"Quite so," admitted Masters, a little puzzled. He had understood, in fact, from Clive's glowing description of the home-made vehicle of which that hopeful and Hugh were joint inventors and proprietors that it was something really very fine. He never imagined, indeed, and had never been given data on which to imagine, that the said car consisted of odds and ends, that the workshop engine was the propelling force, that the steering gear was of the crudest, that bicycle wheels did service in front, while the rector's tricycle had supplied that all-important part, the back axle. Clive in his descriptions of mechanical matters appertaining to himself was wont to wax very enthusiastic. He clothed his inventions in a covering of gloss, which, to the uneducated eyes of Masters, was quite opaque. That car, then, to this same Masters, had always been imagined as a car, not a collection of odd bits.
"Oh!" exclaimed Hugh at length, seeing that no attempt was being made to make fun of the invention. "Well, Clive, a bit more than twenty miles, eh? How'd she do it?"
"On her head. Easy. But we mightn't be able to get away. Train's easier for Masters. Let his Governor stump up. He ought to. What's a Governor for?"
That was just the very point of view from which Masters beheld his paternal relative. He went off in the train promising to see what persuasion would do. And then Susanne waved an adieu to his friends.
"Au revoir!" he sang out, his head projecting from the carriage window. "Wish you chaps a jolly time. Rawlings won't be interfering with you."
And that, indeed, was the thought of Clive and Bert and Hugh. To be quite truthful, the trio hardly now gave the immaculate Rawlings a thought. For the downfall of that young gentleman had been very sudden and very evident. He was no longer a prefect. His haughty, airy ways were gone. He was a changed individual. As for Trendall, the fat fellow's fat cheeks had seemed less fat of late. He had taken the lesson he had received very much to heart, and as if he realised his former shortcomings, had actually drifted away from Rawlings. They were no longer seen together. Their familiar figures, arm in arm, were no longer observed on the playing fields. Instead, Trendall had moped for a while, and then had begun to draw other friends about him. Instead of a sulky nod, he now even deigned to smile at Susanne and the others, and on this, the very last day of the term, he had made a confession.
"Look here, you chaps," he said, somewhat lamely perhaps, for it wanted no little courage to tackle the matter, "I'm afraid I've been rather a pig."
"Eh? Er—oh—don't mention it," was Masters' instant rejoinder, somewhat characteristic of that young gentleman.
"Shut up!" growled Susanne promptly. "Well, Trendall?" he said encouragingly. "We don't think it."
"Then I do. I've acted like a pig and a bounder, and I'm sorry. I've been an ungrateful brute all along and want to apologise. It's late in the day, of course, but then, there it is, I'm sorry."