“It isn’t that at all,” said Toby. “That’s only an additional proof, to his mind, that what he thinks of you is right. There’s some yarn about a ticket in the train. You didn’t tear up a new boy’s ticket, did you?”
Rouse considered a moment.
“Ticket?” said he at last. “Why, yes, I tore up one. What about it? It wasn’t the right one.”
He began to explain.
“Anyway,” said Toby, “it seems that it was the same fellow who laughed such a lot at the footer game—the fat boy we pulled out to play. And the Head’s idea is that throughout that game he was terrified of you because you’re a proper bully.”
“But that’s all rot,” said Terence sharply. “Why, that fellow can weep like an ornamental fountain. He nearly broke his heart in the first place because his pater went off with the wrong ticket, and then Rouse had the notion that the best thing to do was to tear up the one to Ealing that he’d been left with so that the people this end wouldn’t know what station it was for. Of course it went wrong. Rouse’s ideas always do. The ticket was a different colour from the one for Harley. But he only did it to help the little ass. Rouse had better go to the Head and tell him.”
“I’ll go and tell him myself,” said Toby, “as soon as I’ve got hold of the details. The trouble is that Rouse has been extraordinarily prominent during a space of twenty-four hours and the new Head is a man who makes up his mind at top speed. But it isn’t only that. Rouse’s manner doesn’t appeal to him either. He wants the captain of Rugger to be one of the senior boys of the school, and he rather suspects that the reason Rouse isn’t in the Sixth yet is that he’s a real bad lad. Nor does he like football conducted by a fellow whose right line is comic opera. There’s another thing. He’s coming round to visit Rouse in form to-morrow with the idea of finding out how much he really knows, and,” he added, turning to Rouse, “I recommend you to sit up and swot to-night till your eyes stand out from your head like railway buffers, because it’s just possible that if you can tell him all he wants to know he’ll be persuaded to move you into the Sixth, which would do away with one of his grumbles anyway.”
Rouse looked up wretchedly.
“That’s hopeless, sir. I’ll work with a wet towel round my nut all the term, and I’ll honestly try to swell out my forehead and push in amongst the highbrows and old Terence here, but to expect me to be able to do it in one night is out of all reason.”
He stopped and began to look grimly out of the window. At last he pulled himself together with a jerk and moved towards Terence.