When at last they all met again, the expression on the face of each made an interesting study. Henry Hope was characteristically grave, and he stood with his crony watching Rouse with the eyes of a faithful dog. Terence was last to return, and he wore the expression of one who has some secret joy, whilst Rouse himself, who had been working exceedingly hard, looked hot and untidy. Nevertheless, his eyes were shining with the light of intense self-satisfaction. It was clear that he was itching to deliver himself of a few well-chosen words such as might indicate to his listeners the peculiar ingenuity of those things which he had achieved. In matters that concerned Henry Rouse was not a prefect at all; he was just an old friend. Henry Hope had more than once saved Rouse’s skin, and in spite of his great place in the school Rouse did not forget these little things. He welcomed Terence with an excited gesture, and then clapped a hand on his shoulder and peered tensely into his face.
“You’ve hardly changed at all,” said he. “The same old crooked eyes, the same solitary tooth projecting over your underlip, the same old passion socks! It seems scarcely any time since you went a-way-ee, and yet ... what do you notice in me? A suspicion of grey in the hair?”
“A suspicion of egg on the mouth, if anything.”
Rouse was a trifle taken aback.
“What’s the matter anyway?” asked Terence.
“You’ve been gone such a deuce of a long time. That’s the matter. And never so much as a line to your own folk to let them know how you were getting on. Even now you’ve brought nothing.”
“Yes, I have brought along a friend.”
“A friend?” repeated the other scornfully. “What’s he going to sit on, pray?” He waited a moment, then reached out and tapped Terence upon the chest. “You see in me,” he opined, “one whose ingenuity is unsurpassed throughout the length and breadth of four continents, and it is very fortunate indeed for you that your friend Rouse is such a highbrow. Whilst you have been away I have set the whole thing right. Compton and I have just this moment completed the work. What was a short time ago a kind of expanded egg-box is now a comfortably furnished apartment. True, Henry will have to crawl in on his hands and knees to avoid braining himself on the ceiling, but what of that? It merely prevents surprise visits from beaks. And the main idea is to secure comfort when once he’s in. This I have done. Henry Hope did not appeal in vain. Compton has provided him with a complete suite of furniture—to wit, half a brace of table and a brace of chairs. The walls are now placarded with photographs of people found drowned—cuttings from old Daily Mirrors. We have propped up the ceiling with a baulk of timber and we have kindled a fire. We have put the fellow in the red fez who was picking hops right out of his misery, and we have drained off some of the pools of water that you noticed on the floor and put pieces of sacking in their place. As soon as he likes he can move in.” He paused as if for congratulation.
“There’s one thing I’d like to say,” observed his friend, “only one thing, and I think you ought to be told at once.”