“Well, I think you may be right. It’ll be difficult for anyone to believe that poor boy capable of practising deceit. In fact one may say that he looks strongly like a boy who could be depended upon to forget his ticket.”
The train came suddenly into daylight again and Rouse stopped abruptly.
The fat boy was weeping.
Rouse stared at him for a moment, then looked askance at Terence, and finally he turned a sternly prefectorial eye upon the boy in the corner who had hitherto somewhat escaped his notice. The boy looked back at him a little uncertainly with a half smile. He was not at all sure whether it was good form to laugh at a boy who was crying. Rouse gave him no hint. He just looked: and presently the other blinked at him apologetically. Actually Rouse was deciding, as he afterwards told Terence, what a peculiarly good-looking kid he was.
“What’s your name?” said he at last.
“Carr,” said the boy in the corner.
“And which house are you going to?”
“Mr Morley’s, I think.”
“Over that house,” said Rouse, “I weave my spell. Also Friend Nicholson there. We were in that house when an arch-idiot named Mould ruled over our form, and at one time I must confess we appeared to be sinking. Yet, as we came up for the third time, so to speak, he was removed, and we survived. You’ll find Morley all right.” He turned to Arthur a little awkwardly. “Don’t answer if you’d rather not,” said he courteously, “but to which house are you being admitted?”
The fat boy did not raise his head. He simply continued to weep, and at last there broke from his lips these sad words: “I want my t-t-ticket.”