But he did not let him go. He passed his hand down the boy's arm.... He saw the form watching him with white faces; his own was white; he was shaking with rage.
“Go back to your seat,” he said in a whisper, and he gave him a push. He sent the form back to learn the work again, and he sat for the rest of the hour with his head between his hands. Then, when the bell had rung and most of the form had filed out, he called Garden to him. “I think fifteen times will be enough,” and he touched the boy's sleeve with his hand. But Garden went out of the room in silence, infinite contempt in his eyes.
Then, the hoys gone, Mr. Perrin's mind went back to the incident of the preceding night. It was his custom to go and talk for a little to Moy-Thompson once a week. They disliked each other, of course; but they could be of mutual advantage, and they both found that hints dropped and accepted during these little talks were of great value during the days that followed. Perrin had never any deliberate intention of harming anyone in these little conversations. But, every man's hand being against him, it seemed to him only fair that he should use such opportunities of retaliation as were given him. At the same time these little confidential talks flattered his sense of power. Dormer was the senior master at the Lower School, but Perrin knew that Dormer did not have these little talks; it did not occur to him that the reason might be that Dormer was too honorable to care about them. Moreover, as far as Traill was concerned, Perrin really felt that it did not do to have masters leaping through windows at any hour of the night. The accidental fact that he disliked Traill intensely had, he persuaded himself, nothing whatever to do with it; he would have felt it just as strongly his duty to speak about it had the offender been his dearest friend.
The accumulative irritations of the morning, succeeding a disturbed and broken night, only stirred him to further zeal for the school's good. The only consoling fact in a dark world was that Miss Desart had, in chapel, last evening, looked at him with eyes that seemed to him on fire with devotion. He intended, in a day or two, to ask her to come for a walk with him... and then another walk... and then another... and then....
And so he went to see Moy-Thompson. You can, if the simile is not too terribly old, imagine Moy-Thompson as a spider and his study as his web; it was certainly dusty enough, with faded busts of Romans and Greeks on the top shelves of the book-cases, and gloomy photographs of gloomy places on the walls. The two men seemed to suit the place well enough, and its depression really brightened Mr. Perrin up. But it must be remarked once more that it was not from any anticipation of doing Traill damage that he embraced and cuddled his little piece of news so eagerly, but only because it helped his sense of importance. He was already wishing that he had told Garden Minimus to write his Euclid thirty times instead of fifteen, so cheered and inspired did he feel.
The two men understood one another perfectly, and had a mutual respect for each other 's strong qualities. No time was wasted in preliminaries, and it was a curious coincidence that Moy-Thompson's first question should be: “What do you think of Traill? How's he doing?”
Moy-Thompson is not a pleasant person to contemplate, alone, amongst the people of that place, there is nothing whatever to be said for him, and it is my intention to pass over him as quickly as may be. Perrin knew from the sound of his voice that he had some reason for disliking Traill.
“Oh, I think, well enough,” he answered, looking out of the window. “The boys like him.”
“Oh, they like him; do they?”
“Yes. I think he indulges them rather. I'm not quite sure that he sticks to his work as he should do.”