a bit of paper and copied down Browne’s poem word for word. Then he told me to cut back like lightning to Browne’s study, and to put the poem back on his desk if I could--if not, to most carefully keep it till the first chance of getting it back to Browne’s room without being spotted.
“You’re a splendid fag,” he said, “and I shan’t forget this. It’s the sort of thing that squires did for their knights in olden times; and they got good rewards too. Now hook it.”
It’s worth a lot, mind you, to get praise like that from such a chap as Bradwell.
When I got back, Browne was rumaging over his table and sweering a good deal in a loud wisper. He told me to wait a minute, and went off to look in his bedroom. Then I seezed my opportunity, and slipped the sonnit on his table under some papers. When he came back he was worried, and went on hunting till he found it. Then he said “Ah!” to himself, and got pleasanter and asked me what I wanted. I told him my Latin grammar, and, being in a very happy state now, owing to finding the poem, he gave my book back and told me to clear out; which I did.
After prep. I met Bradwell going in to prayers, and he handed me a note for Mabel to put in the usual place. He looked awfully rum when he gave it to me, and he saw that I saw he looked rum. So he said:
“I don’t mind letting you know, owing to your being such a good fag and my trusting you as I do. You may read the letter in prayers, then seal it down and put it behind the pot of ferns in the hall in the usual place.”
Of corse, it wasn’t really a letter, or Bradwell wouldn’t have let me read it. It was just Browne’s sonnit coppied out by Bradwell word for word; and at the bottom where the words, “What about poetry now?--A. T. B.” A. T. B. are Bradwell’s initials, his full name being Arthur Thomas Bradwell. You see, he didn’t exsaxtly say he’d written the sonnit. He only said, “What about poetry now?”
The excitement of it all kept me awake for hours and hours through the night. I don’t suppose any fag ever did more for a big fellow than I had done for Bradwell that day. Then I began to wonder when Browne would send off his poem, and wether Mabel would get them both together or one at a time. You see, of corse, Browne would send her the thing as original, and there was nothing in Bradwell’s letter to exsaxtly say he hadn’t written it; and puzzling the thing out for hours and hours, I at last came to the conklusion that she would find it very difficult which to believe, because how could she know which was telling the truth to her? Then, about three or four in the morning almost, I began to feel rather terrible over it, because I thought of what frightful trouble Browne must have had to write the sonnit. He might have taken terms and terms over it for all I could tell, not, of corse, knowing myself how long it took to write poetry. I felt rather sorry for Browne; but after all a chap’s duty is to the fellow he fags for before masters; and feeling that, I went to sleep.