"Indeed? Why?"
"Well, this sort of thing has got to stop, and I don't quite know how to set about it."
"Is it absolutely necessary for you to try? Are you head of the house?"
"No, I'm not. But Maxwell is. He's a rabbit, and the next four are rabbits, too. That leaves you and me. By rights you ought to be the man to keep the house on its legs. But you seem rather inclined to—to leave it to me. See?"
Linklater glared.
"It's a large order for one monitor," continued Pip, "but I'm going to do it, my son."
Pip finished a rather ornate pattern on the mantelpiece, laid down the poker, and continued talking, looking straight into the fire.
"What sort of state do you think the house will be in by the end of the term if it's to be run by Kelly, Hicks, and—you in your present state? Rotten! I've seen that sort of thing before. Kendall's house went just the same way four years ago, and—look at it now! We aren't going that way if I can help it. If only you'll pull yourself together—"
"What the blazes do you mean?" broke out Linklater passionately. "Do you think I'm going to stop taking it out of an idle little hog of a fag just to please you?"
"Oh, Butler? I wasn't talking about him," said Pip. "Listen a minute. Lately I've been able to get no good out of you at all, and you don't seem to have had much use for me either. It's not my business to jaw, but I think you have rather allowed yourself to be talked over by a pretty rotten lot—sorry, if they're friends of yours!—and the result, to be quite frank, is that you are simply playing Hades with the house."