“I engaged this room in 1896,” Mr. Chowdler shouted after him, “and I intend to keep it.”
And he kept it.
However, the victory of the bedroom did not end the campaign against the committee; it only spurred the enemy to greater exertions. And young Veal, panting for revenge, became the recognised leader of a guerilla campaign. No step that the committee took was allowed to pass unchallenged; no rule was made but it was straightway broken, no notice was posted without provoking a counter-notice or a parody. Half the hotel was on terms of active hostility with the other half. The older men and their wives stood by the committee, the younger ones rallied round the banner of Veal. And a climax seemed to have been reached one afternoon, when Veal and a friend dashed across the sacred enclosure, where Messrs. Chowdler, Plashy and Weatherbury were cutting figures, kicked away the orange which formed the centre of their evolutions, and spilled Mr. Chowdler—accidentally, as they maintained; of set purpose and malice aforethought, as others asserted. After this anything was possible. But the situation was saved by the timely arrival of Lord Budleigh of Salterton and his brother the Admiral. By a masterly stroke of policy they were co-opted on to the committee before they had been five minutes in the hotel; and the opposition collapsed. For even in moments of the wildest aberration, a hotelful of English folk knows the value of a lord. Moreover, Lord Budleigh was a man of courteous and conciliatory manners, far less exclusive in his behaviour than either Mr. Chowdler or the Hon. Fitzroy Plashy, and tolerant of the vagaries of youth; while his brother the Admiral, who was out to enjoy himself and sublimely unconscious of anything amiss, fraternised with everybody in the most natural and friendly way. Within eight-and-forty hours, Mr. Veal found himself without followers and left the hotel. The committee had triumphed, and, with the committee, Mr. Chowdler.
“There had been a little unpleasantness before I arrived,” he said afterwards, in describing the events, “but I soon settled all that.”
It will be readily understood, therefore, that Mr. Chowdler was in no mood to tolerate rebuffs when he returned to Chiltern. And yet, as ill-luck would have it, a rebuff of the most unexpected kind awaited him. On the eve of his departure for Switzerland he had written to the headmaster to intimate that he wished to have Cheeny as a house Prefect in the following term, and it would therefore be convenient if the boy were made a school Prefect at the same time. In all his past experience a wish of this kind had been equivalent to a command, and had only needed the official endorsement of the headmaster. However, this time, on his return from Sauersprudel, he found, not the official endorsement he expected, but a note, requesting him to come and see Mr. Flaggon on the matter at his earliest convenience. The interview was more surprising even than the note. Mr. Flaggon, it appeared, intended, when appointing Prefects, to take much less account in future of mere athletic distinction and much more of mental ability; “because,” he said, “although I know that there are often striking exceptions, brain power and character are closely allied, and the boy who has brains is more likely to understand and appreciate high ideals than the boy who has none. I have gone into Cheeny’s claims very carefully; and, except for your high opinion of him, which of course weighs with me, I can find no reason for promoting him to such a responsible post. He is quite low in the school and——”
“Then you can’t have seen him in the Cock-house match last Term,” interrupted Mr. Chowdler angrily.
“I did,” replied Mr. Flaggon. “I admired his spirit and I envied him his agility. But that kind of spirit alone doesn’t make a Prefect; and I notice that all his masters say of him that he collapses before any difficulty in his work and is inclined to sulk.”
Mr. Chowdler was too indignant to speak; but worse was in store; for Mr. Flaggon continued implacably:
“But there is another boy in your house whom I am very glad to make a Prefect. I mean Dennison. He has earned the honour by his place in the school alone, and, so far as I can judge—and I have been studying him rather closely—he has qualities which justify me in feeling very hopeful about him.”
Dennison! Mr. Chowdler nearly had a fit. Dennison! One of those morbid, cantankerous, precocious boys, who have none of the good-fellowship, none of the joy of life, that are the crown of youth. A boy with a jealous, sour, carping disposition, unpopular with his fellows and unresponsive to his housemaster; a boy without influence and eaten up by an unhealthy egotism.