"You are going away, Doctor?"
"Yes. That was one of the things I wanted to see you about. Mr. Jones is very kindly going to drive me up to town in his car this morning, and I shall be away for a couple of days. I want to leave you in charge as my representative."
"But Lockhart——" I began.
"Mr. Lockhart is not quite as capable of keeping discipline in the school as you are, Carey."
"Thank you very much, sir," I replied; "I will do my best."
The meal continued and we all got on very well. Upjelly seemed really interested in my brother and, after a cigarette, when I rose to go into school, both he and Jones shook me very cordially by the hand.
As I was leaving the room, I noticed one curious thing. There was a little writing-table by the door and on it I distinctly saw the Navy List for that month, obviously fresh from London. What old Upjelly could want with a Navy List, a book which, of course, I had upstairs, I could not conceive, and it gave me food for thought, especially in view of what I shall have to relate very shortly.
At the eleven o'clock break, when the boys had come out and were punting about a soccer ball in front of the school, I saw Mr. Jones' big green car, with himself at the wheel and the Doctor by his side, come round the house and start off for London.
I felt as if a great oppression was removed. My brother would arrive that afternoon; Upjelly was out of the way; I was in charge of the whole place. It would be hard if I did not see more of Doris than I had been able to do for months past.
We went into school again. I was taking what, in a pitiful attempt at persuading ourselves we were a public school, we called the Sixth Form, in Virgil. My boys, there were about ten of them, were a pleasant enough set of lads, ranging from fifteen to the two eldest boys, both of whom were seventeen. They were twins, Dickson max. and Dickson major, the sons of a poor clergyman near Norwich, who could not afford to send them to a better school. They had tried for entrance scholarships at Repton and at Denstone, but had failed, and at all that concerns books or learning were rather duffers. Yet they were clever boys in their way, good sportsmen and, despite a perfectly abnormal talent for mischief, could be depended on in the main. I liked them both and I was sorry for them. Their one hope was that the war would last long enough for them to enlist, for their father was too poor even to pay the necessary expenses to send them into the Public Schools Corps, where lads of such physique and cheery manners could have been sure of a welcome.