They ran upstairs to "tosh" and change. John found the Duffer just slipping out of his ducks. He looked at John with a rueful grin.
"Are you going to chuck me?" he asked.
"Fluff says you've chucked him. He was in here a moment ago to ask if your nose was squashed. I believe the silly little ass thinks you the greatest thing on earth."
"I don't chuck anybody," said John, indignantly. And he made a point of asking Fluff to walk with him on Sunday.
After the Torpid matches the school settled down to train (more or less) for the athletic sports. John came to grief several times at Kenton brook, essaying to jump it at places obviously—as the Duffer pointed out—beyond his stride. The Duffer and he put their names down for the house-handicaps, and curtailed their visits to the Creameries. After this self-denial it is humiliating to record that neither boy succeeded in winning anything. Cæsar won the house mile handicap; Scaife won the under sixteen high jump—a triumph for the Manor; and Fluff, the despised Fluff, actually secured an immense tankard, which one of the Sixth offered as a prize because he was quite convinced that his own particular pal would win it. The distance happened to be half a mile. Fluff was allowed an enormous start and won in a canter.
The term came to an end soon after these achievements, and John spent a week of the holidays at White Ladies, the Duke of Trent's Shropshire place. Here, for the first time, he saw that august and solemn personage, a Groom of the Chambers, with carefully-trimmed whiskers, a white tie, a silky voice, and the appearance of an archdeacon. This visit is recorded because it made a profound impression upon a plastic mind. John had never sat in the seats of the mighty. Verney Boscobel was a delightful old house, but it might have been put, stables and all, into White Ladies, and never found again. Fluff showed John the famous Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits, the Van Dycks and Lelys, the Romneys and Richmonds. Fair women and brave men smiled or frowned at our hero wherever he turned his wondering eyes. After the first tour of the great galleries, he turned to his companion.
"I say," he whispered solemnly, "some of 'em look as if they didn't like my calling you—Fluff."
"I wish you'd call me Esmé."
"All right," said John, "I will; and—er—although you didn't get into the Torpids, you can call me—John."