He did not speak boastfully, but quietly and evenly, with his serious blue eyes fixed upon the boy in front of him. He had figured out the situation, and settled on his course of action. To him Linklater had ceased to be a friend, and was now an abstract problem, to be solved at all costs. He was prepared to knock Linklater senseless, if necessary, until he purged him of the evil spirit that possessed him. And Linklater knew it.
There was a pause, and then Linklater's weaker nature suddenly crumpled up like a wet rag before Pip's overbearing steadiness.
"All right!" he replied petulantly. "Anything you like. You've beaten me! I'll give in, curse you! And for Heaven's sake stop staring at me like that!"
His overstrained nerves could endure no more, and he rushed from the study, leaving his guest master of the situation.
Pip sighed heavily, and diverted his devastating gaze into the fire.
He had lost a friend, but he had saved the house.
IV
Thereafter there was no more trouble with the unruly element. Bereft of pseudo-monitorial support, Messrs. Hicks and Kelly found the ground slipping from under them. They were routed on several occasions, for Pip exercised a good deal of quite unconstitutional authority, and wielded the rod in a manner which they regarded as excessively unfair. The half-hearted monitors took courage; presently the house began to understand the meaning of the word obedience, and its self-appointed leaders came to the reluctant conclusion that the game was not worth the candle. To crown all, the frost broke, and the long-deferred joys of football soon dissipated the last relics of discontent and insubordination for everybody.
For everybody but Linklater, that is. His pride had had a fall, and he was not the boy to recover easily from such a disaster. His interview with Pip had been absolutely private—apart from the momentary intrusion of Pip upon the torture of Master Butler, a scene which had lost none of its dramatic force from that infant martyr's description of it; but the house, though they knew nothing for certain, observed two things—(a) that Linklater was no longer the sworn foe of law and order, and (b) that he was no longer the friend of Pip; and putting two and two together and adding them up in time-honoured fashion to a total of five, they came to the unanimous and joyous conclusion that Pip had "lammed Link till he promised to dry up."
Pip, if he felt any satisfaction over the result of his labours, displayed none. He invited Linklater to take supper in his study the following Sunday evening, and though little surprised at the answer he received, all his stolid philosophy could not prevent him from feeling distinctly unhappy.