A couple of years before Ingleby would not have known how to meet the coalition; it is possible, even, that he would have given up his ticket, and improbable that he would have received the pound that Griffin offered. By this time he had learnt that no answer at all was better than the softest; that when Griffin and Douglas started that sort of game the best thing was to keep his temper and clear out as quickly as possible. On this occasion the chapel bell saved him. All through the service that evening he was pondering on Griffin’s words, trying, rather obstinately, to convince himself that they weren’t true; that he wasn’t the skunk they had agreed to call him; that he was sufficiently gentle in birth to have an interest in what the newspapers called “the sport of kings,” that, at a pinch, he might summon up sufficient “guts” to emulate the boldness of such a daring customer as Griffin. Perhaps it was all too horribly true. . . .
He couldn’t accept it. It was inconceivable that all the attributes of knightly courage should be vested in people like Griffin; and yet he couldn’t be certain that he wasn’t deceiving himself. It was so easy to imagine oneself brave . . . the easiest thing in the world. “That’s the worst of me,” he said to himself, “I can imagine anything. I could imagine myself hiring a coach and wearing a white top-hat and asking old fat Leeming to come to the Birches with me on Friday. I’m all imagination and silly rot of that kind; but when it comes to the point I’m no damned good at all.”
It wasn’t the first time that he had realised defects of this kind. Term after term he had been reproaching himself for the lack of moral or physical courage.
There was only one way out of it: to prove that he was capable of the things which he feared by doing them. In this way he had driven himself to batter his hands to pulp by playing fives without gloves; for this he had taken a dive into the deep end of the swimming-bath for the sole reason that he found it impossible to float in the shallow water and had determined to swim; for this he had forced himself to spend long hours, or to waste long hours, over Geometry, the subject that he hated most. Now, in the same way, and wholly for his own satisfaction, he determined to go to the Birches.
That night, walking up and down the Quad, he opened the subject to Widdup. He said,—
“Do you know I drew Airs and Graces in the house sweep? Griffin offered me a quid for the ticket.”
“I should jolly well let him have it,” said Widdup, explaining the mathematical side of the question. “You see, you’ve won a twenty to one chance already. The chances against the horse winning are . . . well you can work it out easily. I’ll do it for you in second prep. Besides, old Griff has a lot of money on the horse and he’s going to see the race run.”
“Well, so am I,” said Ingleby. Widdup laughed, and that annoyed him.
“What do you think of it?”
“I think you’re a damned fool,” said Widdup.