"But it is—gambling, Demon; you can't get away from that."
"Pooh! It's gambling if I bet you a 'dringer' that you won't make ten runs in a house-match; it's gambling if I raffle a picture and you take a sixpenny ticket. Are you going to give up that sort of gambling?"
"No; but——"
"What would Warde say to our co-operative system of work—eh? You're not prepared to go the whole hog? You want to pick and choose. Good! But give me the same right, that's all. Play bridge with your old pals, or don't play, just as you please."
No more was said. Scaife's manner rather than his matter confounded the younger and less experienced boy. Scaife, too, tackled problems which many men prefer to leave alone. Here heredity cropped up. Scaife's sire and grandsire were earning their bread before they were sixteen. Of necessity they faced and overcame obstacles which the ordinary Public School-boy never meets till he leaves the University.
For some time after this bridge was not mentioned. Lovell, acting, possibly, under advice from Scaife, treated Desmond courteously, and gave him his "fez" after the first house-game. Both boys now were members of the Manor cricket and football Elevens, and, as such, persons of distinction in their small world. Scaife, moreover, began to play football with such extraordinary dash and brilliancy, that it seemed to be quite on the cards that he might get his School Flannels. This possibility, and the Greek in the Fifth, absorbed his energies for the first six weeks of the winter quarter. John had come back to Scaife's room to prepare work. Desmond felt that Scaife had been generous in proposing that John should join them, because in many small ways it had become evident that the Demon disliked John, although he still spoke of the tight place out of which John had hauled him. Through Scaife John received his "fez"; and when John wore it for the first time, Scaife came up and said, smiling—
"I'm nearly even with you, Verney."
"What do you mean?" said John.
"You know well enough what I mean," said Scaife, winking his eye maliciously.
John flushed, because in his heart he did know. But when he told Egerton what Scaife had said, that experienced man of the world turned up his nose.