Again the assembly laughed, but there was no mistaking the respectfulness that underlay the merriment. And, as a matter of fact, the rest of the evening passed entirely without incident. After the others had gone, and when the school-bell had rung for evening chapel, Worsley came up to the dais accompanied by the pleasant-faced boy who dropped the desk-lid. Worsley pleaded for the remission of his hundred lines, and the other boy supported him, urging that it was he and not Worsley who had dropped the lid.
"And what is your name?" asked Speed.
"Naylor, sir."
"Very well, Naylor, you and Worsley can share the hundred lines between you." He added smiling: "I've no doubt you're neither of you worse than anybody else but you must pay the penalty of being pioneers."
They went away laughing.
That night Speed went into Clanwell's room for a chat before bedtime, and Clanwell congratulated him fulsomely on his successful passage of the ordeal. "As a matter of fact," Clanwell said, "I happen to know that they'd prepared a star benefit performance for you but that you put them off, somehow, from the beginning. The prefects get to hear of these things and they tell me. Of course, I don't take any official notice of them. It doesn't matter to me what plans people make—it's when any are put into execution that I wake up. Anyhow, you may be interested to know that the member's of School House subscribed over fifteen shillings to purchase fireworks which they were going to let off after the switches had been turned off! Alas for fond hopes ruined!"
Clanwell and Speed leaned back in their armchairs and roared with laughter.
III
At the end of the first week of life at Millstead, Speed was perfectly happy. He seemed to have surmounted easily all the difficulties that had confronted or that could confront him, and now there stretched away into the future an endless succession of glorious days spent tirelessly in the work that he loved. For he loved teaching. He loved boys. When he got over his preliminary, and in some ways rather helpful nervousness he was thoroughly at home with all of them. He invited those in his house to tea, two or three at a time, almost every afternoon. He took a deep and individual interest in all who showed distinct artistic or musical abilities. He plunged adventurously into the revolutionising of the School's arts curriculum; he dreamed of organising an exhibition of art work in time for Speech Day, of reviving the moribund School musical society, of getting up concerts of chamber music, of entering the School choir for musical festivals. All the hot enthusiasm of youth he poured ungrudgingly into the service of Millstead, and Millstead rewarded him by liking him tremendously. The boys liked him because he was young and agreeable, yet not condescendingly so; besides, he could play a game of cricket that was so good-naturedly mediocre that nobody, after witnessing it, could doubt that he was a fellow of like capabilities with the rest. The Masters liked him because he was energetic and efficient and did not ally himself with any particular set or clique among them.
Clanwell said to him one evening: "I hope you won't leave at the end of the term, Speed."