“Well, it doesn’t matter to you anyway.”
“Doesn’t it? You’ll soon know that it does. We’re not going to have any liars in this house. You’d better tell the truth at once.”
“All right, then. I did go to the races.”
“The swine! . . . Get a towel, Duggie.”
“Well . . . you asked me. . .”
“Now, I’m going to prove that you’re a liar. Of course you know that already. But you ought to be shown up for your own good. Then you’ll get a tight six. What were Airs and Graces’ colours?”
“I don’t know what his colours were.”
Griffin howled. “HIS . . . listen to the swine. He doesn’t know a horse from a mare, Duggie. Ingleby, how do you tell a horse from a mare?” Edwin blushing, was overwhelmed with laughter. By this time the towel was ready, wet, and twisted into a cable. “I’ll teach you the colours of Airs and Graces,” said Griffin. “We’ve had quite enough of your airs and graces here. Next time you’ll find it pays to tell the truth in this dormitory.”
Edwin got his six, having been bent double over the end of his own bed by the other seekers after truth. It was worth it. When the lights were out and he was comfortably settled in bed he decided that that sort of thing oughtn’t to make any difference. “My mind to me a kingdom is,” he said to himself; and in his mind the great guts question had been settled for ever. As for the lamming. . . . Well, it might have been a gym shoe. . . . While he lay thinking of these things he was surprised to hear the voice of Widdup, who slept next to him, speaking in a whisper. “I say,” he said, “did you really go to the Birches, or were you pulling my leg?”
“Of course I did,” he replied. It gave him a little shock to find that so slight a thing as a display of physical violence had shaken Widdup’s faith.