It followed that Clive's inventive genius was called in to help, and that day at dinner, Masters, having gobbled up his meal, spent the rest of his time crouching over a book resting on his knee, on which was stretched the paper on which he was operating. And all would have been well, for he was making amazing progress with that patent pen, but for the fact that a sudden and unforeseen difficulty had arisen. The penny bottle of ink he had requisitioned had the most idiotically narrow neck.
"Asses!" he growled, showing the difficulty to Clive, who sat next him. "What makes 'em turn out bottles like that? How's a chap to get to work?"
Clive had many brilliant ideas constantly occurring to him.
"Shove it into a spoon," he urged. "A tablespoon. Empty the bottle in, and then you can dip easy. It'll prevent you dipping too deep. Get on with it."
Masters realised the brilliance of the suggestion, and at once put it into practice. He took the biggest spoon to be had, buttressed it around with bread-crumbs, and then emptied his ink from the bottle. That was famous.
"One gets along like a house on fire," he told Clive triumphantly. "And the writing's ripping. Old Canning'll remark on it. George! Darrell, you might sell him one of your pens. Look! There's fifty of the beastly lines written. Here we go again. 'There's a time and a place for everything.' So there is, my boy. Hall's the place for writing rotten impots, specially when there's skating."
Hall, no doubt, was an excellent place. But accidents will happen, and here with the most surprising result. For Masters, after much diligence, had actually managed to complete three hundred lines when his sleeve got anchored in the handle of the spoon filled with ink. It jerked over, and in one brief instant the writer of the "impot" had the contents of the spoon in his lap, while some of the inky mess flowed over the table, making an excellent black map on the cloth.
"What a mess!" he groaned, when he had vainly mopped at his trousers with his handkerchief. "I'm sopping wet, and as black as a hat. And look at that beastly tablecloth. Here, Darrell, suggest something."
The best that Clive could do was to propose a covering of bread-crumbs and salt, with which the huge stain was promptly covered. But all to no purpose. The eagle eye of the Captain of the School going the round of the tables in Hall after "knock up," when there was compulsory silence, discovered the map which Masters had painted so unwittingly.
"Whose is that?" he demanded.